What does this progress 8 score mean?

"Progress 8 in grammar schools is very difficult to understand"

No more difficult than any other school.

P8 compares the attainment of children at each school with other children who got similar SATs scores at state schools nationally. Most high attaining children in state education are at non-selective schools, not selective schools.

If a grammar school has a P8 of 0.5, and the comp next door has a P8 of 0.5, then, in principle and on average, a child who was high attaining in their SATs should do equally well at both. (Whether they do or not obviously comes down to a range of local and personal factors).

Top coding causes problems in both directions. Superselective grammars may select children who would have averaged well above 120 on the SATS if the scores weren't limited to that level. The attainment of these "super-120's" is then compared with that of all 120's.

Well the short answer is that you can't talk about relative progress without using the word progress.

Another answer is that there is the official Government definition, and then lots of informal explainers, some of which muddy the water, so it's best to stick to the Government definition.

The Government definition says P8 "aims to capture the progress", not that it is the progress.

I think that we write here about the meaning of Progress 8 if SATs were at max 120 and not debating the value of it. @user149799568.

“why is a perfect score at SATs and a perfect score in GCSEs not 0 progress” the answer is that it’s relatively more difficult to get a perfect score in GCSEs

It's actually just an artefact of statistics when you put a ceiling on scores, such as 120 for SATS or 9 for GCSEs. Some PPs had it right that negative noise (kids having bad days) bring down the Attainment 8 scores while positive noise (kids having good days) can't bring them up, even if they smashed through the 9 boundary on the GCSEs.

Progress 8 isn't a measure of progress, it's a measure of "relative progress". It's used to measure the performance of schools compared to other schools whose children got similar SATs results.

But if that is the case why the definitions include the word progress and they do indeed describe it as progress made between KS2 and GCSE

Progress 8 in grammar schools is very difficult to understand

"But the question was “why is a perfect score at SATs and a perfect score in GCSEs not 0 progress” the answer is that it’s relatively more difficult to get a perfect score in GCSEs"

Technically I think the question was "why is a perfect score at SATs and a perfect score in GCSEs not 0 Progress 8”. The Government has no measure for absolute "progress".

The answer is that some children with lower SATs results also get perfect GCSEs (so have higher Progress 8) and some children with perfect SATs get worse GCSEs (so have lower Progress 8). The only scenario that would give this child a P8 of zero is one where every child who got perfect SATs also got perfect GCSEs.

In other words, an individual child's P8 score doesn't just depend on how well they do, but also how well/badly everyone else does. It is a relative measure, for judging schools against other schools.

But the question was “why is a perfect score at SATs and a perfect score in GCSEs not 0 progress” the answer is that it’s relatively more difficult to get a perfect score in GCSEs… it means the same as what you have said.

It’s used for individual kids all the time for target setting. And sometimes used for individual classes too. It is questionable whether that’s a good or bad thing though! For the purposes of the thread it’s useful to know how it’s calculated for an individual student as it helps conceptualise the idea.

It means pupils are getting on average 0.94 of a grade higher per GCSE than their peers who achieved similar levels at the end of KS2. Excellent grades!

No, it's not to account for anything. It just reflects the fact that some other schools were able to make greater progress, e.g. they may have had children with lower baseline SATs scores who got similar GCSE results as this example child.

Progress 8 isn't a measure of progress, it's a measure of "relative progress". It's used to measure the performance of schools compared to other schools whose children got similar SATs results. It shouldn't be used for individual students at all.

You said she had made no progress 🤷‍♀️

It would be better if it was the peeing and pooping test tbh. I think you were right first time.

OP I think I have identified the school - DD goes there. FWIW we have found it to be excellent and DD has loved the all girls environment. DS goes to a mixed school locally and of the two, I think she has had a much better experience. She chose to stay on for sixth form (you are looking at her year group results). Its intake is socially mixed as you will know from the area - it's definitely not the case that everyone is from a middle class hot house primary.

We know that.

This is how the Good Schools Guide explain it:

What is Progress 8?
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 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, the scores for individuals are not published 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 a 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 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.

Or those four students would have gone to school and done great at the Michaela school like other pupils do there. They are not managing out pupils and parents want their kids to go there !

She got 81 using your calculation. Quite some progress!!

I suspect as I mentioned previously, that a sizeable proportion of Michaela students were only just acquiring English by Year 6 and the others were excluded by virtue of not having sat KS2 assessments at all.

It varies each year - but roughly 111 is 60.63

is 8.1 her average gcse grade because it doesn’t work quite like that. English and maths both count twice then it’s 3 English baccalaureate subjects and 3 “open” subjects.

Maths element (x2) + English element (x2*) + 3 EBacc elements + 3 performance qualifications

But let’s just assume that’s the score for the calculation, her progress would be 2.0 :)

You are misunderstanding the P8 score. You can google to see how it is calculated.

Firstly, it makes no sense to single out her KS2 maths score, because the KS2 prior attainment used in the P8 measure is an average of the scores for English and Maths. So, instead, let's assume she got 120 for both, so her P2 average is 120.

The KS4 measure is her Attainment 8, which is a max of 90.

Her individual P8 score is measured against all the other students in England who also got 120 in their SATs and who went to state secondary schools. So, if your example student got the maximum 90 for her A8, and every other 120-average student also got A8 of 90, then her P8 would be zero.

In practice, most will get less than 90 (and obviously none will get more than 90). Most of the high KS2 attainers will go to schools that aren't selective, and which vary in quality. Many will have family and social issues that reduce their grades.

Many will also go to private schools, which aren't included in the measure at all.

How do you work out progress 8? My daughter averaged 111 in SATS, but 8.1 APS for GCSEs.

I just did another back of envelope calc and the average sat score of a boy at tiffin is 115.5 — so it’s a bit lower than Henrietta Barnet. Which makes sense because they get fewer applications (~1500) for more spaces (180).

HB is >2500 sitting the exam for 100 spaces

Progress 8 is a measure against a live cohort, what their peers who got the same SATs results as them actually got, not what people think they should have got. So there are kids with 120 in their SATs who are not going on to get all 9s at GCSE meaning the kid who does go onto all 9s has made positive progress compared to them.

your school is fantastic

It is if you take into consideration very good GCSE results and that there is no entrance exam.

Shows Tiffin Boys ain't all that then or your school is fantastic. Would be interesting to see their breakdown by prior attainment.

Grade 9s are generally awarded to less than 4% of the cohort per subject. I'm going to find out what percentage get a 120 in SATS.