GCSE pass rate when choosing a school

[BurnTheBlackSuit]

Obviously not the only criteria we are looking at! But I'm just interested- what kind of GCSE pass rate would make you worried about choosing a school.

Going on last year's GCSEs- national average for 5 A-C grades was 58.7% and for A-C in English and Maths was 63%.

Would you be worried about a school where 70% got 5 A-C grades? Or 60%? 50%? 40%?

Just want to get a rough idea of what others think...

As you say, this is just one of many important criteria, but around 75% A-C in English & Maths would be my cut-off, in conjunction with a Good or Outstanding from Ofsted (although rely less on Ofsted, anything less than a Good would worry me). This is a big ask for a secular state school (we are not religious and cannot afford private), but I have found one for my DD and she has just started there, very happy :)

The pass rate compared to the intake is more useful information.

If School A takes 90% high achievers and achieves 70% of 5A*-C grades

and School B takes 30% high achievers, 50% middle achievers and achieves 60% of 5A*-C grades

... I know what I think is the better school

I seem to remember the national average is about 55%, so if the school you are looking at is "average" I'd worry if it deviated a lot from that.

Redsky, out of interest how do you find the break down of high achievers and low achievers in the stats?

My dd's school is on average about 72% A-C. It has a mixture of high/middle income children and very low income. I'm always trying to read the stats and I never seem to be able to get it.

How do you work that out though? Is that the progress 8 measure?

Are these the figures for 2016? Are you sure these are the correct way round usually the percentage with 5A-C is higher than the 5A-C including Maths & English.
There are several problems with using this raw data:

1. There have been several changes over the past few years regarding which qualifications can be counted towards the league tables.
2. Results in 2016 have been affected by older pupils having to resit Maths and English which meant a change in the cohort taking the exams.
3. this one is important - this data does not really predict how well your child will do (if your child is starting Y7 in 2018 the GCSE exams they will be taking are very different to those being taken in a few years time).
4. the data does not tell you about the ability of the year group / pupils on entry to the school. For this you need to look at the Progress 8 data which shows you if the pupils are simply making the expected level of progress or making greater progress (or even making less progress) than expected.

OFSTED does take this into account but unless the school has been inspected very recently this can become very out of date especially if you take into account that Outstanding schools are inspected less often than those Requiring improvement.

I would look at progress 8 score as much as pass rate.

Our only 2 possible local schools for DD are 74% and 93% and the progress 8 scores are .25 and .69. The first school is mixed and the second is all girls.

Luckily both DD and us both prefer the all girls school.

Trampire
www.gov.uk/school-performance-tables

It depends massively on the school's characteristics and intake.

If its a selective school, the grades should be good full stop (selection includes religion BTW)

If its a comp then the lower ability kids will not be getting strings of GCSEs

Its worth looking at the detailed data to see how they deal with each of the ability ranges and socio-economic factors they face

but actually, nothing beats sitting outside the gate at kicking out time and feeling the "mood" of the school

For me it would depend ... A selective school should have pretty near 100% pass rate - they have creamed off the best.

generally the schools near us had pass rates of 65-75% A-C.

But we chose the lower one because they set in Maths, English and Science and we knew our DDs would both be top set. The top set pass rate was 96%

I agree, Ta1kinPeece, nothing beats eyeballing the pupils. And also I would only look at the 5 GCSEs including English and Maths, i.e. The Baccalaureate.

The pass rate is utterly meaningless without knowing about the intake.

Thanks for the link.

So my dd's school has 74% A-C pass rate for GCSE's. Above average Attainment 8, 40% Baccalaureate but a below average Progress 8 of 0.27.

Does this mean only the higher achievers do well?

Sorry Progress 8 of -0.27.

Trampire - looks like a typical suburban comp in a "good area" - high achievers will do well, middle achievers will be coached to pass.

Yeah that sounds about right Beyond. Dd is doing well and is happy at the school, but I've always been slightly obsessed by comparing schools!

I think that means based on where they are when they enter the school they do worse at GCSE's than would have been expected based on normal progression rates. A negative progress score would worry me.

