‘Is Progress 8 progressive... or could it be counter-productive?’

In the wake of the release of the latest GCSE tables, Canterbury Academy principal Phil Karnavas dissects a new measure of performance he claims could spark the “academic cleansing” of less-able pupils

League tables are out again.

The old measure of five A* - C GCSES, including maths and English, which most people understood and enabled schools to be ranked ‘top to bottom’ in one way, has been replaced with a different range of measures, which most people won’t understand but will enable schools to be ranked ‘top to bottom’ in a variety of different ways. One imperfect, somewhat simplistic, system has been replaced with another imperfect, more complicated, one.

Parents, and the press, now have to grapple with ‘Attainment 8’, ‘Progress 8’ and a comparison with the national average, ‘basics’, ‘pupils achieving Ebacc’, ‘pupils entering Ebacc’ and ‘pupil destinations’.

Basics, the percentage getting maths and English at grades A* - C, makes some sense.

As for the rest, who knows whether anyone – except Ofsted, which is expected to downgrade schools which are below and well below the national average on Progress 8 – will care?

Progress 8 is, we are told, the most important measure. A school’s position relative to the national average is, we are told, the most helpful indicator. If this is correct then most local schools are, at least, in line with the national average. Schools that are below this national average will probably face a battering. However, that battering could be hugely unfair.

Attainment and Progress 8 are flawed. In Kent’s selective system these flaws are amplified.

Attainment 8, essentially, forces all schools to offer a grammar school academic curriculum which will be tested with traditional formal examinations. A present Year 8 student, for example, could end up taking almost 30 separate final examinations when they are in Year 11. For some students, especially in nonselective schools, this is wildly inappropriate.

Progress 8, essentially, forces all students to take at least eight broadly academic subjects in a combination which means their points scores will be maximised. Thus, what some students study will have less to do with what is in their best personal interest and have more to do with what is in their school’s best statistical interest.

Progress 8, and the comparison with the national average, also means that a school’s outcomes could improve from one year to the next but its position relative to the national average decline. So a school can ‘do better’ and ‘do worse’ simultaneously.

The statistical model used to calculate Progress 8 places small schools at a massive disadvantage. In a class of 30, if three children fail, for whatever reason, to take any exams then that will wipe out half-a-grade’s progress of each of the other 27. So Progress 8 will be determined not just by the successes of those who do take exams but by the number of students who do, or cannot.

Scale this up and the clear and present danger of Progress 8 becomes obvious.

To improve a school’s Progress 8 score, and that school’s position relative to the national average, the easiest thing to do is remove as many students as possible who cannot, or will not, successfully take the necessary 8 subjects. This can be done in a variety of ways and there is anecdotal evidence that this ‘academic cleansing’ is already happening, especially across the

non-selective sector.

This is no surprise since nonselective schools, serving children whose gifts are not necessarily academic (and denied 30-35% of students whose gifts are academic), have had a more or less continual ‘kicking’ over the past 20 years because their academic outcomes are often below the national average.

Simply removing students can change a school’s minus Progress 8 score to a positive one - the more students that are removed the greater the improvement will be. A bad Ofsted judgement can become a good Ofsted judgement and a school will breathe a sigh of relief until the next time.

In any target driven system, the drive will be to meet targets. In any punitive system, the objective will be to avoid punishment.

In any system where judgements are statistically based, the temptation will be to ‘fiddle the figures’.

If education does degenerate into an exercise in statistical manipulation, if ‘gaming the system’ becomes more important than the system supporting the children it is supposed to serve and some students within it are seen as ‘ acceptable ‘ collateral damage in a school’s pursuit of better results, then Progress 8 – however well-intentioned – will have been massively and damagingly counter-productive.

Perhaps, this will be shortlived. Next year it changes again as GCSE grades A*- G in maths and English are replaced with levels 9 – 1.

No one knows what any of this will mean either!