A technical question about the secondary league tables

[AChickenCalledKorma]

Can anyone translate for me what "Percentage of pupils included in VA measure" means?

I know what VA is. What I don't understand is why any pupils would be excluded from the measure.

I'm trying to compare two local schools, one of which appears to have shown a stratospheric improvement in GCSE results over the last two years, and has a very high VA to go with it. But the percentage of pupils included in VA is 93%. I'm wondering who the other 7% are and why we aren't hearing about them!

Because VA can only be measured for pupils who took KS2 SATS, any pupils who didn't (through illness, being homeschooled, schooled in another country or at an independent school that didn't sit them) can't be included. (I think).

Thanks gelo. Not sure why this school would have so many that didn't do SATs, but I guess it may get some that have been at private schools. It does also seem to enter each child for far fewer GCSEs than the other local secondaries ... and interestingly enough no-one got less than a C last year, which made me wonder whether their vastly-improved results are less about great teaching and more about playing a numbers game where they filtering out anyone who is unlikely to help their statistics.