GCSE pass rate when choosing a school

Thanks for the link.

So my dd's school has 74% A-C pass rate for GCSE's. Above average Attainment 8, 40% Baccalaureate but a below average Progress 8 of 0.27.

Does this mean only the higher achievers do well?

The pass rate is utterly meaningless without knowing about the intake.

I agree, Ta1kinPeece, nothing beats eyeballing the pupils. And also I would only look at the 5 GCSEs including English and Maths, i.e. The Baccalaureate.

For me it would depend ... A selective school should have pretty near 100% pass rate - they have creamed off the best.

generally the schools near us had pass rates of 65-75% A-C.

But we chose the lower one because they set in Maths, English and Science and we knew our DDs would both be top set. The top set pass rate was 96%

It depends massively on the school's characteristics and intake.

If its a selective school, the grades should be good full stop (selection includes religion BTW)

If its a comp then the lower ability kids will not be getting strings of GCSEs

Its worth looking at the detailed data to see how they deal with each of the ability ranges and socio-economic factors they face

but actually, nothing beats sitting outside the gate at kicking out time and feeling the "mood" of the school

Trampire
www.gov.uk/school-performance-tables

I would look at progress 8 score as much as pass rate.

Our only 2 possible local schools for DD are 74% and 93% and the progress 8 scores are .25 and .69. The first school is mixed and the second is all girls.

Luckily both DD and us both prefer the all girls school.

Are these the figures for 2016? Are you sure these are the correct way round usually the percentage with 5A-C is higher than the 5A-C including Maths & English.
There are several problems with using this raw data:

1. There have been several changes over the past few years regarding which qualifications can be counted towards the league tables.
2. Results in 2016 have been affected by older pupils having to resit Maths and English which meant a change in the cohort taking the exams.
3. this one is important - this data does not really predict how well your child will do (if your child is starting Y7 in 2018 the GCSE exams they will be taking are very different to those being taken in a few years time).
4. the data does not tell you about the ability of the year group / pupils on entry to the school. For this you need to look at the Progress 8 data which shows you if the pupils are simply making the expected level of progress or making greater progress (or even making less progress) than expected.

Redsky, out of interest how do you find the break down of high achievers and low achievers in the stats?

My dd's school is on average about 72% A-C. It has a mixture of high/middle income children and very low income. I'm always trying to read the stats and I never seem to be able to get it.

The pass rate compared to the intake is more useful information.

If School A takes 90% high achievers and achieves 70% of 5A*-C grades

and School B takes 30% high achievers, 50% middle achievers and achieves 60% of 5A*-C grades

... I know what I think is the better school

I seem to remember the national average is about 55%, so if the school you are looking at is "average" I'd worry if it deviated a lot from that.

As you say, this is just one of many important criteria, but around 75% A-C in English & Maths would be my cut-off, in conjunction with a Good or Outstanding from Ofsted (although rely less on Ofsted, anything less than a Good would worry me). This is a big ask for a secular state school (we are not religious and cannot afford private), but I have found one for my DD and she has just started there, very happy :)