The league tables are out - let's talk Progress 8

A different tool that shows much the same information but perhaps in an easier way to get to grips with:

assembly.education/benchmarking/

Oh and get rid of the boys with Sen who would affect those results!

Not trying to compare. (As such!)

The 3 schools 0-0.2 are known to always achieve just above NA for gcse results.
The 1 that's -0.1 is the one I said has made big improvements but always remains slightly below because of area/cohort. Those that want to do well do well there. But they continue to have a large amount of disadvantaged pupils who can't be engaged (no parental support either) who will always affect their results.

The other 2 schools are -0.3 and -0.4 having both been above average and were above the other schools last year.

I'm happy with school ds is at. It's the one with P8 of 0. My catchment is one of P8 -0.1 but due to ds needs he wouldn't cope in their environment and the school with 0.2 has a very large intake and would have been too big for him. The other school is too far away and difficult to get to due to location.

Tbh there's no real reason for my interest but I'm very interested in education and providing an environment that nurtures all. I've lately been questioning whether image and public opinion of a school attracts people - because I was certainly drawn in by ds original schools talk about their amazing results and percentages of achievements for boys and Sen etc. Yet re reading data for past 5 years they've just managed to manipulate the data to say what they want it to.

Schools are being ranked to the nearest 0.01, while confidence intervals seems to be about 0.5. So you have schools labelled "above average" ranked below schools which are "average"

Sorry rambled on the kids being managed out are Sen and low achievers. So how come their progress and attainment 8 scores remain significantly lower than others and have dropped and yet the schools who take these pupils and support them remain average and above?

I know P8 isn't the be all and end all - like with ofsted reports! But there must be something informative about them regarding how the schools work and their ethos? Or is mine just anecdotal?

I know noble - ds was one of them
His Sen all but disappeared apparently - but it was more about making things so hard (bullying me) I'd agree to move him in the end. He's not disadvantaged though in the school sense of discription.
He's now in a lovely supportive MS setting with an EHCP who don't focus on the fact he'll fuck up there league tables - but on what he needs to do the best he can.
The school he left have continuously driven Sen students out - or students that are being bullied if they are low achievers. They recently tried to exclude a pupil with a FT 1:1 EHCP for having a meltdown in lesson - when there was no TA present because he didn't follow his behaviour plan - that states clearly needs to be adult led. They make parents remove their children by constantly playing these games and making it so they don't want their children there.
(You probably remember my story - I'm the one who's ds had a knife pulled on him).

Does this have a knock on effect for other secondaries - the ones who end up taking the low achievers and those with Sen? Because if it does then they are doing even better as the schools that take them are the only 3 locally who got average and above P8!

"Are you still a governor BertrandRussell?"

No - I wish I was.

Thanks for explanation above answering my questions.

I asked because the school with highest P8 has biggest intake. Wondered if and how that affect A8 - because looking at % of low/middle/high achievers all schools seem quite similar.

Also asked about 2 schools that had dropped because I know something about the 2 and changes recently. Both have had new heads, both become very image focussed and both have a high level of Managed moves (out of there!). Both also have bullying (as does any school - but neither admit to it or deal with it).
I was wondering if this could have an affect on achievement or if the results and this happen to be coincidence iyswim?

The ones who generally do well and have a very mixed intake have progress 8 of 0,0.1 and 0.2. Interestingly the one with 0.2 has the lowest attainment 8 of the 3! (Why?!)

Maybe they allow pupils to do subjects they are good at rather than forcing them down the science route.

Art, Drama and other creative subjects only count in the last 'buckets'.

Are you still a governor BertrandRussell?

Perigord,

The same document says
"Points will be allocated to the new GCSEs on a 1-9 point scale corresponding to the new 1 to 9 grades, e.g. a grade 9 will get 9 points in the performance measures. "

This will have been used for last summer's English / Maths already.

However, Government policy can change at any time....

Have pmd you cant

Are you sure when numerical results come in they won't change it again so 8 - 9 gets 2 points. 3- 4 gets 1 point or something?

Perigord, the thing is, every type of school will complain it's not fair for them.

Grammars complained that it was harder to get children to make better than expected progress, since so many of their pupils would have to get straight As / A*s just to make expected progress.

Schools in areas with pushy primaries can say it isn't fair because the Y6 SATs are inflated.

Schools with high proportions of low attainers, particularly those who are also SEN / from very deprived backgrounds say that it is much harder to make good progress with these children.

No justification has been given. It is simply tabulated in the 'How it is calculated' document here

It is an anomaly that will go away, almost entirely after 2018 summer results are published (when almost all GCSEs will be numerical), and finally in summer 2019 (when the final ones are included).

But for the moment we have a year on year series of Progress8 results that nobody is telling parents can't be compared.

And to give a falsely good impression of grammars if I've understood?

What is their justification for weighting it like that can'tkeep? Seems unfair on non grammars.

My ds’s old school’s results make me want to weep. They try so incredibly hard- but they are doing something catastrophically wrong.

Interestingly the one with 0.2 has the lowest attainment 8 of the 3! (Why?!)

Probably because they have more middle / lower attainers, who make good progress but don't get such high absolute grades.

Can anyone explain why this might be? Why do some schools drop when others tend to remain fairly static?

The calculations have varied year on year, so no Progress8s are comparable between different years. For example, last year the conversion from letter grades to numerical points went up in uniform 1-point steps, this year a step up from A to A is worth 3x more than a step up from F to E. So for example, a school with a high proportion of relatively low achievers who made good progress (ie progressed from an expected F to an E) would have got a much better Progress8 score last year than this year, and conversely a school with a very high proportion of high achievers who made the jump from an expected A to an A would have got a much better Progress8 this year than last year. This has rescued several grammars who last year had below average Progress8 and this year have average or above.

Giles, are you sure? When you put a school (well, to be fair you have to put at least 2 schools)into the comparison list, and look at the comparison list, you get 2 drop-down boxes. The right hand one is the most useful for looking at sub-groups such as e.g. previous low attainers.

PM me if you like, and I'll have a look.

Its there and you can get the score if you add to a comparison list but you can't get the full breakdown

Incidently 2 of the potential schools dd could get are on the worst performing list in the article linked