What Is Progress 8?
How the DfE measures secondary school effectiveness using pupil progress from KS2 to KS4.
The basics
Progress 8 measures how much progress pupils at a school make between the end of primary school (Key Stage 2) and the end of secondary school (Key Stage 4, usually GCSEs). It compares each pupil's results against pupils nationally who had similar KS2 starting points.
How it is calculated
Each pupil's Attainment 8 score is compared to the average Attainment 8 of all pupils nationally with the same KS2 prior attainment. The difference is their individual Progress 8 score. The school's Progress 8 is the average of all its pupils' individual scores. A positive score means pupils made more progress than the national average; a negative score means less.
The eight subject slots
Progress 8 is based on results in eight qualifications across three groups. Slot 1: English (double-weighted). Slot 2: Maths (double-weighted). Slots 3-5: three highest-scoring EBacc qualifications (sciences, languages, geography, history, computer science). Slots 6-8: three further GCSE or approved qualifications.
Interpreting the score
A Progress 8 score of zero means the school's pupils made average progress. A score of +0.5 means pupils achieved roughly half a grade higher across eight subjects than similar pupils nationally. Scores of -0.5 or below are flagged as 'well below average' by the DfE. Confidence intervals matter: the DfE publishes these to show whether a school's score is statistically significantly different from zero.
Known limitations
Progress 8 was not published for the 2024/25 cohort because their KS2 SATs were disrupted by COVID-19 in 2019/20 — there is no reliable baseline against which to measure progress. Schools with very small cohorts have wide confidence intervals, making their scores less reliable. The measure also cannot account for pupil mobility (students who join mid-way through secondary school).
Where MATpulse shows Progress 8
Progress 8 appears on individual school profiles (Performance tab) and is averaged across member schools on trust profiles and the Trust League Table. When the score is suppressed or unavailable, MATpulse displays a dash rather than a misleading zero.