GCSE pass rate when choosing a school

That sounds good for all three. I'd look at number of entries. So if intake is 180 in year 7 and 160 are on role in year 11 they may have entered 100% but managed to lose 20 low performing students.

I'd also look at how many were entered in English and maths compared to how many in a year. Non entry is away of concealing those who would not pass and artificially boosting the pass rate.

Ah, thanks catslife that makes way more sense that the first of OP's stats is the attainment 8 and not a raw percentage!

With that in mind, I'd not worry about any of OP's choices, but sounds like School B has the most able intake.

Then you also have schools like my daughter's school who get quite a few kids who previously went to private schools who didn't do SATS.

My dd's results won't count for progress 8 because she has no SATS score.

Going on last year's GCSEs- national average for 5 A-C grades was 58.7% and for A-C in English and Maths was 63%.
The League Tables for 2016 are arranged in a totally different way to previous years. The first figure 58 isn't a percentage it's the "attainment 8" score which is the score based on how well pupils have performed in up to 8 qualifications, which include English, maths, 3 English Baccalaureate qualifications including sciences, computer science, history, geography and languages, and 3 other additional approved qualifications.
So the first figure isn't a percentage is a "points score" based on so many points for an A etc. This is why this score is lower than the percentage with A-Cs in English and Maths. In old style league tables the percentage achieving 5 A*-Cs was usually higher than those including Maths & English.
The other difference as stated by a previous poster is that the range of subjects included in attainment 8 is more limited e.g. a child who takes both Art and Music may have a lower points score as only one of these subjects counts towards the score, even if they have higher actual GCSE grades than a child who has taken Geography and Music for example.

The key is to first have a pretty good idea about your own child. Are they academic, middling,struggling? If in doubt, ask current school for an honest comment.
Know too what your own values and hopes for education are.

Lots of people start looking without knowing either of these answers.

Once you know these, you can look to see if there is a school that has good numbers of kids like your own and serves them well. You can see if it shares your values and offers the kind of subjects you think suit your child .....A levels, separate sciences, vocational etc. You can look at destinations afterwards and see if they fit with what you'd expect from your own child or not. If you are lucky, you will have a school nearby that fits the above. If not, you might have to go for a best fit option or consider alternatives like moving.

Having a sense of the overall school is good too, because your child as an individual has to exist within the wider school. It's usually not good to be one of only a few clever children, or only a few with specific needs, or who struggle with maths and English, because the provision is usually better when there are larger numbers.....of course this isn't always the case. I'd also be interested in ethos and attitude towards homework, extra curricular, behaviour etc and if it fits with what I value.

Many people don't have perfect option available to the them and even those who can pay do t always have the perfection combination of attributes available. For most people it will be a best fit thing.

It also depends on your dc.

If you have a dc who is looking at a row of A/A, then it could have excellent A-C rates, but not be able to support those who are going for the top grades.
Otoh if you have a dc who will be looking to get 5 C grades then if they concentrate on those who will get top grades and not worry so much about those who are scraping through then you are looking at a different setup.

But you also want to look at other things-SEN support if relevant, pastoral support (never trust a school that says they have no bullying), extra curricular things etc.
What is relevant and important to your dc.

When I choose my dd's school nearly 2 years ago, the Progress 8 didn't seem to be a 'thing'. I studied a heap of data but don't remember seeing it (or knowing what it was)

It's a recent change so may not have existed. I think the idea of looking at progress is good but progress 8 assumes all students can make the same progress in a set of subjects that is biased towards science and maths.

Very few people are equally good at or interested in the same subjects.

And because this is how the school is assessed it determines the curriculum taught.

A student may be gifted at art and want to take GCSEs in photography, textiles and art and be capable of A* in all of them, but they may only be able to take one because the timetable is dominated by progress 8.

The same for someone good at humanities, only history or geography are counted.

It worries me that it may be the C/D students who will miss out in certain subjects because students hate science and would have chosen single science or no science are not going to be put in the top set but in the borderline set. There is a huge difference in teaching a child who is C/D because they have to try harder to get that C and teaching a child who is not interested but this is what is going to happen.

I'd go for school B personally based on those figures.

Marking my place. I've got a few weeks to get my head around it.

Progress 8 isn't only relevant to low achievers. In fact if you have a high achieving child I'd say it's much more relevant to you than the 5A*-C including Eng and Ma score. If your child is very able then the number of children getting the magic C is really not terribly relevant, if your child is likely to be C/D borderline then it's vital
to know how good the school are at getting kids over that C boundary. The progress 8 for the high attainment band is what will tell you whether the bright kids are getting good results. Are they coming out with As and As or As and Bs? The A-C headline doesn't give you any indication of how those kids have done. A selective school could in theory have 100% A-C and awful progress 8 because kids who are capable of As and A*s end up with Bs and Cs.

Just look at the English and Maths score. And it depends on your child. If they are a high flyer, you want a school whose results (and intake) are in line with that. If your child may struggle then look at the progress 8 thing. Added value means nothing if your child is already a good achiever. I'm pleased if a school helps the less able, but a huge focus on this at the expense of more able pupils would be something to watch out for.

