Last week the Department for Education published performance tables for secondary schools across the country. Based on figures provided by the DfE the tables show how every school and college in England performed at GCSE, A-level and other academic and vocational qualifications in summer 2018.

The relatively new Progress 8 indicator shows how a school is performing nationally in terms of seeing students’ progress in eight core subjects from primary school to secondary.

Whilst the process of calculating Progress 8 is rather complex, the main thing as parents you need to know is that a minus score (below 0) means the school is performing below the national average, a neutral score (0) means the school is performing at the national average, and a positive score (above 0) means the school is performing above the national average. The higher or lower the score, the better or worse your child’s school is performing.

We are delighted that our published Progress 8 Score for our Key Stage 4 GCSE results is 0.05. Whilst we will continue to work hard to improve this measure further this positive score places us just below the top 30% of schools nationally and is something to be proud of.

For other key measures related to attainment, performance in English and Maths and student destinations beyond Key Stage 4, our results place us above Hertfordshire and also above the national measures.

At Key Stage 5 our A level results are even more impressive and the DfE have placed Bushey Meads School in the top 22% of schools nationally with a very positive score of +0.17 When compared to all other local schools and colleges this places Bushey Meads in one of the top spots locally for adding value to education at sixth form level.

Our student destination data beyond Bushey Meads School also shows a very positive picture with a greater percentage of students moving onto to University, Higher Level Apprenticeships or exciting employment opportunities when compared to both Hertfordshire and national measures.

Clearly the national data indicates that all teachers and teaching assistants are contributing massively to ensuring that each and every student at Bushey Meads is achieving beyond expectations and above their potential, based on their prior attainment.

This places our school well above the majority of the 3000 maintained schools in the country for adding value to children’s education and demonstrates that your children are clearly in the right school in an inspiring learning environment, supported by hard working successful staff who, on a daily basis, go the extra mile to ensure they are happy, safe and achieving at the highest level. This is obviously something to be very proud of.

Thank you for the hugely important part that you all as parents and carers play to make Bushey Meads School such a great school – it is much appreciated by us all.