The measure due to judge this year's secondary school pupils has not been decided yet. A consultation that closed five months ago was meant to settle it, and the department says only that it will confirm its decision in due course.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
In short. Progress 8, the value-added measure that compares a school's exam results against pupils nationally with similar primary-school results, cannot be calculated for the 2024 to 2025 or 2025 to 2026 academic years, because the key stage 2 tests needed to do the sums were cancelled for COVID-19 in 2019-20 and 2020-21 [1]. The Department for Education's own guidance, updated 20 October 2026, says a reformed version of Progress 8 is expected to apply "for the 2026 to 2027 academic year onwards" [1] - the school year already under way. The consultation that will decide what that reformed measure actually looks like closed on 4 May 2026 [2]; checked directly today, its outcome page still reads "we are analysing your feedback. Visit this page again soon" [2]. The department's own guidance says only that it "will confirm the policy position in due course" [1]. Two documented mistakes: four stars.
Progress 8 exists to answer one question that raw exam results cannot: whether a school's pupils did better or worse than other pupils nationally who arrived with similar primary-school attainment [1]. It has been part of secondary school accountability in England since 2016. For the academic years 2024-25 and 2025-26, it does not exist. The Department for Education's own guidance explains why without hedging: "It is not possible to calculate Progress 8 for the 2024 to 2025 and 2025 to 2026 academic years, as there is no key stage 2 (KS2) prior attainment data available to use to calculate Progress 8", because "the relevant cohort's primary tests and assessments" were cancelled "in the 2019 to 2020 and 2020 to 2021 academic years due to COVID-19 disruption" [1]. That is a straightforward, honestly stated consequence of a pandemic that is nobody at DfE's fault, and the department's statistical release on 15 October 2026 carried the same explanation, plus a caution that "it is not possible to compare pupil attainment across years to detect changes in pupil performance" [3]. Credit where due: that is the right thing to tell the public, and DfE said it.
What happens next is where the guidance stops being straightforward.
A model that is "expected" to apply this year, and still has no confirmed shape
The same guidance states that "it will be possible to produce Progress 8 in 2026 to 2027, as KS2 prior attainment will be available for this cohort" [1] - the school year that began in September and is now seven weeks old. But Progress 8 is not simply resuming unchanged. The guidance also removes EBacc headline and additional measures "with effect from the 2025 to 2026 academic year" [1], and separately states: "As part of the key stage 4 performance measures and targeted RISE extension consultation, we consulted on a new approach to bandings. We expect this approach to apply to the presentation of Progress 8 scores for the 2026 to 2027 academic year onwards" [1].
Read that sentence again: the department expects a new way of presenting Progress 8 to apply to the current academic year, decided by a consultation whose outcome has not been published. The government's November 2025 response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review set out what it was proposing in detail - a model retaining the current English and maths rules, with "two dedicated slots for science subjects" and "four breadth slots", at least two of which must be filled from humanities, creative or language subjects [4] (p.45), and said plainly: "Improvements to Progress 8 and Attainment 8 will take effect after consultation" [4] (p.45). The consultation it meant, the key stage 4 performance measures and targeted RISE extension, ran from 23 February to 4 May 2026 [2]. Checked directly today, 21 October 2026, the consultation's own outcome page carries no response: "We are analysing your feedback. Visit this page again soon to download the outcome to this public feedback" [2]. That is five and a half months after close, and the department's own 20 October guidance for the year the new model is meant to apply to says only: "DfE will confirm the policy position in due course" [1].
The guidance's own advice to schools in the meantime is to wait: "Schools should not try to predict pupil or school level progress scores in advance of official provisional data being available in the autumn" [1]. That is sound advice for predicting a score. It does not answer the prior question of which scoring model schools are even working towards this year.
The second gap: no comparison tool either
The same guidance update makes a second change. Under the heading "Publication of KS4 secondary accountability measures", it states: "Compare School and College Performance (CSCP) has been decommissioned. School-level performance data will also be published on a replacement service, which is due to be launched in autumn 2026" [1]. CSCP has been the government's own public tool for comparing schools' exam results since 2016, used by parents choosing a secondary school and by schools benchmarking themselves against similar institutions. "Due to be launched in autumn 2026" is not a date; autumn 2026 is the season this guidance was itself published in. Schools Week reported on 8 October 2026 that visitors to the CSCP site were being shown a message that it would close "soon", with no firmer timetable given, and that "the Department for Education has refused to reveal more" [5]. A pilot of the replacement, called School Profiles, has reportedly ended with no findings published [5].
