National League Tables are used for all schools to measure certain aspects within the school’s curriculum, these tables play a pivotal role in assisting parents, carers and others to measure how successful a school has become. There are many who believe that Progress 8 works however there are calls to take into consideration characteristics of every pupil in the report to give a true reflection on each school, as all educators will know, every pupil is unique.
The Progress 8 Measure was brought in by the government to easily quantify progress made by pupils throughout secondary levels, naturally; this means that Progress 8 will be fantastic for affluent areas and not so good for deprived areas therefore we must ask; Is there any point? The report needs to include specific data on pupils to be able to give a fair account of progress throughout a child’s schooling life.
All the DfE need to do is add a contextual value to each child; by doing this, the school can be seen to adhering to Progress 8 by showing their progression within the subjects and having relative written evidence to ascertain a true outlook on each pupil. Contextual Values could also further assist parents, carers and all other educators in a potential progression plan for that pupil.