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What is Progress 8 and how is it calculated?
What is Progress 8 and how is it calculated?

Key points to remember when tracking using P8 as a whole-cohort metric.

Tobi Davis avatar
Written by Tobi Davis
Updated over 6 months ago

On every qualifying KS4 tracker, providing that your students' KS2 scores have been uploaded to Pupil Progress, a Progress 8 (P8) score should be visible for each student. P8 can be a particularly useful measure to see a whole school picture of performance across a wide range of students and subjects.

Don't have your KS2 data uploaded to the platform? Read this step-by-step guide.


On your KS4 tracker, you can view your students' P8 scores immediately to the right of their Current, Average Unit, and Teacher Predicted Grades.

Click to expand the GIF below ↓

What is P8 and how is it calculated?

P8 is a whole school performance measure that is calculated by comparing where the student should be, based on their KS2 data, and what they are currently achieving.

Students' P8 scores are calculated by:

  1. Taking their attainment grade and converting this into an Attainment 8 (A8) score.

    For most GCSE grades, this is very simple (i.e. a grade 6 = 6.00), but Pupil Progress will convert any vocational grades into their corresponding A8 value based on the DfE's guidance (available from page 62).

  2. Then, calculating the difference between the student's expected A8 score, published by the DfE (p.79) and based off of their KS2 results, and the attainment score produced by your Pupil Progress tracker.

    The DfE publish updated expected attainment scores each year, which we update on Pupil Progress shortly after. See the most recent guidance below:


Some things to note:

  • It is important to remember that P8 is not based on a single qualification or student's grade and instead intended for a wide data range of students and subjects.

  • In many cases, the expected A8 value will not be an exact grade that the student can attain; for example, a student with an English KS2 scaled score of 107 is expected to achieve 5.36 on their GCSE, although on their GCSE they may get a 5 or a 6.


Watch our video walkthrough

For more information on how P8 is calculated and how this correlates with your use of Pupil Progress, take a look at the following video:


πŸ“– Pupil Progress Tip

All of the Progress 8 values are kept up to date with any of the changes in rules from the DfE, and are also based on the live data coming straight from your trackers at a subject level.

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