What are Attainment 8 scores? How they can be used to compare secondary school GCSE performance

• Preliminary secondary school performance figures for the 2025 exam season are out now
• Progress 8 scores, which are commonly used to compare schools, aren’t included this year
• Schools can instead be sorted by their Attainment 8 scores
• These solely focus on how pupils did in their GCSEs, without taking their starting point into account

Secondary school league tables are a popular and accessible way to get a basic understanding of school performance – but they’ll look a little different this year.

This week, the Department for Education released its new preliminary 2024/25 key stage 4 performance data for state-funded secondary schools across England. This means that the highest-performing schools of the 2025 GCSE exam season can now be named.

The official figures allow schools to be sorted by a variety of metrics, although this year, the default one commonly used to rank them has changed. School performance is being measured by their Attainment 8 scores in 2025, and the usual Progress 8 scores could not be calculated.

But why exactly is that – and how can performance-minded parents interpret Attainment 8 scores? Here’s everything you need to know:

What are Attainment 8 scores – and how are they calculated?

While Progress 8 scores measure pupil progress from the end of primary school through to when they take their GCSEs, the Attainment 8 score shows how pupils have performed without taking their starting points into account.

According to Government guidance, it is calculated using their grades in the compulsory English and maths GCSEs – each usually double-weighted – as well as their best grades in three other English Baccalaureate subjects (which include sciences, languages, history and geography), and then their highest marks in three additional GCSE subjects or other approved qualifications.

GCSEs are now graded on a 9-1 grading scale, with 9 being the highest. The number grades learners achieve will then be added together for a maximum score of 90. This also means that if you divide them by 10, you’ll get a pupil’s average grade.

The Attainment 8 score each school has will be the average score of all pupils across the year group. Dividing it by 10 can also show you that school’s average GCSE grade.

Why are there no Progress 8 scores this year?

On the Government’s compare schools site, it says it was not able to calculate Progress 8 scores for the most recent school year, nor will it be able to do so for the current 2025/26 one. “This is because there is no [key stage two] assessment data available to calculate the baseline for Progress 8 for these years due to Covid-19 disruption.”

During the pandemic, the 2020 and 2021 summer exams seasons were cancelled to limit the spread of the virus. This included A Levels, GCSEs, and primary school assessments like SATs. SATs – or standard assessment tests – are sat by pupils in their final year of primary school, and are used to measure literacy and numeracy skills.

They’re also used to calculate a pupil’s starting point when it comes to Progress 8 scores. The pupils who missed those exams in 2020 will largely be the same cohort that took their GCSEs this year, which is why the scores were not able to be calculated.

To learn more about the lasting impact that the pandemic continues to have on young people’s education, check out our other coverage online here.