I never thought I’d say this.
For years, Progress 8 became shorthand for everything people disliked about school accountability. It distorted behaviour. It narrowed conversations. In some cases, it encouraged schools to focus too heavily on data and not enough on the substance of education.
And yet…
I’ve really missed it.
Not because it was perfect. It wasn’t.
But because in its absence, I increasingly find myself asking a different question:
How are we judging school achievement fairly without a meaningful measure of progress?
That question has been on my mind a lot recently when thinking about Ofsted’s achievement judgement.
Intent, Implementation… and Impact
Ofsted’s framework is often explained through the three “I’s”: Intent, Implementation and Impact.
To put that into everyday terms, imagine a slightly overweight man in his forties deciding it’s time to get fit.
His intent is excellent. He writes a thoughtful plan about why health, strength and longevity matter. His ambition is clear: six-pack abs and arms that threaten to rip the sleeves off his shirts.
His implementation is… inconsistent. He goes to the gym three times a week but somehow spends more time near the vending machine than the weights rack.
And the impact?
After a few months he’s lost a couple of pounds but hasn’t got noticeably stronger. The six-pack remains a distant aspiration.
Under a purely plan-focused system we might spend most of our time admiring the strategy and praising the commitment to turning up at the gym.
Under a purely outcomes-focused system we might skip straight to the scales and the body-fat calipers.
Neither approach quite works.
Because when it comes to schools — just as with fitness — intent matters, implementation matters and impact matters too.
The challenge for any accountability system is getting the balance right.
When Achievement Becomes Attainment
Ofsted’s achievement judgement is supposed to capture how well pupils learn the curriculum over time.
In theory it should consider all three elements:
- what schools intend pupils to learn
- how well the curriculum is taught
- what pupils ultimately know and can do.
But in practice the conversation about achievement often collapses into something much narrower:
attainment.
Exam results remain the only nationally standardised evidence of learning. When inspectors need objective evidence of impact, outcomes inevitably become part of the picture.
That is understandable.
But attainment alone cannot tell the full story.
Schools Do Not Start From the Same Place
Schools inherit very different starting points.
By the end of primary school only around 45% of disadvantaged pupils reach the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, compared with roughly two-thirds of their peers.
Those gaps exist before secondary schools even begin their work.
As Ofsted’s Chief Inspector has pointed out, the attainment gap “begins early and widens throughout the educational phases.”
Attendance adds another layer of challenge.
Around one in five pupils is now persistently absent, meaning they miss at least 10% of school sessions.
Anyone working in schools knows how significant that is for learning.
Yet when we judge schools primarily through end outcomes, these differences in starting points and access to education are often invisible.
Attainment in isolation risks measuring circumstance as much as school effectiveness.
Why Progress Measures Exist
This is precisely why value-added measures were introduced.
Progress measures ask a different question from attainment.
Not simply:
Where did pupils finish?
But:
How far did they travel?
Under the previous inspection framework it was possible for schools with very weak progress scores — sometimes around –1 on Progress 8 — to receive a “Good” judgement.
In hindsight, that probably wasn’t right either.
If pupils consistently achieve significantly below the outcomes of similar pupils nationally, that raises serious questions.
But removing the central role of progress measures creates a different problem.
Without them, the system struggles to distinguish between:
- school impact
- pupil intake
Attainment tells us what pupils achieved.
Progress tells us what the school helped them achieve.
A fair accountability system needs both.
Why I’m Looking Forward to Progress 8 Returning
This is why I find myself cautiously optimistic about the return of Progress 8 or similar value-added measures.
Progress measures are not perfect.
They rely heavily on Key Stage 2 outcomes as a baseline and cannot fully account for factors such as attendance, mobility between schools or wider social circumstances.
No statistical model can perfectly isolate the effect of a school.
But the absence of progress measures creates a bigger problem.
Without them, accountability relies heavily on end-point attainment, which inevitably favours schools serving more advantaged communities.
Progress measures do not completely level the playing field.
But they are far more equitable than attainment alone.
A Question of Timing
It also raises an interesting question about timing.
If value-added measures such as Progress 8 return to the accountability system, schools inspected after their reintroduction may benefit from a more complete picture of achievement than those inspected in the current transitional period
Inspection will always involve professional judgement.
But progress measures provide important context for interpreting outcomes. When that context is missing, it becomes harder to distinguish between pupil intake and school impact.
In that sense, the return of value-added measures could help ensure that future inspections are better informed — and potentially fairer — in how they evaluate achievement.
The Same Issue Exists at Key Stage 5
The same principle applies at post-16.
Sixth forms are often celebrated for impressive headline outcomes: high proportions of A and A* grades and strong university destinations.
But these outcomes are frequently shaped by prior attainment at GCSE.
If a sixth form recruits pupils with predominantly grade 8s and 9s, strong A-level results are hardly surprising.
In many cases students are simply achieving what their prior attainment predicted.
Value-added measures at Key Stage 5 exist to ask a more meaningful question:
Did students achieve more than might reasonably have been expected given their starting points?
Without that lens, it becomes easy to celebrate outcomes that reflect intake rather than impact.
Ofsted’s Role
Debates about accountability often become debates about Ofsted itself.
Views on inspection are rarely neutral. They are shaped by personal experience and philosophical views about the regulation of schools.
It is also important to recognise what Ofsted is — and what it is not.
Ofsted has never been a school-improvement service.
Its role is evaluative.
Inspection can highlight strengths and weaknesses, but the work of improvement sits with school leaders, trusts and professional networks.
For that evaluative role to function effectively, inspection still needs credible evidence about pupil outcomes.
Better Intelligence for Schools
At The Excellence Hub, this principle shapes much of how we think about school data.
School leaders already hold huge amounts of information about pupils. The challenge is rarely the lack of data — it is having the time and clarity to interpret it well.
That is why we developed GradeUp.
GradeUp is designed to help schools save time, understand pupil progress more clearly and make better-informed decisions about learning.
By connecting prior attainment, expected outcomes and current performance, it helps leaders quickly identify where pupils are thriving and where additional support is needed.
In short, it helps schools turn data into better intelligence — and ultimately better outcomes for children.
Getting the Balance Right
There will always be debate about Ofsted and accountability.
Some will argue the system relies too heavily on data. Others will say it doesn’t rely on it enough.
But the central question should remain simple:
Did the school help pupils achieve more than they otherwise would have done?
Intent matters.
Implementation matters.
But ultimately impact matters too.
Because without progress measures we risk confusing advantage with effectiveness.
The return of value-added measures will not create a perfect system.
But it should help create a more informed and more equitable one.
Just like getting fit, the plan matters and the effort matters.
But in the end, the results still tell you something important.
