Teach Secondary Issue 13.6

make up a group of 8 subjects for each student. 3 of these are in the ‘open bucket’, which can be any GCSE or accredited equivalent. A further three thenmake up the ‘EBacc bucket’, which can only comprise subjects included in the English Baccalaureate (namely the sciences, humanities and languages). Finally, youmust include the best English result and the maths GCSE result, making a total of 8 subjects , but 10 grades , since English andmaths count as double. Take all the individual progress 8 scores across Y11, average themand you have the progress 8 score for your school. As I tell my teacher learners, this overall progress 8 score is arguably the single most important indicator of the quality of education at a given school, and perhaps the number that SLT are most likely to lose sleep over... When discussing this with trainee teachers, it doesn’t take them long to realise that if their classes return a grade better than average, it can have a huge impact on their school’s overall performance. This is why rich databases of assessment scores like SISRA exist, and it’s why SLTs are so keen for their staff to identify and focus on key groups of students within their classes or subject areas. Data-driven teaching Being a data-driven teacher is a great way to stand out and further your career. Indeed, I hope that my own training has helped to empower new teachers to be more analytical and better placed to use the rich data at their disposal. In one recent exercise, we examined data from some of my own classes, focusing on two key indicators – the residual grade and the subject progress index (SPI), both of which can be extremely powerful when embarking on impactful learning conversations with students. The SPI is the closest that third-party databases get to being Progress 8 equivalents, being a measure of your students’ GCSE performance against their peers across the rest of the country. If it’s negative, that means they’re underperforming, given their ability. The residual score, on the other hand, tells you how well a student is doing against themselves in other subjects. Some of my current Y10s, for example, are underperforming against their peers nationally (low SPI), but doing better inmy subject than in other subjects at our school. That’s good frommy perspective, as the causes of their underperformance probably stem fromwider issues that I have less agency over. The students can, however, be praised and encouraged – “ Well done in physics – if you can do it here, you can also do it in maths and English too! ” Keeping both of these scores inmind can give you insights into both the performance of your students, and broader ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kit Betts-Masters is a lead practitioner for science and produces physics, education and technology videos for YouTube under the username @KitBetts-Masters. For more information, visit evaluateeverything.co.uk * -1 “TheProgress 8 score is arguably the singlemost important indicatorof the qualityof educationat agiven school” teachwire.net/secondary challenges that you can play a part in addressing. Irrefutable evidence In one of my classes, two students were underperforming against national averages inmy subject, but doing fine in their other subjects. These were students I needed to do something about, and I was happy to admit responsibility for failing to adequately engage them. I have since had those conversations to find out what I can do next to help them, and believe it’s worth modelling this practice to junior teachers. Data tells stories. Personally, I enjoy the process of analysing my own performance, and using insights from those stories to modify and hopefully improve my practice. Those assessment scores – be it Progress 8, SPI, residual grades – are all irrefutable pieces of evidence that attest to the quality of the learning taking place in your classroom. When you achieve above average Progress 8 scores for your class, it’s something to be proud of. You need to understand what the data returned by your groups is telling you. You should be able to see progress over time and fully account for your students’ grades. Those numbers you see in the spreadsheets? Each one represents a genuine improvement in the life opportunities of real people. We’re all in it together, and everyone counts. TEACH SECONDARY SPECIAL ASSESSMENT I N A S S O C I AT I O N W I T H + 29