Progress 8 and Attainment 8 explained

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 (Key Stage 2) 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, there are no published scores for individuals but they are grouped together to get an average for a school's overall score.

How is the Progress 8 score calculated?

For example, the Department for Education looks at 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. 

• A score of zero means that the school's pupils progressed at a rate in line with the average rate of progression of other children across the country who achieved similar results at the end of Key Stage 2.

• A score above zero means that the school's pupils have progressed more than children across the country who achieved similar results at the end of Key Stage 2.

• A score below zero means that pupils made less progress than children across the country who achieved similar results at the end of Key Stage 2. A negative score does not mean there was no progress, but rather that pupils made less progress than at schools with higher scores.

On GCSE or A level results day, what matters for every student are the actual grades they receive in each subject, as these may determine where they go next (sixth-form courses, apprenticeships, university, etc). Individual pupils’ A8 and P8 scores are not made public as these are only used to work out scores for the school as a whole. Headteachers can have sleepless nights until their school's scores are published in the autumn as weak ones can result in the school coming under pressure and suffering a loss in reputation. 

While they may not matter to an individual picking up their exam results, 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 (AKA grammar) schools may typically have good Attainment 8 scores but not the best Progress 8 scores – in selecting children at year 7 who are already of a high academic level (and have possibly been tutored for 11-plus entrance exams), the opportunity for relative progress before GCSEs is limited.

Progress 8 scores will not be produced for the academic years 2024-25 and 2025-26. This is because the children who sit their GCSEs in these years were unable to take the Key Stage 2 SATs assessments when they were in primary school back in 2019-20 and 2020-21. Sats were cancelled for those two years because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The most recently available Progress 8 scores for schools – from 2023-24 and 2022-23 – will continue to be published until new scores can be calculated in 2027.