Academy chiefs have railed against new MAT league tables for failing to “reflect the progress students make in non-selective schools”, after dozens dropped places amid changes to the way trusts are ranked.
Two of the top three-ranked trusts in newly published tables run grammar schools, Schools Week can reveal, up from zero last year.
The analysis also shows that a number of serial high performers suffered after the progress 8 performance measure was put on pause for two years. Meanwhile, others climbed the table despite posting worse results.
Who’s at the top?
Progress 8, which measures the progress between the end of primary school and GCSEs, cannot be calculated this year and next because SATs were cancelled during the pandemic.
Instead, the government’s performance website now defaults to ranking MATs by attainment 8 scores. The measure scores pupils across eight GCSE subjects, including English and maths.
The Girls’ Learning Trust – which runs three schools in London – topped the league table. It rose from fourth last year, even though its attainment 8 score reduced slightly.
It was joined in the top three by the Twyford Church of England Academies Trust and King Edward VI Academy Trust Birmingham.
CEO Dr Thomas Flynn said he didn’t believe league tables were a “particularly meaningful way” of comparing trusts.
His trust’s results are “a testament to the skill, commitment and hard work of our teachers and staff, and to the ambition and dedication of our students”. But he acknowledged being a “relatively small” chain “with [two] selective schools in it inevitably shapes headline measures”.
Selective schools better off?
Of the trusts in the top 10, four run selective schools. The figure stood at two last year, with none coming higher than fourth.
This time, Twyford was the only trust in the top three that did not run a grammar.
Alice Hudson, its CEO, would “welcome the return of a measure which affirms and encourages students by celebrating the distance travelled as well as recognising the different contexts in which schools and MATs are working”.
Our analysis shows 21 of those within the 50 highest trusts this year registered lower GCSE results than 12 months ago. Fourteen improved their position in the table despite this.
‘Superficial’
Twenty-two of the MATs in last year’s top 50 have dropped out. The South Lincolnshire Academies Trust slipped to 158th.
CEO Jemma Curson argued that the use of attainment 8 data “does not reflect the progress students make in non-selective schools”.
The trust included a new school which joined the chain after being rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted.
It has since been rated ‘good’, but Curson added that the “exceptional progress students have made [there]… has not yet been recognised”.
Adrian Rogers, CEO of Chiltern Learning Trust, said using the measure “to compare school performance and league table schools is inappropriate and superficial”.
“This comparison is too crude to help school leaders or parents. Schools with lower pupil attainment on entry will be judged unfairly.”
His MAT went from traditionally being “in the top 20, and often top 10,” to 60th this year.
Biggest jumps
Our findings show 17 MATs entered the top 50 this year. The Bright Futures Educational Trust witnessed the largest rise, leaping from 188th to 28th.
The Bishop Fraser Trust moved from 109th to 48th. Dr Tuesday Humby, its CEO, said this was despite the prior attainment of her pupils being “close to national” across her academies.
Our analysis also shows more trusts from the South-east made their way into the top 50. Twenty per cent were based there, compared to 12 per cent last year.
The South-east, London and East of England had the joint highest number of MATs in the list. Meanwhile, Yorkshire and the Humber witnessed the biggest drop (six percentage points). It came joint bottom with the West Midlands.
Fairer measures?
In the absence of progress 8, Dave Thomson, chief statistician at FFT Education Datalab, said the government had two options that would have been fairer than attainment 8.
One would have been to use the previous year’s estimated attainment 8 score and compare it with results for 2024-25 to “create a proxy” progress 8 figure. The other would involve “each school’s A8 score with the average of a set of similar” secondaries.
Thomson noted that “60 per cent of the variation in pupils’ attainment 8 scores can be explained by their prior attainment”.
In 2016, progress 8 replaced five A*-C including English and maths as the main performance metric for secondary schools.
The government has pledged to “reform” the measure – which could return in two years’ time. But previous FFT analysis suggests the changes will make “little difference” to the scores of most schools.
Your thoughts