Progress 8 and Attainment 8 Explained: How to Read Secondary School Results in England

Secondary school performance in England is summarised by two headline measures published by the Department for Education after each GCSE year.

Attainment 8

Attainment 8 is the average points a school's pupils scored across eight qualifying GCSEs: English and maths (double-weighted), three English Baccalaureate subjects (sciences, languages, history or geography) and three further approved qualifications. A grade 9 scores 9 points, a grade 4 scores 4, so a school average of 50 means roughly a grade 5 across the board. It is a raw attainment measure, so schools with academically selective or advantaged intakes score highly almost by definition.

Progress 8

Progress 8 compares each pupil's Attainment 8 with the national average for pupils who had the same Key Stage 2 results at the end of primary school. A school score of 0 means pupils achieved as expected; +0.5 means half a grade better in every subject; -0.5 means half a grade worse. Because it adjusts for starting points, it is the closest thing to a value-added measure in the public tables and is the one Ofsted and the DfE lean on.

It has limits: it is noisier for small cohorts, it is affected by pupils who join or leave mid-course, and a handful of very low scores can drag a school's figure down.

Why Progress 8 is missing for 2024/25

The 2025 GCSE cohort sat Key Stage 2 tests in 2020, which were cancelled during the pandemic, so there is no prior-attainment baseline. The DfE did not publish Progress 8 for 2024/25 and will not for 2025/26 for the same reason. This site's England index therefore rests on Attainment 8, grade 5+ in English and maths and A level points until the measure returns.

Reading the figures together

• High Attainment 8 and positive Progress 8: strong intake and strong teaching.
• Moderate Attainment 8 and strongly positive Progress 8: a school adding real value, often in a less advantaged area. These are the ones rankings based on raw results overlook.
• High Attainment 8 and negative Progress 8: an advantaged or selective intake that is not being stretched.

Always check the free school meals share on the profile for context, and look at the proportion achieving grade 5 or above in both English and maths, the "strong pass" that most colleges and employers look for.