Proposed changes to league tables will make “little difference” to the progress 8 and attainment 8 scores of most schools, but will likely affect GCSE entries, with just 65 per cent of current students filling all slots on the reformed measures, analysis suggests.
FFT Education Datalab has analysed the impact proposed changes to league tables will have, based on entries and outcomes for pupils who say their GCSEs last year.
At present, schools are given a progress score based on pupils’ improvement since primary school in eight subject “buckets”.
The first two are English and maths, and three more have to be EBacc subjects – including sciences, languages or humanities. The remaining three are “open” buckets for any other qualifications.
Under the government’s proposal, English and maths will remain the first two buckets, but two buckets will be created specifically for science qualifications, including double science, the separate sciences and computing.
The remaining four would be new “breadth” buckets, and these would have to include a subject from two of the three categories of humanities, creative subjects and language.
‘Little difference’ to scores
Datalab’s analysis found that if applying the new rules to last year’s results, 92 per cent of schools “ended up with a revised score within 0.1 points of their existing score”.
Six per cent of schools would have a progress 8 score between 0.1 and 0.2 points below their previous score, and just 1 per cent would have a score over 0.2 points lower.
The effect on attainment 8 scores was also minimal, the analysis found.
The national average score for state-funded mainstream schools “would have fallen by 1 point from 46.9 to 45.9 had the new method been used in 2024”.
Thirty-six per cent of pupils would have had a lower attainment 8 score if the new methodology had been used last year.
For 7 per cent, the difference would have been 5 or more points lower. Around 2 per cent would have achieved a higher score.
1 in 3 pupils’ entries not compliant
However, the changes are “likely to have more of an impact on the qualifications for which pupils are entered”.
Datalab found that just 65 per cent of pupils in 2024 entered qualifications that would have filled all 10 slots of the new league tables measures (English and maths are double-weighted).
This was “largely due to having insufficient entries to fill group 4, the slots reserved for 2 subjects from humanities, creative subjects and languages”.
This was “particularly the case for disadvantaged pupils. Fifty-four per cent filled all 10 slots.”
Overall, 33 per cent of pupils do not fill their group 4 slots.
Six per cent of pupils had no entries in any of the three categories of subject. Twenty-three per cent were only entered for a humanities subject, 3 per cent only for a creative subject and 1 per cent just for a language.
The new measures will class religious studies as a humanities subject for the first time. Datalab said 88 per cent of pupils entered at least one humanities subject based on the new definition in 2024.
Overall, 35 per cent of pupils currently enter two or more humanities subjects. This is because “many students currently take geography or history to count alongside double science in order to fill the EBacc slots.
“There is a risk that entries will fall as a result of the less restrictive new methodology.”
‘A shift back to GCSE’
The government has also said that vocational and technical qualifications won’t count in group 4 under the new measures. For example, a technical award in performing arts won’t count as a pupil’s creative subject.
Dave Thomson, who ran the analysis for Datalab, said this was “likely to result in a shift back to GCSE.
“Secondly, the incentives to enter pupils for geography or history have been reduced.
“What we will see is an increase in the percentage of pupils filling their ‘group 4’ slots. This will mean taking either a creative subject or a language.
“Given the harsher grading of languages, I suspect that we will see more of an increase in entries in the creative subjects.”
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