Reports have been the preserve of senior school managers

An increasing amount of information is available in the annual school performance tables.

But every autumn, the inspectorate, Ofsted, sends head teachers many more pages of statistics comparing their school with other schools nationally.

Now, thanks to the new Freedom of Information Act, anyone can ask to see these reports - known as Pandas.

Out-of-date reports

The school-by-school Performance and Assessment (Panda) reports contain the sort of information that forms the basis of the judgements made about schools' performances in Ofsted's inspection reports.

But parents seeking information on schools they are considering can be disappointed to find that such inspection reports are years out of date - one of the reasons Ofsted is moving to a three-year cycle of inspections.

So the Pandas are much more timely.

The report for a typical primary school might be more than 40 pages long - for a secondary, more than 70.

Not only does it show test and exam results, it compares them nationally with all schools and with other schools where children had similar prior attainment.

Grades

And it compares them with results from other schools in similar social circumstances, as measured by pupils' entitlement to free school meals.

Schools are given grades showing how well they have done relative to the rest - from A* down to E.

The statistics are also broken down by gender and by curriculum subject.

For the more statistically-minded, children's performance is even broken down by percentiles, showing the spread of achievement as well as the averages.

When it sent out the latest batch of Pandas, last autumn, Ofsted told schools as usual that it would "not publish your Panda report widely", but did make it available to the local education authority, the Department for Education and Skills and its inspectors.

"The Freedom of Information Act comes into force on 1st January 2005, and from that date Ofsted may be required to disclose your PANDA report, or part of it, to members of the public on request," it added.

This can now be done. Requests could go either to the schools themselves or to Ofsted.