KS4 Progress 8 Metrics now available in Connect

We are delighted to announce the release of Progress 8 metrics into the Connect platform.

This article contains information on how to navigate to your overall school/college Progress 8 measures and how to find the student level Progress 8 numbers. It also details important information regarding data checks to consider for accurate Progress 8 calculations.

The inclusion of Progress 8 numbers in Connect now gives a holistic overview of progress tracking at Key Stage 4. You can use Connect to determine Progress 8 scores for end of year results and for monitoring data of current year groups. 

The Progress 8 release contains the following metrics:

1. Overall Progress 8 numbers for the school/college
2. Progress 8 numbers for English, maths, EBacc and Open buckets
3. Confidence intervals
4. Percentage coverage of Progress 8 – students with prior attainment
5. Student P8 numbers

Overall metrics

You can access your Progress 8 by entering the KS4 Performance Measures section from the Connect Homepage, then hovering over the navigation flow on the attainment page. You can add a comparison group to the Progress 8 table. The standard comparisons are gender, ethnicity, EAL and SEND. We are in the process of adding high, mid and low prior attainment to this table.  

Individual student P8 

The student level Progress 8 numbers can be found by navigating to the Student Analysis section from the Connect Homepage. From the overview page, again hover over the navigation flow to find the Progress 8 metrics.

This table contains individual metrics for the overall P8, English, maths, EBacc and Open buckets. This can be exported to excel.

For current Alps users: Any previously published Gradepoints will have been automatically updated to show your Progress 8 figures. 

Important considerations – information below or watch video version HERE

1. The attainment and Progress 8 metrics have been developed in line with DfE rules. If your metrics are to reflect the DfE published values, you should ensure that the following Connect Data imports match with DfE census data:
   • your student import includes all eligible students with their prior attainment data from the Key to Success file
   • your gradepoints (examination or internal monitoring points) contain all subjects eligible for the DfE performance metrics despite the fact that Alps may not have benchmarks/thermometers for these subjects
   • each gradepoint must also contain any eligible examination results from previous examination seasons
2. You may find some discrepancies between your P8 figures for 2018/19 and those published by the DfE. We would urge you to check through the points made above to match these two figures accurately. We do urge you to contact us if you have concerns at this stage on numerical differences.

Scaled scores – calculating P8 

As you are aware, there has been no publication of Attainment 8 average tables which reflect scaled scores as a prior attainment. The P8 figures for cohorts with scaled score prior attainment has been determined as follows:

• 2019 Attainment 8 average table used as a starting point
• scaled scores have been mapped onto the fine grade values in the table using proportional distribution
• cohorts from 2016, 2017 and 2018 have been mapped independently

2022 Progress 8

1. AT8 estimate tables were released by the DfE on 6 October 2022. This table has now been incorporated into Connect. Your Progress 8 data will be recalculated against this 2022 table for all gradepoints in 2021/22. 
2. This 2022 AT8 estimate table will be used within Connect to generate Progress 8 numbers for monitoring purposes across 2022/23.  
3.  KS4 England – We are in the process of generating a KS4 benchmark for data submitted to Alps for 2022. 

To enable you to see your analysis within the context of our Alps 2022 client data-set benchmarks, we will offer the opportunity to toggle between the existing 2019 DfE national benchmark and this new client benchmark within Connect. More detail will follow in the coming weeks. 

The Progress 8 section compliments the Attainment metrics released in January 2022 and your DfE performance measures now sit very neatly within the same platform as your Alps value-added thermometers. 

For more information, watch our 2-minute video from Alps Director of Education and Product Development, Sue Macgregor:

“I’m very happy that these pages have been developed. This is so useful to have alongside the other Alps performance measures.” – Andrew Bowen, Vice Principal, Holyhead School 

If you’d like to hear more about what subscriptions are available, book a demo with our expert team!