Do you analyse gcse data schools provide or look at it closely?

[youarenotkiddingme]

Been looking around local schools and this years results compared to previous years (some schools have new HT) and county and national average.

Catchment school has results which I think are not great for a 140 ish pupil year group yet they've sold it as amazing (they have a reputation for this)

They've said 71% passed an English grade 4 or above with 40% gaining higher passes.

55% passed maths grade 4 or higher with 30% gaining higher pass marks.

Then say 100% who took triple science got A*-C.

Then announce number passing science was 61%.

There's them a list of a number of subjects that they got 100% A*-C pass rate.

(Music/art/textiles and dance)

Am I right in thinking it's normal to have good triple science pass as most schools only allow pupils to do it who will pass?
That in a year group of 140 the number of students doing music etc will be about 5-10 and again these are students who will have a talent and take gcse because they'll get a good grade?

Am I also right in thinking the % of those passing both maths and English above a grade 4 must be 55% or less and so that's only about 75 pupils?

There's kid about how they offer over 20 different subjects but their core subjects don't appear to me to be good?

Other local schools have announced between 71 and 79% pass rate for both which I know is very good.

What are the confidence intervals on that Progress8? If the lower one is above 0, then they are in the 'above average' band for progress 8, which puts them in roughly the top 30% of schools in England for progress.

Looking at the Progress8 by prior attainment (though take caere a these small sample sizes - i think it was noblegiraffe who warned me of large confidence intervals [ie a wide variation in the bounds of the 'possible' Progress8 result] for small cohort sizes) may give you further information. if, for example, they have many children with low previous attainment, but who mae good progress, then that would explain why they have good Progress8 results but low absolute results.

Is there a place one can acess gcse data by subject if the school don't publish it on their website?

I don't think so. The 'Compare schools' tool on the DfE website takes you down to 'subject group' (e.g. Humanities, Science,English, Maths) but I haven't seen a 'by subject' set of data on a national level that allows you to compare school by school.

Thanks all.

This isn't for ds starting as he's going into year 9.

Long saga but was at a school (not catchment but same distance and then had to move.) is at another school but LA want to name catchment (who don't have things he needs but can provide now they've issued him an EHCP) and I'm against moving him again!

I know the school he's in has a high number of Sen and EHCP students (or at least I think it's high if anyone would know stats and can confirm?) but they provided ds loads of support even before EHCP and they have the better results from what's been published.

Ds isn't likely to achieve high results in subjects that involve literacy! But I think keeping him where he is and finding a way around the transport issue is going to be the better option - I think they are better at meeting individual needs and tailoring chooses to child's ability.

Dumble or Cantkeep, do you know when Progress 8 data will be available this year?

I don't know for sure but I wouldn't expect it to be available any earlier than mid October. That's usually the sort of time that gcse data gets published.

I think some data is as late as January.