Can someone explain to what Contextual Value Added means please?

[bytheMoonlight]

And what sort of score I should be looking for?

And when looking at league tables which scores should I be looking at most?

100 means kids made expected progress between Y2 and Y6

(Well that's the simplified version of it)

(Context means expected for those kids - not the standard 2 levels which is expected for all kids )

So anything above 100 is good, and below bad :)

But really, it's a crude a measurement as any of the others, so look at it, but don't use it by itself......

So it is important as well as the others? Just looked at my dd's new school's CVA and for 3years they have been below 100. Her old school have been above 100.

Am I right to be or , because new school is generally a better school and is over subscribed? Truth is if I had known about the CVA before the move, I would still have moved her!

CVA is important. But no statistics tell the full story.

CVA is being scrapped this year in favour of VA - because the govt has decided that we shouldn't take context into account.

Your old school has a different cohort from your new school, so kids might have made the same progress in each school, but one got a good CVA and one got a bad CVA.

Use CVA as well as SATS results as well as OFSTED as well as a look round as well as talking to parents as well as gut feel......

Or just apply for the school you can get to the quickest. 7 years of commuting is a lot..... :)

CVA included geodemographic information linked with the child's postcode. So if child A lives in a "posh" area they are expected to make more progress than child B with the same results in a "less posh" area. The geodemographic data being used was not intended for this purpose (it was intended to profile customers for large scale direct mail for example) and therefore CVA was always slightly bogus because it hid pockets that were not like the norm for that area. So in a "posh" area, a deprived family would be hidden by the overall data and in a "less posh" area an affluent family would be hidden by the overall data. For this reason, schools with poorer catchment areas appeared to do better overall in CVA terms than schools with wealthy catchment areas. In addition, as the overall top score in KS1 is 5 (it's impossible to get 6) if a child scores 3 in KS1, they have only made expected progress and it's not possible for them to exceed expected progress. So to sum up, the whole thing is pretty much nonsense.

As RiversideMum says, the idea is to look at whether the school is doing better or worse than expected given the demographics of the area. It is being phased out as there are serious questions about its statistical validity.

CVA scores show the progress a school has helped its students make from the end of one key stage to another.

They complement test and examination results that are published to give a fair guide to the performance of a school.

Test and examination results and CVA scores will not give you a complete picture of a school. However, they may help give you a better picture of a school you are considering.

But Michael Gove, shadow schools secretary, said he thought CVA should go. ?I believe the current measures are flawed and there is an ongoing debate about how to improve on it,? he said. ?My view is that they make comparisons on the basis of assessment techniques which are themselves flawed. We need to take several steps back and work out how to reconstruct measures that are more appropriate.?

Try reading this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this for a complete cure of insomnia.

Good luck

Michael Gove is a complete wanker.

Does he worry about the CVA/VA at his children's - obviously - private school?

I would imagine he does worry about the CVA and VA at his children's state school. They attend a faith school.