So for the second year running, the measure built to stop a school's results being judged on its catchment alone is absent, a reformed version of it is "expected" to apply to the year already in progress without its final shape being confirmed, and the government's own comparison website for checking any of this against other schools has been taken down.
The claims, tested
| The guidance's own statement | What exists, checked 21 October 2026 | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| "We expect this approach [a new bandings model] to apply to the presentation of Progress 8 scores for the 2026 to 2027 academic year onwards" [1] | The consultation that would decide the new model closed 4 May 2026; its outcome page still reads "we are analysing your feedback" [2], and DfE's own guidance says it will confirm the policy "in due course" [1] | A model schools are expected to be judged against this year has no confirmed final form |
| "Compare School and College Performance (CSCP) has been decommissioned... a replacement service... is due to be launched in autumn 2026" [1] | No firmer date found anywhere; Schools Week reported DfE "has refused to reveal more" on 8 October 2026 [5] | The old tool is gone; the new one has a season, not a date |
Credit where due
Two things here are not the department's fault or its evasion. The two-year absence of Progress 8 itself traces directly to primary tests cancelled for COVID-19 in 2019-20 and 2020-21, years before this guidance was written, and DfE's own documents explain that plainly rather than burying it [1] [3]. And the proposed replacement model is not a black box: the November 2025 Curriculum and Assessment Review response sets out the proposed science and breadth slots in detail, with its reasoning shown [4] (p.45). The gap is narrower than "nobody knows anything": it is that a proposal published a year ago has not been confirmed as policy, for a measure the department's own guidance says applies to pupils already partway through this year's courses.
Verdict
Four stars, from two documented mistakes. Losing Progress 8 to a pandemic-era data gap is an honestly disclosed fact, not a mistake to count against the department. But stating, in a guidance document updated this month, that a reformed scoring model is "expected" to apply to the academic year already under way, while the consultation that would confirm it has sat unanswered for five and a half months, leaves schools working towards an unconfirmed yardstick. Pairing that with a decommissioned comparison website and a replacement given only a season, not a date, compounds the same problem from the public's side: there is currently no government tool to compare this year's schools against each other at all, during the two years its own data is hardest to read.
The star score counts two documented mistakes: (1) DfE's Secondary accountability measures 2026 guidance states a reformed Progress 8 bandings model is "expected" to apply from the 2026 to 2027 academic year onwards, but the consultation that would confirm that model closed 4 May 2026 and remains unanswered, with the department saying only it will confirm the policy "in due course"; (2) the guidance confirms Compare School and College Performance has been decommissioned, with its replacement given only "autumn 2026" as a launch window and no firmer date found anywhere, including in contemporary education-press reporting. Two falls in the 1 to 3 band: four stars; the bands are on the ratings page. Checked directly against the DfE guidance document, the November 2025 Government response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review, and the live consultation outcome page, all fetched 21 October 2026. The document is tracked in the Daily Register; a published consultation response or a confirmed replacement comparison service will get a diff entry.
Sources
- Department for Education, "Secondary accountability measures: 2026 guidance for maintained secondary schools, academies and free schools" (updated 20 October 2026). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/progress-8-school-performance-measure/secondary-accountability-measures-2025-guidance-for-maintained-secondary-schools-academies-and-free-schools
- Department for Education, "Key stage 4 performance measures and targeted RISE extension" (consultation, ran 23 February to 4 May 2026, outcome page checked 21 October 2026). https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/key-stage-4-performance-measures-and-targeted-rise-extension
- Department for Education, "Key stage 4 performance, 2025/26" (Explore Education Statistics release, published 15 October 2026). https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/key-stage-4-performance/2025-26
- Department for Education, "Government response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review" (PDF, 61 pages, published 5 November 2025). https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/690b2a4a14b040dfe82922ea/Government_response_to_the_Curriculum_and_Assessment_Review.pdf
- Jack Dyson, "DfE's performance website to close 'soon' after 'school profiles' pilot", Schools Week (8 October 2026). https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-comparison-site-to-close-after-school-profiles-pilot/