I taught a Polish pupil in V form. She arrived in England not speaking any English at 14. She passed 9 GCSEs A*-C but got a D in English, this (the way things were counted at the time) that she was a failure.

It also brought the school's GCSE results down. Personally I think both the school and the student must have worked hard for her to get those grades.

Try and get your data directly from the school, rather from published league tables, if possible.

Because personally, I'm rather more interested in the qualifications students actually leave with, than the results of their first attempt at an exam. Especially if they only made that first attempt so they would be allowed to take the exam when it best fitted into their personal learning plan.

I'm also very much not interested in who's managed to pass the ECDL - even if that makes the school's published results look very pretty indeed.

Schools can only be as good as the pupils attending.
Otherwise compare pass rate with intake numbers and social diversity.

"Schools can only be as good as the pupils attending"

Sorry-that's rubbish. A school should be judged by the difference it makes to it's pupils.

It is true that the raw data tells you can tell you more about the catchment than quality of teaching...however, knowing something about the catchment is also useful, especially if you are looking at schools in an area unfamiliar to you because you are about to move.

Many people will choose the school with the higher raw exam passes than the one with lower raw passes but better Progress 8 figures - this is because they decide that they want their kids in school with those from a more affluent or high achieving background. Some who analyse the data and consider these things decide they would prefer to be with bright kids who do well, even if they do t make quite the progress they could with better teaching, to being in a school which really pushes the kids to get the best progress from them, but where there are more low achievers to start with.

Making a choice between these 2 options (if you have that choice - and not everyone does - many only have the option of one of these types, or even a low performing school in terms of raw results plus low progress too sadly) is interesting. Parents will value different things. Some want their kids in the more affluent school believing it will result in better behaviour (if often does, but not always) whilst others are more relaxed about a broader range of children - I think this is especially the case if there is lots of setting within the school and it is evident that each ability group is well catered for and does well.

And I guess here, I'm talking about the parents who are interested in education and results and do at least a bit of research before choosing. Of course many parents don't do this and where they have choice, choose based on all kinds of things.

When I choose my dd's school nearly 2 years ago, the Progress 8 didn't seem to be a 'thing'. I studied a heap of data but don't remember seeing it (or knowing what it was).

It does worry me at little that it has a negative Progress 8 score, however dd is doing well, I've been impressed so far with the teaching and the overall ethos of the school. I guess you can't beat just experiencing it.

I've just looked at some of our other local schools where I personally know dcs there (and their parents). One has a much better Progress 8 score and I personally wouldn't dream of sending my dd there. The other one is an outstanding school that parents fall over themselves to get their dcs into and the school consistently produces results that compete with some of the best in the area - fantastic destination data. However their Progress 8 is a flatline at 0.

It really is s bit of a minefield isn't it. I'm glad I'm not choosing a school this year. I found it hard enough before!

On a macro level, I agree that schools should be judged on the difference they make to their pupils - this involves looking at hole cohorts an considering their impact on kids starting from low, middle and high bases, as well on the overall year group.

From an individual parental view though, most people are really only interested in their own child's outcomes. It is possible for a school to gain great progress figures whilst not serving the needs of one particular group, which means a parent might not choose that school. Or it might be that a school has great Progress 8 but parents don't choose it because they know that school doesn't offer the curriculum they want - so perhaps not enough language choices or 3 sciences, or perhaps not the vocational courses their kid would be suited to. They might choose because of the discipline policy or lack of, or because of the settings arrangements or lack of.

I think that Progress 8 is useful, but there is so much it cannot tell you and when you consider your individual child there is often stuff that is more useful.

I'm interested in raw exam results. I like to see how many gained A/A* and how many took each subject - you start to get a sense of a school from that stuff. I'm also interested in destinations after GCSE and A Level. I'm not actually so interested in how many of the kids they shift from a D to a C because my kids are not in that bracket - but of course I can see that will be really important to some people.

If you want to know how good a school is, you need to look at a lot of data. If you want to know how good that school might be for your child, you look at children like your child and see how they are doing.

And, of course, take the leap of faith that nothing will change in the next 5-7 years...

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