VAM are not fit for high-stakes accountability and should be used, if at all, only in ways that support, rather than undermine, the work and the experiences of learners. While this research shows that adjusting VAM to account for background characteristics may make target grades appear more accurate, it also risks embedding existing inequalities into the system. This is because it is misleading to suggest that exam results are a measure of school effectiveness, given the many factors outside a school’s control that shape them – publishing such data, even with caveats, risks creating the false impression that they are.
As the sector enters a period of significant reform, the findings gathered in this report should serve as a clear warning. They underline the urgent need to rethink how progress is understood, measured and used, and to ensure that accountability frameworks reflect the realities of learners’ lives rather than the limitations of statistical models. If progress measures are to play any role in the future of post-16 education, they must do so in ways that strengthen trust, respect professional expertise and genuinely support students’ learning.
Executive summary
This report examines how value added measures (VAM) are used and experienced within post-16 education settings, drawing on survey responses from NEU members and statistical analysis of Level 3 value added (L3VA) scores. The findings show that while VAM are firmly embedded in institutional practice, their potential benefits are frequently overshadowed by concerns about fairness, validity, workload and wellbeing.
Phase 1 of the report suggests that commercial VAM systems – particularly ALPS – dominate VAM use in the sector and are most commonly used for target setting and performance management. Staff reported widespread concerns about their limited understanding of the statistics underpinning the measure, and the inability of VAM to account for contextual factors affecting students and institutions. Respondents consistently highlighted the workload associated with VAM, as well as their negative impact on morale and mental health. Aspirational targets derived from VAM were sometimes seen as demotivating for students, with teachers questioning their appropriateness and fairness. Although some teachers valued the shift towards progressbased metrics, these views were typically accompanied by caveats.
Phase 2 focuses on the DfE’s Level 3 Value Added (L3VA) measure. Our analyses show that L3VA scores vary systematically according to student background characteristics, meaning the measure may have limited utility for making meaningful comparisons of quality across institutions. We also show that adjusting for these characteristics affects aggregate institutional L3VA scores, particularly for settings serving more disadvantaged students. Together, these findings highlight the need for greater awareness of what progress measures such as L3VA can and cannot tell us, as well as the need to better account for context in progress measures.
The findings of this report are particularly timely given the government’s current consultation on 16-19 performance measures. These publications commit to consulting on a consistent way of measuring performance across all 16–18 learners. The complexity and diversity of the post-16 landscape - spanning A levels, vocational programmes, mixed qualifications and a wide variety of institution types - makes such consistency especially challenging. This report provides timely evidence to inform these national proposals. Future reforms of accountability should prioritise transparency and contextual sensitivity, and progress metrics should be interpreted with caution.