League table(value added measure)

[sereka]

Could someone please explain the value added measure as shown on the league tables for primary school?

It shows you how much progress the children make from when they start at the school to when they leave. Is it a number in the 900's/1000's?

The average is 100.

Anything over 100 is good. It's a very small increment so 102 is really excellent, 97 really not great.

As Olihan says, it's a measure of how much progress a child makes - so a more accurate measure of school's attainment for children than SATs. If a child has SEN or other problems, they may not achieve level 2 but still may make big leaps forward.

Equally if a school's intake is very middle-class, the children may achieve well but they may have come in at a high level and actually the school didn't add much value at all. HTH

Yes value added is a far more useful stat than ks2 results. It measures how many children made the expected level of progress (ie 2 levels) between end of year 2 and end of year 6.

After having moved my kids I can definately tell you that the school which had the higher CVA but lower pass rate was the better school. The other school just had a more affluent intake.

A school that can get a good CVA regardless of it's intake will be a good and caring school.

It's a terrible name and a hard (I think impossible) thing to measure and score like this, but also by far the most important thing to know about any school IMO.

I would just like to point out that it's not necessarily a useful measure. In some schools, the KS1 results are 'pushed' artificially high because it's a separate infant school, so they have everything to gain by giving high results (to boost their own CVA). This then gives the junior school a difficult task - they have to push children up 2 levels from KS1 results, however they may feel disagree with the level the child was given in KS1. Hence the junior school could have an artificially low CVA. In a combined school, the school is judged as a whole, so they have nothing to gain by pushing up KS1 results.

Hope this makes sense!

Galena, you are quite right that KS1 grades can be artificially high - and also in a through school they can artificially lower the KS1 score so that their CVA is better.

However, I think it is still worth looking at and knowing. It's another piece of data to add to the rest of the league tables, ofsted reports, talking to other parents, looking around, and gut feelings to help you make your decision on.

There are also ceiling effects that reduce the CVA of schools with a very able intake.

Thank you for all your input guys... the school i wanted to choose..their value added measure is in the nineties. Should I be worried then?

CVA's aren't reported for infant schools so they have nothing to gain by inflating results and I'm afraid there isn't a ceiling for schools with a very able intake.

The ceiling that was explained to me was simply that as 5 was the highest mark awarded at KS2 if children had scores of 3+ at KS1 then they couldn't be shown to have achieved more than 2 levels of progress (ie the expected level) even if they had. Presumably the number of children exceeding the expected amount of progress has a positive effect on the CVA so there is a ceiling. Is this not the case mrz?

but 5 isn't the highest snorkie teachers can assess a child above level 5 (level 6)

The Assessment and Reporting Arrangements 2010 state

"Pupils working above or below the levels covered by the tests
In order to support teacher assessment, QCDA has made available a suite of optional
tasks covering levels below and above the test levels. The optional tasks provide
additional evidence that can contribute towards teachers? periodic assessment of their
pupils. Optional tasks for pupils working above or below the level of the tests are
available at www.qcda.gov.uk/optionaltasks.

I knew about the teacher assesments mrz, but I was told (albeit a while ago) that cva was based on the tests results rather than the assessment ones and also that teachers were generally reluctant to award 6s as it ment a lot of paperwork & justification. If there's now a framework in place to help with the justification that may be changing/have changed which can only be a good thing. I suspect there will still be a reluctance by some teachers to award 6s though.

sereka, if the school has a transient population, then a CAV score needs to be taken in context. If there's 30-50% pupil movement during KS2 (which there is in some schools in London, for example), comparing the KS1 results with the KS2 results is pretty meaningless as they'll have been sat by a different pupil population.