Key Stage 2 league tables – performance tables, to use their proper name – have been published this morning, identifying those schools below the government’s floor standard, and those judged to be coasting. So what can we say about the schools in these two groups? And are junior schools still more likely to fall into [...]
Today’s Key Stage 2 Statistical First Release provides further information on the 2017 Key Stage 2 results which we first wrote about here. This includes school-level data, plus data on the performance of different groups of pupils. There are some interesting differences in progress scores between ethnic groups There is much greater variation in the [...]
This year’s Key Stage 2 performance tables will be published tomorrow, summarising the attainment of pupils in KS2 tests in reading, maths, and grammar, punctuation and spelling (GPS). But how reliable are these tests, and what does this mean for published performance indicators? Getting the right balance A well-designed test should give a pupil the [...]
I’m not normally inclined to say “I told you so” but, in this case, it might be justified. Back in 2015, when the Department for Education announced the scores for old style GCSEs in 2017, Dave Thomson and I did some calculations to look at 'what if' the DfE 2016 and 2017 scoring systems were applied [...]
Last year at the Schools NorthEast Annual Summit I was delighted to talk to primary teachers and learn how they had become a high-performing region. Today I had less happy conversation with their secondary colleagues about why they are falling behind at GCSE. As the chart below shows, the North East has always scored poorly [...]
The EBacc continues to be ignored There was a slight fall in the percentage of pupils entered for all five subjects making up the English Baccalaureate (EBacc). Even so, the percentage entered for the science and humanities components actually increased. The fall in the headline EBacc entry rate was entirely due to a drop in [...]
The 2017 GCSE English and maths papers were graded on the new nine-point scale (9-1) rather than the old eight-point scale (A*-G). The content and structure of the English and maths GCSEs have also been reformed at the same time. The rest of the GCSEs will follow suit over the next few years. The new [...]
The first free schools opened in September 2011, and as most secondary free schools opened with only a single year group of pupils we’re only now starting to get results for many of these schools. A total of 49 mainstream free schools have results in this morning’s release of provisional 2017 Key Stage 4 results. [...]
Schools’ provisional Progress 8 scores for 2017 were published today, having already been released to schools over a fortnight ago. This would have been a chastening experience for those falling below the floor standard of -0.5. On the surface, there are more of them this year than last. But is this fair? Changes to GCSE [...]
