Attainment, Progress and Relative Attainment KS4

“Attainment 8 is a way of measuring how well children do in key stage 4, which they usually finish when they are 16 years old.

The 8 subjects which make up Attainment 8 include English and maths. Out of the remaining 6 subjects:
• 3 must come from qualifications that count towards the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), like sciences, a language and history
• 3 qualifications can be either GCSE qualifications (including EBacc subjects) or technical awards from a list approved by the Department for Education

Each grade a pupil achieves is assigned a point score from 9 (the highest) to 1 (the lowest).

A pupil’s Attainment 8 score is calculated by adding up the points for their 8 subjects, with English and maths counted twice. A school's Attainment 8 score is the average of all of its eligible pupils’ scores”. (DfE)

“A Progress 8 score is calculated for each pupil by comparing their Attainment 8 score with the average Attainment 8 scores of all pupils nationally who had a similar starting point, using assessment results from the end of primary school. The greater the Progress 8 score, the greater the progress made by the pupil compared to the average for pupils with similar prior attainment. A school’s Progress 8 score is calculated as the average of its pupils’ Progress 8 scores. It gives an indication of whether, as a group, pupils in the school made above or below average progress compared to similar pupils in other schools.
• A score of zero means pupils in this school on average do as well at key stage 4 as other pupils across England who got similar results at the end of key stage 2
• A score above zero means pupils made more progress, on average, than pupils across England who got similar results at the end of key stage 2
• A score below zero means pupils made less progress, on average, than pupils across England who got similar results at the end of key stage 2” (DfE)