Alps Analysis of A level ENGLAND - AUGUST 2024

Alps Analysis of A level ENGLAND - AUGUST 2024

2024 A Level Results in England 

This article presents an overview of the findings from the A level Alps provider benchmarks for England. It provides an overview of the national attainment picture before presenting a summary of the Alps provider Minimum Expected Grades, and Quality Indicator shifts for 2024. It concludes with an overview of the recommendations for benchmark selection for analysing your 2024 results for A level, and for target setting and tracking across 2024/25. 

Following the release of this years A-level examination results we have analysed the data released by  the Joint Council of Qualifications and Ofqual alongside the data uploaded to Alps by our schools to help provide you with the key information that we think will be useful at this stage.


What do we know so far?


Ofqual reported that the national results in 2024 were expected to be broadly similar to 2023 outcomes. 

The percentage of different grades are broadly in line with those awarded in 2023 at both cohort and student level. Ofqual chief regulator, Ian Bauckham has said 'There is no grade inflation this year. Standards have been maintained from 2023 and any change is largely due to the ability of the cohort'. 


A level Attainment Profile - England
Results for attainment showing gaps between 2019 and 2024, and between 2023 and 2024. 



The key points: 
Compared with 2019,
  1. the percentage A* is 1.6% higher
  2. the percentage A*-A is 2.5% higher
  3. the percentage A*-B is 2.5% higher
Compared with 20,
  1. the percentage A* is 0.6% higher
  2. the percentage A*-A is 1.1% higher
  3. the percentage A*-B is 0.9% higher

Subject attainment

At a subject level results follow a varied pattern.  Analysis of A*grades below indicates that in some subjects, for example in mathematics outcomes are similar to 2023. In other subjects there was a greater increase in A* percentage and in other the A* percentage dropped slightly. Therefore colleagues should view subject attainment on an individual basis. 




Alps Provider Analysis of 2024 A-level Results - value-added analysis


The 2024 results see the return of an examined baseline and examined outcome set for Key Stage 5 students. Using the data submitted to Alps since results day, we have carried out a thorough analysis of the dataset and present our findings below. 

Prior attainment baseline


The table above shows that the average prior attainment GCSE score is lower than the TAGs of last year's cohort, but still higher than the 2019 value of 6.11. This means that if we were to represent the value-added profile diagrammatically over the past few years, we would see the following pattern. 




The starting point has fluctuated over the past few years, but the outcome end point has also fluctuated. The arrow shows the relative size of the value-added progress journey.

At the beginning of the 2023/24 academic year, we advised that the 2019 national dataset represented the most beneficial benchmark on which to base your target setting and tracking priorities. It was the last DfE national benchmark and provided a robust dataset from which to set aspirational Minimum Expected Grades (MEGs). We argued that:

  1. Students in Year 13 may be in higher prior attainment bands than they might have been in 2019, and therefore Minimum Expected Points and MEGs may be a grade to a split grade above where you might expect, depending on Alps band. 
  2. Monitoring against the 2019 benchmark is likely to result in your tracking being slightly more 'blue' than it may end up when compared to Alps provider benchmarks which will be generated from 2024 results.
  3. Taking all factors into account, we advise that you seriously consider using the 2019 national benchmarks to track Year 13 across 2023.24. We will generate a new provider benchmark in the days following the 2024 examination results, and we would expect that you may see your overall grades improve slightly. We would consider that this may be a more palatable situation than using the 2023 provider benchmark and having Alps grades drop if analysed against the 2024 provider benchmark. 

The actual 2024 value-added arrow does indeed show a more truncated picture than in 2019, and implies that improvement in your Alps grades when switching to the provider benchmark. The next section of this article will take you specific details of the data in the provider benchmark and the potential implications of the application of the Alps provider benchmark to your analysis. 


MEPs and MEGs

The diagram below shows the Alps prior attainment bands for A level from 1 to 11 and the proportion of students in each band. It compares the 2019 DfE national dataset with the Alps provider dataset from 2023 and 2024.

Note that the 2024 Alps provider dataset contains approximately 50% of the entries contained in the national dataset, approximately 102,000 students and over 300,000 entries. 



There remains a larger proportion of students in the top few bands, but with numbers beginning to fall back towards 2019 levels. 

In terms of Minimum Expected Points, diagram below compares the target points required at the 75th percentile across Alps bands. 





In most prior attainment bands, the MEPs are above the points required in 2023, and moving back towards 2019 levels. 

Translating those MEPs into grades, we arrive at the Minimum Expected Grades or MEGs. We can see in the table below that the MEGs needed in 2024 are around 5 to 7 points lower than in 2019, but higher than in 2023. 






Implications on QI (Quality Indicator) grade

If we consider the impact of the difference in MEPs between 2019 and 2024 on the overall QI grade, we see the following pattern when we switch between the two benchmarks. 

On average, switching to the Alps provider benchmark increases the QI grade by 1.35. In 2023 this inflation was more marked (1.72) in keeping with the lower MEPs across the Alps bands. 
In summary, 82% of providers are likely to see a grade increase on toggling to the 2024 Alps provider benchmark. 

We believe the 2024 Alps provider benchmark represents a more realistic overview of the 2024 outcomes from a value-added perspective. and one we recommend you use when assessing strengths and opportunities for development from the examinations. It will offer a progress picture which is likely to be more in keeping with the L3VA analysis if published this year.

The Alps Provider Benchmark for 2024 is available in Connect and Summit now (22 August 2024) via the benchmark selector toggle.


Target setting and tracking across 2024/25 and beyond


Your incoming Year 13 students are set to return to a profile more similar to 2019: 
  1. Students in Year 13 for 2024.25 sat GCSE examinations in 2023 where standards returned to levels more similar to 2019.  
  2. Examination outcomes for this cohort remain to be established, but are likely to be similar to levels somewhere between 2019 and 2024 depending on the ability of the cohort. 

Therefore, the 2019 national dataset would be the most likely choice when monitoring this cohort across their KS5 courses. 

We will continue to run an analysis of the Alps provider dataset in the days following the 2025 outcomes. 


Summary of the benchmarks in Connect and Summit 


The tables below show which datasets are applied to which benchmark for which Academic Year. 
 
  1. Default benchmark/national toggle. This is the 2019 DfE national benchmark: This has been applied across all gradepoints, including monitoring and examinations from 2018/19 outcomes onwards. 
  2. When using the Alps provider benchmark:
    1. All gradepoints up to and including examinations 2020/21 are analysed against the national 2019 datatset.  
    2. All gradepoints across 2021/22 will be analysed against the 2022 Alps provider benchmark. 
    3. All gradepoints across 2022/23 and monitoring for 2023/24 will use the 2023 Alps provider benchmark. 
    4. All gradepoints across 2023/24 and monitoring for 2024/25 will use the 2024 Alps provider benchmark. 

This is complex, but the grid is necessary to support you in understanding the context in which you are viewing your analysis. The highlighted cells indicate our recommended benchmark for each cohort. 


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