Progress 8 score

TeenTimesTwo
That's good that you have experience of how the school will respond.

What's more interesting I think is to follow the link for more details, where they split the progress8 score for low, medium and high prior attainment. Two schools with broadly the same progress8 score can be very different there. In my area there's one which has brilliant progress results for low-prior-attainment (ie getting kids with terrible y6 SATS scores to achieve 5Cs (or 5s) at GCSE) but terrible in the high prior-attainment category (ie they let those with excellent y6 SATs scores coast comfortably to a B/6). There's another where those situations are reversed and as the intake of both schools is fairly mixed, the highs and lows cancel out to give both a fairly average score. Which to choose for your child will depend on the individual child.

My understanding is that it’s a good measure for children who have potential to achieve more but were overlooked in the old system. Schools needed them to hit 5 A-C (in old money) and this didn’t give an incentive to get the children achieving at a higher level. Schools would tend to direct resources to get most pupils up to the 5 A-C grades, rather than push those who would likely get 5 A-C anyway to get 8 A-B grades.

TheFirst DD1 dropped a GCSE mid way through GCSE so although unusual I know the school can manage it if they are convinced of the benefit. But I do completely agree they wouldn't allow it without full consideration.

I won’t say our P8 score exactly as it would out me but it’s over +1.00. I wouldn’t say we’re an exam factory either. It’s a very close-knit, nurturing school.

As others have said it’s a broadly average score. The context of the school affects that though. An all boys school in a predominantly white, working class area, with low levels of EAL and ethnic minority children and high levels of pupil premium in a seaside town is swimming against the tide and that P8 score would be quite good in that context. The school I work in is all girls, faith, with a very high proportion of immigrant and ethnic minority students, we have high numbers of pupil premium but hardly any white British working class and we’re in Greater London. Our headteacher (and the staff) would be devastated if our progress 8 score dropped to 0.09.

Some sweeping generalisations on here about P8. I teach in a school in a deprived area, 42% pupil premium, P8 of 0.4 and wide range of subject choices including 20% achieving Ebacc. Not all good P8 schools are exam factories!

OP I'd look for a school you like with a positive P8, if possible.

TeenTimesTwo
When a pupil wants to drop a subject part of the way through the GCSE course, the school has other concerns than the effect on Progress 8.

In the timetable slot when she would have been in Geography lessons:

What will she be learning?
Where will she be studying?
Who will be teaching/supervising her?

If it comes to the point of possibly dropping Geography, these are all factors the school will need to think about.

Thanks. I hope it won't come to that but it's nice to be prepared.
I'd rather she passed maths, English and 2xscience even if it means something has to go. (The science would be needed for what she might want to do next). This year's end y9 test results do not generally reflect the considerable revision effort she put in.

Yep, add all the grades (inc double weighting) then divide by 10 to get an average grade, then subtract the average grade that pupils with the same KS2 profile got (unclear yet how this will work with new scaled scores). The result will be positive if she did better on average than pupils with the same KS2 score, negative if not.

Then they add all those grades for Y11 and divide by the number of pupils.

I'm vaguely looking ahead for DD2, currently in y9.

Thanks. So they literally just add the grades with the double weighting for Maths & English, then work out what the 'should' have got from the KS2 SATs (which for DDs year were the first of the new ones)?

I am concerned about work load and revision load, and just wondering what would happen if she wanted/needed to drop Geography (which is the 'heaviest' of her option choices).

That would leave her with only the combined science in the EBacc bucket (because my understanding is full course RE doesn't count still?

Her 1 grade missing only makes up 1 in 2500 of the overall progress score, so 0.04% of the overall progress 8 score?

Hopefully that wouldn't be enough to make them not let her drop it, if it was going to be worthwhile for her other grades and general mental health.

Teen If the bucket is empty, it scores 0, the total is still divided by 10.

3x3 would give a total of 9 which would be ‘better’ for progress 8 than 2 x 4, so schools are very reluctant to allow students to drop subjects, even if they are headed for a poor grade.

If a student scores a 1 in English lit, it will double their grade for English language, so that’s a valuable one to put students through.

BUT 2 x 4 would be more valuable to the school than 3 x 3 if the 2 x 4 were in maths and English, because that would count for the headline pass figure and would have more of an impact there.

If you don't have a suitable subject to fill a bucket, then it counts as a 0. So she'd have an attainment 8 score of 36, as opposed to the "expected" 40, and a Progress 8 of -0.4. Which divided over 250 means....I'll let you do the maths!

I didn't think Progress 8 scores really meant much at the individual level though? Clearly it's much better for her personally that your DD get 2 "passes" than O passes?

While we're here, does anyone know what happens to a score if you don't fill all the buckets?

So, for example, if my DD made expected progress in everything,(say 4s) but only filled 2 out of the 3 slots in the Ebacc bucket, how much of an impact would that have on her score and the school's (assuming for ease 250 in year group)?

And similarly which would give a 'better' score, 3xgrade3, or 2xgrade4+nothing?

The problem with the old A*-C (9-4) indicators were that lots of the local so called highest achieving schools in my area just seemed to concentrate on getting as many as possible to a Grade 4 and children who were high ability on entry were not achieving the Grade 6-8's they should have been.

Always best to visit! Open evenings will be happening now and Sept/early Oct.

We have two very good secondary schools in our small town. If you look at results one may appear slightly better, but the 'feel' and 'ethos' of the two are very different.

😳 whoops. My bad. I’m going to blame my dyslexia! 😂 oops indeed!!!

Always good to look at subjects offered and their results, agreed.

The only issue is the research behind the progress 8 scores is really iffy.
I think I'd take it with a pinch of salt and look at range of subjects and results.

I think 0.09 would be very good. Suggests they don’t have many outliers bringing down the score. The school I work at in a ‘rough’ area has a much worse score, despite some kids doing really well.

oops 0.9 is very good. However the OP was asking about 0.09.

0.9 is really very good! And is not a “virtually neutral” score. Very few schools in the entire country got +1 or above. See list here www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/schools-by-type?step=phase&geographic=all&region=0&phase=secondary

The highest progress eight score in my county was +0.7 putting it in to the “well above average” category.

As with stats in general you have to consider it with other measures.
A school with excellent attainment but poor progress 8, for example, could be one where bright DC are underachieving
A P8 score close to zero is really a neutral piece of information. You should compare it against other similar schools for context.

"a comp in a deprived area with lots of low achievers" is unlikely to do well on Progress 8 either, as P8 depends on pupils getting GCSEs in core subjects (English, maths, science, history etc), which lower achievers can find challenging. P8 is also skewed significantly by outliers - so if you have 10 kids who don't turn up to sit their GCSEs at all it will drag the overall score down even if the other kids have done OK.

But it is still a fairer method than the old 5 A*-C.