Value added scores for independent schools

[papalazaru]

Is there a way to find these scores? I'm looking at different schools for my daughter who is currently in Year 5. When comparing the schools using GCSE results obviously you can rank them but if a school is highly selective with its intake then it follows that their results will reflect this. However, a school with a good value added will be making the most of their less able children.
Some schools I've looked at do publicise their value added but others don't. How can I find it out? Will I specifically have to ask?
Thanks.

Private schools don't have to sit SATs, so if the kids are from private primaries where they don't do SATs, I don't see how value added (which is progression from KS2 SATs) could be calculated.

Ask, but generally none is available as they don't have baseline scores on entry.

This message interested me because the independent school my DDs attended used to publish value added data. However, currently their data is not included in the latest published data for the County and neither is any independent school. As mentioned above, they did not do SATs.

On their brand new website they boast that they are at the pinacle of the county value added tables which makes me wonder what tables they are talking about when this data is clearly not on the official tables. I wonder if there are tables produced by the independent schools and maybe there is information available from the independent schools' council. The claim of the school is exceptionally hard to validate but another approach might be to ask each school because their pupil progress tracking information may well give you a crude comparison for each school.

Don't the ISI reports compare the individual school with their equivalent in the state sector?

Ds's school has amazing value added but they don't seem to have a format for publishing it as such.

Their own prep children sits SATs and most of the other new children come from state schools so they have entry data to go from. They take roughly 40% high attainers, 40% middle and 20% low (obviously varies year to year) and achieve roughly 50% A/A of all exams taken at GCSE with at least 95% of students attaining 5 A- C.

On their website, if you looked at the section with exam results they just say something like 'this is a remarkable set of results bearing in mind we have a truly comprehensive intake'. But in the newsletters/speech days, the Head will go into more detail on the intake per year and just how well they've done.

Any selective school is likely to have low VA so is highly unlikely to publish it.
They will still get great raw exam results, but do it by selecting, not adding value.

Non selective private schools get great VA with the middling kids but ess so with the top and bottom, so their average is low, so they will not publish it.

bearing in mind we have a truly comprehensive intake
utterly impossible for any fee paying school because the fees are beyond the wildest dream of well over half of the families in the country

A 'comprehensive intake' in this context refers to not selecting by ability or aptitude. Nothing to do with ability to pay. Unless you're suggesting that the children of those who can pay fees are somehow cleverer than the general populous?

marni
among those whose parents can afford to pay are a FAR lower proportion of SEN children and parents and parents with MH, criminal and other problems.
therefore statistically those who can afford fees are MUCH more likely to be able to support their children through lessons.

not many parents coughing up wads of cash care zilch about attendance, homework, nutrition etc etc

therefore private schools cannot ever be representative of the general population

Ha! I wondered how quickly someone would pick up on the fact I hadn't caveated for the fact that I/the Head didn't mean socio-economically comprehensive.

Anyway, the stats are what they are for academic ability on intake. This school also has a higher percentage of children with SEN including statements than some of the local 'comps' (because the LEA has begged it to take children with dyslexia, dyspraxia and ASD that their maintained schools have failed - and pays their fees) and a much higher percentage of level 3 and 4 on intake children than two of the local highly-desired comps in expensive catchments.

You've made a huge sweeping generalisation about what independent schools do and don't do with different ability children, TalkinPeace. Surely, just like all state schools, they vary. You wouldn't say 'all secondary moderns are rubbish at teaching languages' or 'all comps teach top sets brilliantly' or 'grammar schools don't take art seriously'. There's no such thing as 'all non-selective independents'.

The bottom set children at ds's school are in classes of 8. At least 75% of these children, coming in on level 3 or below, achieve 5 good GCSEs. As they should, with small classes and specialist intervention.

In any case, in both sectors, value added is very difficult to judge without bias. Some state schools get fantastic value added 'playing the system' putting children through loads of BTecs etc. But they don't all, of course. Would be silly to tar them all with the same brush.

The Btec game on VA ground to a shuddering halt three years ago.

secMods tend to have much better VA than their local grammar schools - for entirely obvious reasons.
High level admission comps (like THornden up the way from me) have lower VA because of the catchment.

VA is interesting, but is just one part of the portfolio of ways to measure schools.

No comparison on our school ISI report with state schools. Last one done 2010 though.

Our local state High School, which is a selective girls' grammar in a selective county, (so not highly selective) has a value added of 1028 on the best 8 GCSEs. Only higher and middle attainers. That is a fairly healthy value added for a grammar school.

Indeed.

And here's another thing: some schools (often independents, but I'm not saying always) have their children sitting fewer qualifications than other schools so they have might have high ability children get a run of 8/9 straight A/As where in the other school they might have got 6/7A/As plus 6/7Bs. So in that scenario, the first school would get better value added and, you might argue, have the students' better interests in mind. But some dc (or their parents) might prefer 14 GCSes (for whatever reason), so school B would suit them better.

