Attainment 8 - fair way to compare 'value added' by secondary schools?

[snowgirl1]

Is attainment 8 a reasonable way to see how different schools perform in terms of value added? Possible choice between a local outstanding state school or a private school and trying to work out which might be best in helping our DD achieve her potential - whatever that is!

You won't usually get an attainment 8 score for private schools. Firstly, because lots won't have taken KS2 Sats and secondly, because lots of private schools still use igcse's.

Progress 8 is the main measure for state schools. That shows how much value is added. 0 means everyone got what they should. +0.5 means everyone got half a grade higher than ks2 results suggested they would, on average across 8 subjects inc eng and maths.

Thanks for your answers. The private school I was looking at doesn't have a progress 8 score published on the government website, but does have an attainment 8 score - maybe because it has more pupils that came from state school than other private schools??

Attainment 8 is based on the GCSE scores, so can be calculated for any child that has done GCSEs. Technically iGCSEs don't count, for league table purposes, so if a school does more than the odd non-core iGCSE, their scores would look worse because of that, and so they may prefer no to be included. (Frankly, if they wanted to calculate their own version that did include the iGCSEs, it would give a reasonable comparison.)

Progress 8 is the one that needs the KS2 scores, so isn't possible to calculate unless most pupils were in state schools until 11.

Attainment 8 tells you nothing about value added - it tells you how well their pupils did, but a better score may just indicate a stronger intake.

Progress 8 and attainment 8 are different.

Best thing is to ask the private school for their value added score at GCSE. I did this when making a similar decision. Attainment or Progress 8 is useless for private as they all do igcse courses and also of its anything like DD’s school, one of the advantages is that they are not ‘limited’ by the subjects that state schools have to take so won’t necessarily take the subjects required to get those progress 8 scores.

Thanks - I'll ask the private school about their value added score at GCSE.

Attainment 8 and Progress 8 tell you how well this year's cohort did, on average. However, they won't tell you everything you need to know about how well they do for individual children, or in individual subjects, and they obviously won't tell you how well your child will do in 5 years time, when a proportion of the staff will probably have moved on. All you can ever hope for is that the scores will attract enough parents who care about their kids' education to make the same Y7 school choice as you, and that enough good teachers will choose to teach there rather than somewhere else.