Kent and Medway secondary school league tables October 2016

Kent and Medway secondary schools have seen mixed fortunes in new performance league tables designed to measure how much progress pupils achieve over the period they are at school.

The government has introduced a new measure - Progress 8 - to replace the previous indicator of the number of pupils achieving five or more GCSEs at grade A to C.

Kent was marginally below the national average on the Progress 8 score, with a score of minus 0.04 compared to the national score of 0.03.

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Video: Secondary school league tables are out

In Medway, secondary schools exceeded the national average by 0.5 although it has only one school - Rochester Grammar - which scored well above the national average.

Schools with scores higher than 0.00 reflect better attainment than had been expected.

The Department for Education data for 2015-16 also includes for the first time a related measure called Attainment 8.

This measures the achievement of a pupil across eight qualifications: maths (double weighted), English (double weighted), three English Baccalaureate (EBacc) subjects and three other subjects.

In Kent’s case, this was 50.3 which was above the national average of 49.8.

Eight of the county’s 33 grammar schools scored “well above” the national average in Progress 8, with a further two non-selective schools also ranked as being well above.

The ten top-rated schools were: Tunbridge Wells Girls Grammar; Tonbridge Grammar School; The Skinners School, Tonbridge; Invicta Grammar School, Maidstone; The Judd School; Dartford Grammar (Boys); Weald of Kent Grammar, Tonbridge; Folkestone Girls School; Bennett Memorial School in Tunbridge Wells and St Simon Stock Catholic school in Maidstone.

At the other end of the spectrum, seven secondary schools were ranked as being “well below” the national average.

These were: New Line Learning, Maidstone; Aylesford School; Maidstone; Oasis Academy. Sheppey; Swadelands School, Lenham; Pent Valley, Folkestone; Hartsdown Academy, Thanet; The Holmesdale School.

These were all scored below the government’s new floor target of 0.5 - meaning they could face action or intervention.

On the old measure of GCSE passes at grades A to C, the average for Kent schools was 58.9% - above the previous year of 57.4%.

In Medway, three schools were ranked well below the government’s minimum target: Rivermead School; INSPIRE Free School and Bradfields Academy.

What is Progress 8?

The government has introduced the new measure as a way of giving a more accurate picture of schools’ achievements.

It replaces the previous indicator of ranking schools on the basis of the percentage of pupils passing five or more GCSEs at grades A to C.

Effectively, it seeks to reflect how well children have progressed from the time they left primary school to the time they reach Key Stage 4. It is a type of “value added” measure.

Pupils results are compared to the achievements of other pupils who have the same prior attainment.

The greater the Progress 8 score, the greater the progress made by the pupil.

KENT LEAGUE TABLE