If any parent thinks 14 GCSEs is a good idea, they need some advice to the contrary, urgently. My DD at an independent school took more GCSEs than the local High as they limited girls to 9. Far better 9 or 10 at A* than 14 at a mix of grades. Perhaps best 8 will get schools to think again and keep GCSEs to a sensible number. No-one needs more than 10.

Indeed.

Thanks all. This is an interesting discussion. Now I know what pointed questions I need to ask the heads as we go and visit the schools. Some indies I have visited laud their VA. Because it helps set them apart when comparing 'less selective' indies (shall we say). I'm interested because I think DD is capable but not a high flyer - I'd like to find her a school where the best is encouraged from her but not at the expense of her confidence in her cohort.
And 14 GSCEs??? Who would need that many and why? I've been out of the UK. For 10 years and sooooo much has changed!

I thought Thornden's VA score was way above average? Click on 'Value Added'- 2012 results I think.

There have been plenty of threads on MN where young people are struggling with GCSEs or equivalents that add up to an excessive number of GCSEs. Oxford and Cambridge are perfectly happy with 10, as long as they are the right ones with no glaring academic omissions. Some people and schools always think more is better judging by the articles in our local papers. However, the local state grammar schools do not do this. I think hardly any independents do this because extra curricular activities are seen as more important and they would encourage drama and music exams, for example.

I would ask how the independent schools obtain their VA scores if they are not published in the official tables. Are they done in the same way as the official tables or some in-house or computer based system? Somehow you need to compare like with like, and, as you have seen, it is difficult.

I think the other interesting issue is whether GCSE courses are 2 years or 3. It seems unfair that some children are given a lot longer to learn essentially the same material, with less workload, but some parents and children like it because they jettison the subjects they do not like a year earlier (at the end of year 8). I have a suspicion that the stronger academic schools do traditional 2 year courses, but other posters may know if this is the case. When they take the GCSE exams is also another issue. How many are taken early and what grades are obtained?

I think you can tell which schools take the very bright from their GCSE and A level results. (Very high percentages of A*s) However, there are plenty of schools who have a varied intake who do get good results. You may also like to consider if it is an IB school or an A level school or both. So much to think about as the ground keeps shifting!

One way some schools do VA is to do a baseline test when the children enter at 11 or 13. These are often called MIDYIS scores and are administered by Durham Uni. They are similar to an IQ test and give a score for maths, English, VR and NVR. They place pupils in quartile s compared to the whole school population and compared to the independent school population. These can be then used to do GCSE predictions. VA is measured by using the 2.
Likewise VA ias often measured between 16 and 18 by looking at GCSE and A level results. Again, Durham do predictions based on GCSES and account for the fact that some subjects are easier than others. Students at 16 often sit another baseline test called ALIS which again measures IQ and predicts for different A level subjects. many schools use both GCSE and ALIS to measure the value added to A level.
Often these measures are there, but not published, but if you ask, schools may well give you some kinds of measure.
prep schools sometimes use CAT scores in a. Similar way.
It is useful to ask the school what percentage of children come in at each ability quartile, so get a sense of how academic the intake is.

DDs exams start next week.
She is doing ;Eng Lang, Eng Lit, Maths, Further maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography, History, Latin, an MFL and a tech.
She's also had time to do music and dancing and sport after school.
The raw number of subjects reflects more how some have been dumbed down than any astounding ability on the part of her and her cohort.

12 subjects talkin IMO opinion it's ridiculous, DS1 so called outstanding high performing academy did 12 he really struggled to choose 12 subjects and juggle them all. His Tony Blair clone head teacher told me that there was insufficient time in the curriculum to do more than an hour of sport a week, hardly surprising when a child has to do so many GCSE's, apparently in Middleclassville where I live that's what parents "expect". In contrast DS2 (Win Coll) only does 9, no history or Eng Lit at IGCSE it Win Coll parents clearly have different expectations!

DD's school offers amazing VA.

Most girls do arrive having done SATs and all girls sit an entrance test anyway (though is is only as a gauge, there is no pass/fail). The ability curve is very much in line with national averages.

Yet the results are way above what you would expect. God, knows how they manage it!

DS school is super selective, so one would expect fabulous results. The value there is derived from things unconnected with raw GCSE and A level resulst etc.

Sorry posted too soon.

DD's school doesn't pubish te VA stats. However, you could simply ask for the ability curve figures and then compare them with the results. That should tell you what you need to know .

Happy
See I think missing out History and Eng lit is a shame.
DS is refusing to do Geography - his loss IMHO
but the number of subjects he's doing will be less as the curriculum moves fully back from modules to linear
full circle and all that!

wordfactory
How are the schools measuring the "ability curve" without the FFT or raiseonline data that state schools use?

talkin the majoirty of girls in the secondary school come from the prep which does take SATs.

And of course a sizable majority come from state schools so the data is forwarded from there.

Of the very few girls who didn't take SATs, the schools will make their own assessment, as state schools do for those students entering the system at 11 from abroad or from non SAT private schools.

From this the school can work out the ability spread of the intake. It's usually about average. Often more mixed than the local terribly nice comps ...

The results are shockingly good...though I'll be interested to see how the return to linear affects things of course.