Making sense of school performance data in 2025
This year's published secondary school performance data shows why Progress 8 (or something like it) is needed, despite its flaws
Calculating a Key Stage 4 progress measure using CAT4 in place of Key Stage 2
There will be no official Progress 8 measures this year due to the cancellation of Key Stage 2 tests in 2020. However, we have produced an alternative measure using CAT4 scores as a baseline.
Proxies of Progress 8
As there will be no Progress 8 measures this summer, we look at a few options for calculating proxy scores instead
How can we evaluate the impact of RISE teams?
RISE teams are the government's new school improvement taskforce. We look at how their work in targeted intervention schools might be evaluated.
Three options for reflecting pupil movements in Key Stage 4 performance measures: Part two
In this second part we calculate some alternative performance indicators that reflect pupil mobility
Three options for reflecting pupil movements in Key Stage 4 performance measures: Part one
We set the scene for measuring pupil mobility alongside secondary school performance indicators and examine how many pupils change schools between Year 7 and Year 11.
Some things you might not know about our schools – a birthday special
As we celebrate our tenth birthday, we look back at some of the issues we were talking about when Datalab launched, and reflect on some of the other big issues in education today.
Splitting the disadvantage gap within and between schools, part two
Schools' Progress 8 scores for disadvantaged pupils tend to be correlated with the percentage of disadvantaged pupils in a school's cohort. But this is the case in some regions more than others.
Splitting the disadvantage gap within and between schools, part one
Around 8% of the gap in Progress 8 scores between disadvantaged pupils and non-disadvantaged pupils in 2024 appears to be attributable to the way in which pupils from both groups are shared out between schools