School performance tables: deciphering the code


The government’s school performance tables can be a useful tool for families looking for a new school in England, but unravelling the information available can take some skill. We provide some helpful tips.


reputation and school visits in order to find out what a school is really like and how well its students perform. This is where relocating families, who are likely to have to make these judgements with little local knowledge and from a distance, can be at a real disadvantage. The facts and figures from school inspection reports and government performance tables become vital tools when creating a shortlist. However, performance tables can be hard to decipher, and, to complicate the process further, Progress 8 and Attainment 8 are measures that were only introduced in 2016.


W


PROGRESS 8 AND ATTAINMENT 8 These new measures were introduced to encourage


schools to offer a broad and balanced curriculum with a focus on academic achievement in Key Stage 4. A school’s Progress 8 score is designed to give parents an indication of whether pupils, as a group, have made above- or below-average progress compared with similar pupils in other schools. Progress 8 measures the achievement a pupil makes from the end of primary school to the end of Year 11 (the end of Key Stage 2 to the end of Key Stage 4).


Attainment 8 measures the achievement of a pupil across eight qualifications, divided into three categories:


1. Maths and English, both of which are given double weighting.


2. Three qualifications from the English Baccalaureate (EBacc):


the best grades geography or history.


3. Three qualifications that can be GCSE qualifications (including EBacc subjects) or any non-GCSE qualification on the Department for Education (DfE) approved list.


from sciences, languages,


hen judging which school is best for their child, parents


often rely on word of mouth, local


All pupils who started Year 7 in September 2015 must take the EBacc subjects when they sit their GCSEs. The EBacc subjects are English, maths, history or geography, the sciences and a language.


HOW ATTAINMENT 8 IS CALCULATED Below is how sample pupil Jack’s Attainment 8 score will be calculated. From 2019, all GCSEs will be graded from 9–1 (English and maths transferred to the new numbered system in 2017). If a pupil achieves grade 9, he is awarded nine attainment points; a grade 8 is awarded eight attainment points, and so on. To simplify things, let’s assume Jack has taken his GCSEs in 2019.


HOW PROGRESS 8 IS CALCULATED A pupil’s Progress 8 score is only calculated as a means of assessing the school’s Progress 8 score. It is arrived at by comparing the pupil’s Attainment 8 score with the average Attainment 8 score of all pupils who had the same level of achievement at the end of primary school.


The greater the Progress 8 score, the greater the progress the pupil has made compared with other pupils of a similar ability.


Our sample pupil, Jack, achieved 77 in his Key Stage 2


English test and 74 in his maths test. These numbers are used to calculate Jack’s fine point scores – 31.38 in English and 29.46 in maths. Jack’s fine point scores are averaged (30.42) and divided by six, to give an average fine level of 5.1. The average Attainment 8 score of all pupils with an average fine grade level of 5.1 at Key Stage 2 is 59.8. Jack’s actual Attainment 8 score is 67 (see table above). Jack’s Progress 8 score is the difference between his actual Attainment 8 score and the estimated Attainment 8 score, divided by ten (67 – 59.8 = 7.2/10 = 0.72).


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