MNers worry so much about whether the school will prepare their darlings for Medicine at Oxbridge. I mainly hope mine won't turn into low life drug dealers. That's what they call poverty of expectation!

The progress of School A suggests that their results are in line with those expected of their intake.

Do you have the results the wrong way round by the way? It's odd for the general A*-C value to be lower than the one with English and maths.
The results of School A (particularly if the 5 A*-C with maths and English is 58% i.e. dead average!) would not put me off in themselves, but I'd want to know way more - what is the intake, is this a "normal" result or a blip, how would my child likely fit into the school?

From the stats: B. However this will not tell you whether your child would actually like this school. Will they fit into the ethos? What values does it, and the others have, that you agree or disagree with? Distance from home and friendship groups are often seen as important. High quality sport, music, art, drama and anything else you value - is it on offer? If school B is just not the right one for your child, the stats pale into insignificance. A few poor teachers in key subjects can make all the difference and a change of Head can alter the quality of a school too. Also, any given child is never the average child. If your child is very bright, where would there be more like minded children? So many variations and considerations that are not stats!

We've just removed ds from a order gate school with a phenomenal pass rate because they were rubbish with his asd & he couldn't cope with the pressure.

He's moved to a school with about a 58% rate but they have a good mix of high achievers & lower achievers & provide different pathways for them all.

Cookie: Quite frankly there are comprehensives in some areas that would send one child to Imperial in 10 years. Or maybe never! Some young people are never going to aspire to that or Oxbridge. My relatives think it isn't for the likes of them and take the easy route to the local university, even when they are capable of better. Wanting better is an invested parent activity and schools definitely don't push Oxbridge if they rarely see a child of that calibre. Many teachers think other universities are just as good and so do parents. Therefore it is not a sensible way to judge a school. No parent will get info on bedrooms and the detailed background of parents so this isn't worth considering.

As only Law is the only worthy humanities degree in the world of Cookie, that may cut out a lot of good calibre schools too with unworthy children. Pity all those doing Geography, English, Economics, History, MFL etc whose choices are deemed worthless by choosy parents. The world of science dominates!

No parent paying for an independent school looks at league tables showing 0% in some subjects and doesn't know what that means. That info is totally irrelevant to most!

I wasn't chuffed when local HS dipped to about 32% one year. Back to 52% the next year, though. DS may go there. Our county averages about 60% in GCSE league table.

MNers worry so much about whether the school will prepare their darlings for Medicine at Oxbridge. I mainly hope mine won't turn into low life drug dealers.

OP was asking about the level below which you would worry about a school
Does this only apply to state schools? Most of the independent schools in my area have a 0% pass rate for English and Maths GCSEs as they do iGCSEs that no longer count in these Tables. That doesn't seem to put people off applying though!
The Progress 8 measure was new and 2016 is the first set of data.
I think I would want to make sure that a school would enter pupils for the GCSE qualifications that work best for my child rather than those which would give the school the best Progress 8 score.

[Quote 1] There are about 10 schools in my town. None of them get near 75%. I would think it unlikely that any school with a genuinely broad intake would.

[Quote 2] Isn't this exactly how averages work? Why would a true comp with a representative all ability intake manage a huge increase on the national average?

Thanks, that was kind of the point I was trying to make. OP was asking about the level below which you would worry about a school; some posters have mentioned ridiculously high levels - but if you're only looking for schools with very high A*-C what you are really saying is that you will only consider a school with a privileged intake from educated families. Depending on the area you live in this may not be a beast that even exists!

My town has two super selective grammar schools, the remaining schools have averages between 30-low 50s% excepting two schools with averages in the 70s (one UTC with very narrow curriculum). It's a conundrum because on the face of it the town should have good schools, young/affluent/professional population - but it doesn't.

I don't think the problem is the grammars - they have very small local intakes - but that years of terrible schools with horrendous reputations has led to 'middle class flight' to the many local private schools, the three adjacent counties or moving house to the intake area of the 'good school' (which costs as much as private school but I guess you only have to do it once so it works out cheaper if you have more than one child). We can't afford private school or moving so went went out of county. I'm part of the problem but there is no way on earth I would send my children to any of my local schools.

The county we've 'chosen' is truly comprehensive, pretty affluent I guess, rural, completely lacking in any diversity. The bad schools, the ones people shudder about, have averages in the high 50s/60s. Everything else is 70s & the two schools you really want to get you kid into are around high 70-mid 80s (depending on year) with good progress 8 scores (though nothing like our grammars that have scores of above 0.6 )

The other two local counties have very similar results. We live in an area where anyone who can opt for anything but local schools does so - therefore the local schools are never going to improve. If you can't escape I guess you become super involved parent, cross your fingers & hope they get good enough results to go to the grammar for 6th form.

It isn't just bad results - they lack everything that a sharp elbowed parent would look for - no MFLs, limited sciences, crappy 6th form options, no music, very limited sport & extra curriculas, timetables padded out with non subjects or narrowed down to the absolute minimum. Lots of intervention classes but nothing at the top end. They are either snazzy new builds that scream 'we were a failing school' or depressing smelly dumps that scream 'not quite failing but no-one really gives a fuck'. I honestly don't know how they can overcome that. Maybe as house prices become ever more insane people just won't be able to leave!