England KS4 uses Attainment 8 as Progress 8 data is missing

The Department for Education on Thursday published preliminary key stage 4 performance data for the 2024-25 academic year, naming England’s highest-achieving state secondary schools on the basis of Attainment 8 scores after Progress 8 measures could not be calculated. The change affects league tables on the department’s school performance site and comes as parents begin applying for Year 7 places for September 2026.

Officials said Progress 8 scores were unavailable because there is no key stage 2 assessment data to calculate the baseline for the cohort that missed primary assessments during Covid-19 disruptions. The department said it was "not able to calculate Progress 8 scores for the academic year 2024-25" and that the measure will also be absent from next year’s published data. Progress 8 normally shows pupil progress between age 11 and 16; its absence means value-added comparisons between schools cannot be made using the usual national metric.

Instead, schools have been ranked by Attainment 8, which reflects pupils’ raw GCSE performance without accounting for starting points. Attainment 8 adds pupils’ numerical GCSE grades across eight subjects, double-weighting English and...