Using Alps KS3 Ascent to track and improve student progress in KS3

The Mind the Engagement Gap report published in 2025, based on tracking more than 100,000 students across 200 schools, measured what happens to students during transition to secondary school.  

Their data showed a stark drop in engagement when children move from primary to secondary school. For example, average pupil enjoyment scores fall from 6.0 in Year 6 to just 3.2 in Year 8.  

Once student engagement is lost, it can be difficult to regain. Secondary pupils in the bottom quartile for engagement are 10% more likely to be persistently absent. 

High-achieving learners find transition difficult if the curriculum expectations in their new setting are pitched too low, or if they are insufficiently stretched. In ‘KS3 The Ambitious Years’ Mary Myatt argues very persuasively that Years 7-9  ‘matter more than we think’. One key theme in her excellent book is that ‘Year 7 doesn’t need protection from difficulty. It needs leaders who speak ambition into existence.’ 

As is often the case KS3 requires leadership that creates the culture needed to drive challenge and ambition. 

In many schools Year 7 leads to an attainment dip. The Education Endowment Foundation identifies three consistent challenges that affect student progress in KS3:  

• social and emotional adjustment
• curriculum continuity 
• the reset of relationships between students and the adults who support them.  

By the end of Year 7, and certainly by Year 8, boredom and stagnation can set in, with undesirable consequences in terms of behaviour and attendance as well as disappointing future attainment and progress in KS4. 

In meetings I have with schools during Year 11 it becomes clear that quite often we are discussing attendance and engagement issues that had their origins in KS3 and had been festering overlong. As Mary Myatt puts it ‘KS3 isn’t a warm-up, it’s where the foundations for everything else are built. If we get KS3 right, KS4 becomes stronger, not harder.’ 

About Alps Ascent at KS3

KS3 Ascent from Alps will provide you with a simple analytical tool to set ambitious goals and to track student attainment across the curriculum to see where your students are making most and least progress. 

Alps Ascent is designed to give senior leaders and Heads of KS3 the clarity and confidence to track student progress, close gaps early and give every student the best start on their journey towards KS4. It takes the trusted Alps approach that so many schools already rely on at KS4 and KS5 and brings it into KS3 – making complex data easy to understand and act upon, with clear visual analytics that support meaningful conversations.

Register your interest today and be among the first schools to experience Alps at Key stage 3

About the author: John Philip

John started working with Alps in 2008, while he was working at Little Heath Comprehensive School. At Little Heath, John used Alps to achieve top 2% performance in value-added progress. Whilst at Little Heath, John worked with schools regionally and nationally through the SSAT Raising Achievement Partnership Programme. Since leaving Little Heath in 2010, John additionally worked as an associate for many secondary schools through PiXL.