Should Progress 8 be radically changed?

Since writing “What is the short-term future for Progress 8?”, the continuing delay from the DfE to clarify the headline accountability measures in 2025 and 2026 has led to some calling for the abolition of Progress 8 (P8). This was captured very well in the TES article “Is this the end nigh for Progress 8 – and if not, should it be?” by Gráinne Hallahan.

The A8 estimates that are central to P8 methodology are context blind. In other words, the A8 estimates are solely based on the KS2 prior attainment of each student and do not vary because of factors such as the student’s gender, ethnicity, or disadvantaged status, nor because of the area in which the school is located.

Yet annually, all these contextual factors, and others, do impact on a school’s P8 rating because, for example, boys make less progress than girls, disadvantaged students make less progress than their peers and outcomes and average P8 scores vary dramatically regionally.

So, should the A8 estimates be weighted to take all such contextual factors into account?

The key problem in going down that road is doing so immediately entrenches the lower expectations for some groups of students. It runs the significant risk of ensuring that the gaps that need closing become ‘acceptable’.

To pick one group of students as the example, should we build the expectation that disadvantaged students will continue to make less progress than their peers into our accountability measures? In 2023, the average P8 score for disadvantaged students was -0.57 and for non-disadvantaged pupils it was +0.17. As the gap is 0.74, should a disadvantaged student be expected to gain 74% lower grades than a non-disadvantaged student who achieved the same KS2 score aged 11? If the disadvantaged student is at a school in the North-East, where the average regional P8 for all students was -0.27 in 2023, should even less be expected?

“It is our job, as educators, to transform the future.” – John Philip

In my view, it is our job as educators to transform the future, and to expect less of students because of contextual factors has never sat well with me. As Professor Tim Leunig has said: “It would be dangerous to say we expect less from less resourced children.” 

In 2023, 73 schools gained a P8 score higher than 1.00. Of those, 9 had +40% Pupil Premium students in their cohorts. One of the 9 was an all boys’ school. One school in Birmingham, where 93% of the students were Pupil Premium, achieved a P8 score of +0.33.

A better way forward…

Looking for where and how schools buck national trends and learning from them, as system leaders, strikes me as a better way forward.

2015 was the final year that the KS4 Performance Tables were based on 5+ A*-C, including English Language and Maths. No school that achieved 100% on 5+A*-C – including English Language and Maths – had as many as 10% disadvantaged students. Of the 8 secondary schools with more than 100 Y11 students with at least 80% disadvantaged, the highest ranked achieved a creditable 67% 5+ A*-C, including English Language and Maths.

The stark fact is that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds have not achieved the outcomes nor made the progress that we would want them to, except in a relatively small number of schools.

As Sam Tuckett, Emily Hunt, David Robinson and Robbie Cruickshanks wrote in ‘Covid-19 and Disadvantage Gaps’ “the GCSE gap for persistently disadvantaged pupils – those who are disadvantaged for at least 80% of their school lifetimes – widened by 0.10 grades (or 6 per cent) in 2021 to 1.70 grades. Comparing 2021 to 2011, there has been no progress in closing the gap for persistently disadvantaged pupils over the last decade.”

So, should Progress 8 be radically changed because it is unfair?

1: Whether based on attainment or progress, Performance Tables are liable to reflect lower ratings for schools in disadvantaged areas with higher percentages of relatively under-achieving student groups.

2: Progress is a preferable measure to attainment as it shows the value-added by the school so is fairer to comprehensive schools and secondary moderns.

So, while there are other compelling reasons for tweaking Progress 8 (for example, its impact on creative subjects), I am against abolition. In terms of tweaking it, I have always thought that the Alps Quality Indicator, which excludes no subjects and has no ‘bucket’ rules, is a far fairer way of judging the overall quality of a school’s KS4 curriculum.

On a final note, what is really needed is for the DfE to introduce a more sensitive and nuanced way of presenting school headline data in a fairer way.

Don’t lower the ‘expected outcomes’ for boys, disadvantaged students or for schools in under-performing regions, but do introduce simple ways of showing how these contextual factors may have impacted on each school’s headline figures.

One such solution would be to have additional ratings using the ‘Well Above Average etc’ ratings for schools in a variety of contextual categories, for example:

• Boys’ schools
• Schools with varying grouped percentages of disadvantaged students
• Schools in different regions

End note from Alps

We currently work with over 1,200 schools and colleges and 95 Groups and MATs in the UK and internationally, offering our high-quality analysis at both KS4 and KS5.

If you do not use Alps, but are interested in how Alps could support you to improve your outcomes, do not hesitate to contact one of our friendly team at [email protected] . You can also call us 01484 887600 and we will be delighted to speak to you, or you can book a demo with one of our knowledgeable team here.

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 terms. He also worked with schools regionally and nationally through the Raising Achievement Partnership Programme. Since leaving Little Heath in 2010, John additionally works as an associate for 22 secondary schools through PiXL.