Kentish Express Ashford & District
Schools slightly below average for progress in exams
Kent’s secondary schools have seen mixed fortunes in new performance league tables designed to measure how much pupils progress over the period they are at school.
The government has introduced a new measure – Progress 8 – to replace the previous indicator of the number of pupils achieving five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C.
It measures whether pupils have performed to an expected level at GCSE, based on their results at the end of primary school.
Kent was marginally below the national average on the Progress 8 score, with a score of -0.04 compared with the national average of 0.03.
In Medway, secondary schools exceeded the national average by 0.5, although it has only one school – Rochester Grammar – which scored well above the national average.
Schools with scores higher than 0.00 reflect better attainment than had been expected.
The Department for Education data for 2015-16 also includes for the first time a related measure called Attainment 8.
This measures the achievement of a pupil across eight qualifications: maths (double weighted), English (double weighted), three English Baccalaureate (EBacc) subjects and three other subjects.
In Kent’s case, this was 50.3, which was above the national average of 49.8. Eight of the county’s 33 grammar schools scored “well above” the national average in Progress 8, with a further two non-selective schools also ranked as being well above.
The 10 top-rated schools were: Tunbridge Wells Girls Grammar; Tonbridge Grammar School; The Skinners’ School, Tonbridge; Invicta Grammar School, Maidstone; The Judd School, Tonbridge; Dartford Grammar (Boys); Weald of Kent Grammar, Tonbridge; Folkestone Girls’ School; Bennett Memorial School in Tunbridge Wells and St Simon Stock Catholic School in Maidstone.
At the other end of the spectrum, seven were ranked as being “well below” the national average. These were: New Line Learning, Maidstone; Aylesford School; Oasis Academy, Sheppey; Swadelands School, Lenham; Pent Valley, Folkestone; Hartsdown Academy, Margate; The Holmesdale School, Snodland.
These were all scored below the government’s new floor target of 0.5 – meaning they could face action or intervention.
On the old measure of GCSE passes at A* to C, the average for Kent schools was 58.9% – above the previous year of 57.4%.
In Medway, three schools were ranked well below the government’s minimum target: Rivermead School, Gillingham; Inspire Free School, Chatham; and Bradfields Academy, Chatham.