A companion piece to our Alps Champions Webinar on Tuesday 21st January 2025.

At Alps, we are with you all the way as you face the challenge of maximising Y13’s achievement in 2025.

The Context

1. A Level and vocational grades fell in 2024 as Qualifications Wales returned grading towards 2019 standards, as Table 1 using data from the JCQ demonstrates

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2. It seems certain that results will be set at a similar standard again in 2025.
3. Y13 students took GCSE examinations in 2023 when GCSE results were awarded more generously than in 2019, but lower than they were permitted to be in 2022.
4. At A*-C and higher results in 2023 were 3-4% higher than in 2019. Table 2, using data from the JCQ, shows the relative proportion of GCSE grades in 2019, 2022 and 2023.

   

5. Because of the points in 3 and 4, current Y13 students may still have slightly higher Prior Attainment (PA) than they might have achieved in a ‘normal’ grading year.
6. Y13’s AS results were returned towards 2019 standards in 2024, so on average Y13 students have lower UMS from AS in 2024-25 than was the case last year. Table 3 is based on data from the JCQ.

   

7. Although the Y13 cohort were awarded GCSE results ‘transitionally’ in 2023, because of the points in 2 and 6 above, our clear advice is to set targets (Minimum Expected Grades - MEGs) and track progress using the 2019 national benchmark in Connect.
8. Doing this may produce more ‘cautious’ value added mid-year but could produce a welcome ‘bounce’ in thermometers once we create our 2025 Welsh Customer Benchmarks following the examination results in August, to ensure absolute fairness in the award of our value-added grades.

Some possible priorities

1. Maximising your share of high grades to improve student pathways and destinations, as well as aiming for outstanding progress.
2. Maximising the achievement of Seren Academy learners.
3. Narrowing any cohort gaps, for example:
   1. Males v Females
   2. eFSM v non-eFSM
   3. White British v minority ethnic pupils
4. Focusing on attendance to reduce the negative impact of persistent absence.
5. Making effective use of targeted AS resits to maximise UMS.

We are here to support you with our Ten Top Tips

1. If you are in an 11-18 school, make sure ‘the Sixth Form matters.’
2. Is the same priority given to robust data analysis / support / intervention as happens for Y11?
3. Is the Sixth Form a regular item on SLT agendas?
4. Get everyone on board if you want to achieve your goals. Ensure that every middle leader and every set teacher understands their role in achieving the school’s ‘goals’and feels responsible for helping achieve them.
5. Your goal might be the overall Alps’ Quality Indicator or the proportion of learners who, achieve three A levels (+ equivalents) at grades A*-A (Di*), A*-C (Di* -Di) or A*-E (Di*-P). But in either case, do all Heads of Department (HODs) and their set teachers know what they must do to help achieve your goal? Do they know who their key ‘marginal’ students are and what they need to do to help them achieve the next higher grade?
6. Use Connect to ensure you are on top of the subjects, sets and student groups that need to improve to gain outstanding value-added progress / outstanding achievement.

   The webinar will guide you through how to add custom columns and how then to be on top of analysing your data in Connect by attendance and how to identify gender, disadvantage (eFSM & EMA) and ethnicity gaps as well as how to have a sharp focus on your Seren Academy students.

    

7. Use Connect to ensure you are on top of the students who need support to achieve their Post-18 goals.
8. Focus on raising outcomes and progress by concentrating on improving the performance of targeted students in specific subjects.
9. Many students may have a better chance of securing or improving their 2024 AS grade at A Level in 2025 if they re-sit an AS unit with support in 2025.
10. Pay most attention to your largest cohort subjects that will have the biggest impact on this cohort’s outcomes and destinations, your Alps value-added and your Achievement Measures.
11. Ask HODs to run department meetings based on:
12. Past papers and mark schemes (especially 2024)
13. Command words
14. 2024 Examiner reports & QLA – identifying those ‘silver bullets’ that will improve grades.

 Share this invaluable information with your students.

10. Ensure Mock exams are marked to identify individual and collective learning gaps (skills / knowledge) so that these can be addressed, re-assessed, and closed before the summer. Based on what commonly lost students marks & grades in your Mocks and what the Examiner Report / QLA reveals lost students marks & grades in 2024, ask HODs to identify 5 main priorities to work on from January to May to aim to make sure students do not make these same errors in the summer.

Five Top Tips for getting the most from Connect

1. Discuss with HODs and teachers which students on their course have the greatest potential to improve their mock / predicted grades.
2. Use the ‘What-if’ tool in Connect to demonstrate the impact on subject value-added of those students achieving a higher grade.
3. Ensure that all teachers understand what needs to be done to enable each of these students to master the skills or knowledge the lack of which currently blocks them from achieving the next higher grade.
4. Use our comparison and filter tools to understand how the student groups in each subject or set are predicted to perform by disadvantage, gender, ethnicity & PA.
5. Set up custom columns so you are able to track the progress of additional groups such as your students on EMA and your Seren Academy students. Set up attendance groups so that the impact of persistent absence is clear and visible so all act to improve attendance.

4. Use our Monitoring Accuracy tools to identify:

• which subjects predicted most accurately in 2024?
• which subjects are predicting outcomes most different to previous monitoring grade-point or are predicting much higher outcomes / higher VA than in 2024?

5. Identify students who are underachieving in two or more subjects for intervention.

About the author: John Philip

John started working with Alps in 2008, while he was working at Little Heath Comprehensive School. At Little Heath, John used
Alps to achieve top 2% performance in value-added terms. He also worked with schools regionally and nationally through the
Raising Achievement Partnership Programme. Since leaving Little Heath in 2010, John additionally works as an associate for
22 secondary schools through PiXL.

This blog is a companion piece to our Alps Champions Webinar on Tuesday 21st January 2025.

For Alps users – to register go to your Connect Homepage and click on “Book your Webinar space” for a full list of our free Champions Webinars.