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 [...]
Latest DfE statistics show that there were almost 16,000 pupils on-roll at pupil referral units, and another 22,000 in other local authority alternative provision in January 2017 [XLS, table 1b]. These are pupils whose education is paid for by the state but who do not have places at state-funded mainstream or special schools. The different [...]
This is a joint blogpost from Education Datalab and the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL). This post was updated on 16 October 2017. The cut-off date for inclusion in this analysis was originally stated as 30 June 2017, based on an earlier draft of this analysis, when it should have been given as 31 [...]
Ofsted yesterday announced its response to the consultation it ran this summer on its short inspections policy. The inspectorate had proposed extending from 48 hours, to 15 days, the window in which a full inspection must take place after a short inspection converts. But it has now opened another consultation [PDF] that proposes that from [...]
This is part four in a series of blogposts exploring long-term disadvantage. Other posts in the series can be found here. At the start of the summer we showed that there are substantial differences in the attainment and progress of pupils who have been disadvantaged at some stage. The main findings of these earlier posts were [...]
A version of this blogpost also appears on the Sutton Trust website. When the PISA results are released, almost everyone is fixated upon the average scores children have achieved in reading, science and mathematics, and our latest position in the “international rankings”. However, a lot of other information is captured within the study, some of [...]
[This post was updated at 18.15 on 24th August 2017 to amend 2016 figures for maths] One bit of good news from this year’s GCSE results is that the percentages of 17-year-olds in England achieving A*-C grades in English have gone up. However, working out by just how much they have improved is made slightly [...]
