The DfE have updated the 2023 Attainment 8 averages and have published the revised scores. These change between October and February because students will have had papers resubmitted for remarking and challenges made to grades awarded.

All 2023 grades have been finalised, and so the DfE have updated the Attainment 8 averages. This happens every year that P8 tables are published.

As the 2023 Attainment 8 averages are used to calculate predicted P8 scores for your students and schools on Pupil Progress, we have updated our platform to use the most accurate set; the revised scores published in February 2024.

We have analysed the changes between the provisional scores published in October 2023 and the updated ones in February 2024. On average, the overall Attainment 8 average has increased by 0.09 between the provisional scores and the revised scores.

In contextual terms this means that, since all KS4 grades have been moderated and finalised, the average student has increased their Attainment 8 score by 0.09 of a grade across their 10 P8 contributing subjects. Now as this isn’t possible for a single student to do, it means that if you took 9 students, approximately one of those students will have had a single grade(that is counted in P8) moderated up by one grade. 

Incidentally this is similar to the change we saw in 2022 when it changed by 0.11, so a very similar ballpark.

The update would mean that you might see your schools P8 prediction decrease by approximately 0.09 per 100 students (if there have been no changes to students' grades). Of course, it won’t be exactly this as it will depend on your cohort’s KS2 average scaled score, but it gives you a ballpark figure.

If your P8 has decreased by more than approximately 0.09, then you can assume that your students' grades have decreased since before February. If they have gone down by less than approximately 0.09, then you have actually seen an increase in student attainment since your last review.