School Performance and Property Values in the UK
Does School Performance have an impact on property values? If the answer is yes, should school performance be a factor when assessing comparative property values for Additional Housing Cost Allowance (AHCA)/Mortgage Disparity Assistance/Housing Cost Disparity payments.
One of the key determinants in selecting where to live for relocating families is the choice of school. In an ideal world each family would be able to use the services of an Education Consultant, but in many cases this is not possible, or is not included in the relocation package.
So what information is available to help families decide?
In fact a great deal, although in future this may change with the advent of academies and the government's stated desire to alter or replace some of the existing indicators.
Nevertheless, there is still useful historical data available to be viewed and assessed. Apart from school prospectuses and Ofsted reports, there are government tables which provide a plethora of data on many aspects of the school student population, particularly in relation to state schools.
Of particular interest is the information about pupil performance and attainment. Average performance per pupil can be compared from school to school. However this can be somewhat misleading because a key factor in this statistic is the demographic profile of the pupils themselves. As is to be expected the average performance/attainment of a school full of children drawn from a wealthy middle class area will be better than one from a poorer inner city area.
However in order to account for this, the government published Contextual Value Added (CVA) scores. In effect these plot the progress the pupils have made in the context of what could be expected given their backgrounds and comparing them with similar schools across the country.
So, although a school's performance may appear to be good when viewing the bald statistics, the CVA score may indicate that in fact the performance was relatively poor given the pupils' backgrounds. Equally another school whose performance is, on the face of it poor, may carry a high CVA score because, in fact, given their environmental difficulties, the pupils have achieved results well beyond expectation.
Which brings us back to the original question – does a school's performance have an impact on property values. The answer must surely be yes.
A good school will often feature in an estate agent's particulars and there are many examples and stories of families moving house to get into a particular school's catchment area, although it's probably debatable whether the agent's view is based on the basic performance data or the CVA score. The latter may probably the more relevant as far property values are concerned because, if a school is actually in decline, the popularity of the surrounding area may decline with it and affect property prices.
Therefore, if Additional Housing Cost Allowance (AHCA)/Mortgage Disparity Assistance/Housing Cost Disparity payment is part of the relocation package, should the CVA score of the schools in the departure and destination areas be included in the calculation.
Please visit the www.prsco.co.uk website for mapped examples of school performance data.
One of the key determinants in selecting where to live for relocating families is the choice of school. In an ideal world each family would be able to use the services of an Education Consultant, but in many cases this is not possible, or is not included in the relocation package.
So what information is available to help families decide?
In fact a great deal, although in future this may change with the advent of academies and the government's stated desire to alter or replace some of the existing indicators.
Nevertheless, there is still useful historical data available to be viewed and assessed. Apart from school prospectuses and Ofsted reports, there are government tables which provide a plethora of data on many aspects of the school student population, particularly in relation to state schools.
Of particular interest is the information about pupil performance and attainment. Average performance per pupil can be compared from school to school. However this can be somewhat misleading because a key factor in this statistic is the demographic profile of the pupils themselves. As is to be expected the average performance/attainment of a school full of children drawn from a wealthy middle class area will be better than one from a poorer inner city area.
However in order to account for this, the government published Contextual Value Added (CVA) scores. In effect these plot the progress the pupils have made in the context of what could be expected given their backgrounds and comparing them with similar schools across the country.
So, although a school's performance may appear to be good when viewing the bald statistics, the CVA score may indicate that in fact the performance was relatively poor given the pupils' backgrounds. Equally another school whose performance is, on the face of it poor, may carry a high CVA score because, in fact, given their environmental difficulties, the pupils have achieved results well beyond expectation.
Which brings us back to the original question – does a school's performance have an impact on property values. The answer must surely be yes.
A good school will often feature in an estate agent's particulars and there are many examples and stories of families moving house to get into a particular school's catchment area, although it's probably debatable whether the agent's view is based on the basic performance data or the CVA score. The latter may probably the more relevant as far property values are concerned because, if a school is actually in decline, the popularity of the surrounding area may decline with it and affect property prices.
Therefore, if Additional Housing Cost Allowance (AHCA)/Mortgage Disparity Assistance/Housing Cost Disparity payment is part of the relocation package, should the CVA score of the schools in the departure and destination areas be included in the calculation.
Please visit the www.prsco.co.uk website for mapped examples of school performance data.
Source...