Several parents have asked staff at Paston about the new CVA league tables, which place the College third overall in Norfolk and put it well in the top 25% of sixth forms nationally. Although the tables are complicated they’re also a useful tool, says College Principal Peter Mayne.
Just when you thought you understood educational league tables, along comes another one to muddy the waters. However, the CVA (Contextual Value Added) table is actually very useful – especially for young people and parents who are trying to choose a sixth form. What they need to know is how good the school or college is at helping students succeed. The familiar league tables don’t do this because they are based on average scores for students, so they only measure how well the students do, not how much the sixth form has helped improve their performance.
In other words, with ‘average score’ league tables, if a sixth form only selects the most academic pupils, and if the students take four, and sometimes 5 A levels rather than the more usual three, then the institution is bound to get a higher average score.
This is where the CVA tables come in: they demonstrate how good a school or college is at actually teaching, by showing how well all their students have progressed.
Because CVA gives a much fairer measure of the effectiveness of a sixth form, it can give meaningful comparisons between different schools and colleges. It does this by assessing the progress made by the sixth form’s students between GCSE and A level or BTEC (this is the ‘value added’ bit of CVA). Statistically, a student’s performance at GCSE is the best way to predict their A level grades. A sixth form’s CVA score measures how many of its students get better than predicted grades at A level and BTEC.
CVA also makes allowances for any factors that might skew the score, such as gender, pupils taking more than three A levels, and the types of qualifications studied – this is the ‘contextual’ part of CVA.
2008 is the first year that CVA for sixth forms has been published (it has been used to measure a school’s GCSE performance for some time now). The table shows Paston as a very high performer with the third best CVA in Norfolk. Its score of over 1020 puts it well within the top 25% of sixth forms nationally.
Peter Mayne comments: “The statistics underline why Paston attracts such a wide range of students. Sixth form colleges are excellent at ensuring that the most able perform really well at A level, in fact they are slightly better at this than selective schools. Yet they also excel in helping more modestly qualified students to perform well – better than would have been predicted from their GCSEs.”
Interpreting the CVA Table
The CVA score indicates the value the sixth form has added on average for its students, given what is known about the circumstances of its student intake, including their GCSE grades.
The CVA figure is presented as a number based around 1000. A CVA score of 1030 means that on average each of the sixth form’s students achieved the equivalent of one A level grade higher in one subject than the average attained by similar students. Conversely, a score of 970 means that the school/college students achieved one grade lower than the average attained by similar students.
If you want to know how CVA is calculated you can find out more in the ‘Post-16 Guide to CVA’ at www.dcsf.gov.uk.
If you have any questions about CVA or any other sixth form issues, please feel free to contact Peter Mayne at Paston College on 01692 402334.
The picture
The picture shows four Paston students, from the class of 2008, who all achieved ‘straight As’ at A level. Each of them had been predicted to get a mix of As and Bs, based on their GCSE and AS level results. The students are (left to right) Gareth Howells (currently at Southampton University), Tom Eldon (Nottingham), Tom Sutton (Southampton) and Anna Baker (Leeds). All four were at Cromer High School before coming to Paston. (Picture taken on A level results day, 14 Aug 2008).