High School Results 2016

School 2016 GCSE performance tables were published 19 January 2017 so we can take a look at how Culcheth High School performed compared to other schools. The tables are different to previous years because new measures called Attainment 8 and Progress 8 have been introduced as well as the English Baccalaureate (EBacc is awarded when students secure a GCSE grade C or above in five academic subjects – english, mathematics, history or geography, a science and a language). These measures are more rigorous than previous years but more complicated.

Attainment 8 is the achievement of a pupil across 8 qualifications: mathematics (double weighted), english (double weighted), three EBacc subjects and three other subjects. Each qualifying GCSE subject grade is converted into a score 1-8 (A* is 8, A is 7, B is 6, C is 5, etc). Maths & english are double weighted so a B in maths becomes 12. The school's Attainment 8 score is the average score for all pupils in the cohort.

The following chart summarises the results for Warrington high schools showing the % of pupils passing the EBacc and the average Attainment 8 score for each school. We can see that Culcheth has the best overall performance.

Chart comparing Warrington schools

Of course, a pupil's results in exams does not depend only on what the school does. Other factors such as innate ability and parental support have an effect on results. A school may get good GCSE results simply because it recruits able pupils. In an effort to measure the impact of the school rather than these other factors, the government has introduced the new Progress 8 measure which attempts to track progress rather than just results in GCSE. It is a calculation that compares a pupil's attainment in GCSE with the performance of other pupils across the country who had similar attainment when they left primary school. A pupil’s Progress 8 score is their Attainment 8 score minus their estimated Attainment 8 score. The school’s Progress 8 score is the average of all its pupils’ individual Progress 8 scores. If all pupils achieve results that could be expected from their attainment when they left primary school then the score will be zero. A positive result indicates that pupils have done better than expected and a negative result indicates pupils have under achieved. The method of calculation means that most schools will have an overall Progress 8 result between +1 and -1 with the average being zero. A score of - 0.5 indicates that on average pupils in this school achieve half a grade less than other pupils nationally with similar starting points. This Progress 8 score helps to identify schools that may be under performing or coasting.

The following chart shows the Progress 8 scores for Warrington schools:

Chart comparing Warrington schools

The schools with scores close to zero (Culcheth, Lymm, Bridgewater, Beamont and Cardinal Newman) have average performance for the expected progress of their pupils. This means that pupils are achieving GCSE results in line with other pupils nationally that had similar attainment when they left primary school. The other schools shown in the chart are below average for expected progress, which means their pupils are under achieving. None of the schools is significantly above average.

It is interesting that in previous years the key performance measure of the % of pupils achieving 5 GCSE passes showed Warrington was above the national average but under this new Progress 8 measure they are below the national average.