Progress 8 was introduced as an accountability measure for all schools in England in 2016. It aimed to improve on the previous measure (the percentage of pupils achieving five GCSEs at A*-C including English and maths) by taking prior attainment into account. And incentivising schools to focus their efforts on all pupils, rather than those at the C/D borderline[1].
But what we’re interested in here is what’s happened since then. There are a number of ways schools might have acted to optimise their P8 scores, beyond simply improving the quality of teaching and education. Some, e.g. changing their curricula, perhaps more ethical than others, e.g. off-rolling.
There have also been a variety of external factors which may have affected some schools more than others: reforms to GCSEs, teacher recruitment issues, and, of course, the pandemic, to name a few.
With last week’s announcement that Progress 8 scores will not be calculated in 2025 and 2026, and Labour’s plans to reform Progress 8 should they win the next general election, it’s possible that 2024 will be the last time we see Progress 8 in its current form.
