At Key Stage 4, London is the top performing region for the key attainment and progress measures. By key stage 5, that position slipped to 5th and 6th out of 9 regions. As part of our work on the GLA annual education report for 2015 (see our casestudy), we reviewed the underpinning data to understand the causes.
We found 4 interesting facts:
- Lower prior attainment – London schools are more likely to accept lower performing Key Stage 4 pupils into post-16 provision, especially on vocational courses. Whilst these pupils go on to achieve a full level 3 qualification, they are less likely to get as high an overall point score as students that have better prior attainment
- Overstretching – After GCSEs, pupils in London are more likely to attend a school rather than a college. Schools typically offer less level 2 provision than colleges. Students in London are therefore more likely to start a level 3 programme. In some cases a level 2 qualification might have been more appropriate
- Fewer A-levels per student – Fewer academic qualifications are taken per student in London making the points per student comparatively weaker than points per entry[1]
- Fewer higher grades – London does well at getting students to obtain some A-level or equivalent (top ranked at achieving two E-grades at A-level) but not so good at the achievement of higher grades.
You can read more in the full report here. Or you can explore our interactive tool showing how London compares on all the Key Stage performance indicators here.
[1] Each GCSE-level qualification and grade is given a specific score in points. This is used to calculate:
- Points per entry – calculated as the sum of the points awarded to each student, divided by the total number of qualification entries.
- Points per student – calculated as the sum of the points awarded to each student, divided by the total number of students.
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