In recent days there has been some discussion about the way grades in current GCSEs will be scored alongside reformed GCSEs when calculating Progress 8 in 2017 and 2018. In 2016, when Progress 8 will be fully introduced into Performance Tables, GCSE grades A*-G will be converted into points on the 1-8 scale. By 2019, [...]
Today Policy Exchange have published a lengthy report ‘A Rising Tide’ claiming competitive benefits of free schools. The premise is that neighbouring schools have improved their results due to the threat of loss of pupils to a new free school. It is certainly possible that this might have happened. Any headteacher at an undersubscribed school [...]
We have an accountability system that has encouraged schools to check that children are making a certain number of sub-levels of progress each year. This is the basis on which headteachers monitor (and now pay) teachers and on which Ofsted judges schools. Yet there is little hard science underpinning the system in use: take a [...]
Attainment 8 and Progress 8, the new Key Stage Four school accountability measures due to be introduced by Government in 2016, will undoubtedly make a difference to how schools enter their pupils for qualifications. They are reminiscent of the old 'best eight or capped' and 'contextual value added' measures in that they judge a school [...]
It's not uncommon to hear schools express a view that the attainment of their intake is systematically over estimated or 'inflated' in some way. Schools are not accusing another of cheating; simply that high stakes accountability pushes teachers to ensure children achieve the best result possible. And where a feeder school outperforms expectations for an [...]
This evening we launch Education Datalab with a report ‘Seven things you might not know about our schools'. Rich data on our schools has been available for over a decade now but, as we hope this report shows, there is still much we can learn. Every piece of analysis we show in this report is [...]
