Attainment 8 is a measure published annually showing the average academic performance of a secondary school. It is calculated by adding together pupils' highest scores across eight government approved school subjects. While these numbers are not made publicly available on a pupil-by-pupil basis, scores taken from across a school year group are averaged to produce a school's overall score.
The eight subjects are divided into three categories, called “buckets”:
The grades are converted into points, put through a formula and finally out comes the school's Attainment 8 score.
Progress 8 is a type of 'value-added' measure that indicates how much a secondary school has helped pupils improve (or progress) over a five year period when compared to a government-calculated expected level of improvement. Confused? You may need a moment to get your head round it but essentially this measure takes a pupil's performance in relation to their peers at primary school level, compares it with their performance at GCSEs (their Attainment 8 score) and then, after some mental arithmetic, establishes whether the individual has progressed at, above or below the expected level. As before, the scores for individuals are not published but they are grouped together to get an average for a school's overall score.
For example, the Department for Education looks at a Child A's GCSE grades in eight subjects (Attainment 8) and then compares them to the GCSE results of all children across the country who, five years earlier, performed similarly to Child A in Key Stage 2 reading and writing. From here, numbers are crunched to work out the average expected level of progress for pupils nationwide, as well as how Child A has performed in comparison and the school's overall score.
On GCSE or A level results day, what still matters for students is the actual grades they receive, as these will determine where they go next (sixth form courses, apprenticeships, university...etc). Individual pupils’ scores are not made public as these are only used to work out scores for the school as a whole. It is the headteachers who have sleepless nights until their school's scores are published in the autumn as weak ones can result in the school coming under pressure.
Progress 8 and Attainment 8 scores are, however, useful for parents researching state secondary schools for their children. After all, when weighing up one’s options, it is helpful to know whether the schools you're looking at are not only good at a spread of subjects but also at helping pupils obtain higher GCSE grades than might have been expected given their performance at Key Stage 2. As with any academic performance indicator, a 'value-added' measure is still only telling you one side of the story. Academically selective schools may not always have the best scores - in selecting children at year 7 who are already of a high academic level (and have possibly been tutored for 11+ entrance exams), the opportunity for relative progress before GCSEs is limited.
We examined the value-added from KS2 to GCSE for 2022 to see which state selective grammar schools added the most value to their offspring. A note of caution - the more highly selective a grammar school, the less scope there will be to add value.
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