FAQ: Can we create custom Attainment 8 Estimates to calculate Progress 8?

This article aims to explain how you can create custom Attainment 8 estimates within KS3/4 mode of Analytics.

What are Attainment 8 estimates?

Attainment 8 estimates are provided by the DfE officially for each cohort, once they have completed key stage 4. Separate estimates are available for overall, English, Maths, EBacc, and Open Attainment 8 for each KS2 prior attainment level. These are then used within Progress 8 calculations in the KS4 performance tables. 

What are custom Attainment 8 estimates?

The custom A8 estimates feature allows you to create your own Attainment 8 estimates mapped to Scaled Scores. These can then be used to calculate Progress 8 scores in the KS3/4 reports. Here you can either customise existing DfE estimates and standard deviation, or enter your own.

What are the benefits of creating custom Attainment 8 estimates?

This functionality allows schools to produce Progress 8 scores using their own Attainment 8 estimates. This could also be useful for schools looking to REMOVE Progress 8 scores from the reports entirely, to avoid confusion for staff.

Step 1/ Creating Custom A8 Estimates

To create custom A8 estimates, go to DATA > select KS3/4 and cohort > GRADES > A8 Estimates > ‘Create A8 Estimates’.

On the next page, work through the following selections:

A8 Estimates Name: Enter a clear name to indicate what type of estimates you are creating. This will appear in GRADES > Publish Grades and within any reports using these custom estimates. A8 Estimates Description: Enter a description to help identify your specified A8 estimates within any reports using these custom estimates. Create or Copying Existing A8 Estimates: Select whether you want to create a new set of estimates or copy a specific type of estimates. These selections will prompt different further options, explained below:

• • Create New A8 Estimates: This allows you to create a set of A8 estimates from scratch, either by populating this manually or via a file import. You can either use official standard deviation figures towards confidence internal calculations, or enter custom figures for these too.
    
    Then, either select which year’s standard deviations will be used for each Attainment 8 basket, or enter your own custom standard deviations. These will be used in the Progress 8 confidence interval calculations in the reports. Official standard deviations provided by the DfE can be selected from the dropdowns or to enter custom standard deviations, tick ‘Use Custom?’ and enter these on the right.

Finally, select that you wish to use Scaled Scores for your new set of A8 estimates in the Baseline Type dropdown.

• • Copy existing A8 Estimates from School: This is available if you have created a set of custom A8 estimates within any EAP cohort, and allows you to copy the estimates and standard deviations previously set up.
    
    First, select to copy A8 estimates based on Scaled Scores, in the Baseline Type dropdown. Next, select which cohort to copy the existing estimates from and select which set of estimates to copy.

• • Copy existing Official Estimates: This allows you to copy a set of official estimates and standard deviations provided by the DfE. This can be useful if you would like to export a copy of these, or edit these for particular prior attainments. Select which year’s estimates you wish to copy in the A8 Year dropdown.
    
    
  • Copy Sisra Collaborative Estimates: This allows you to copy a set of estimates and standard deviations calculated within the Sisra Data Collaboration. This can be useful if you would like to export a copy of these, or edit these for particular prior attainments. Select which year’s estimates you wish to copy in the A8 Year dropdown. 

Once you have completed all selections on this page, click ‘Create’.

Step 2/ A8 Estimates Detail

You will then be taken to the A8 Estimates Detail page, which allows you to enter or modify the Attainment 8 estimates for particular baselines. If you have chosen to create a new set of A8 estimates, the table shown will be blank, however if you have copied a set of estimates, this will be populated with the selected estimates.

To enter or edit the A8 estimates shown, you can either do this manually for each KS2 Baseline or export the table into Excel, complete this, and import this back into Analytics.

To export the table into Excel, click ‘Export A8 Estimates’. Once you have made your changes in Excel, import this back into Analytics by clicking ‘Import A8 Estimates’. Select your file to be imported, then click ‘Import’.

Analytics will carry out a file health check to identify any issues with the file, for example if there is a duplicated baseline. For more information on these potential issues, see Appendix 1. Then, click ‘Import’ and Analytics will populate the custom A8 estimates from those in your file.

To manually enter or edit the estimates for a baseline, click the blue pencil icon.

Please note, students with a non-scoring Scaled Score will be excluded from Progress 8 calculations. Therefore, any custom A8 estimates entered for these scores will not pull through to the reports.

Step 3 / Publish Grades

Once you have made all changes to the custom A8 estimates, these will be available when publishing the GRADES tab. To do this, go to DATA > select key stage and cohort > GRADES > Publish Grades, then click ‘Publish’ next to the appropriate data set or assessment collection.

The custom A8 estimates will be available in the A8 Estimates dropdown, underneath the ‘Custom Estimates’ header. Once you have selected these and completed all other selections on this page (where necessary), click ‘Publish’.

For more information on publishing the KS3/4 reports, please see our article - KS3/4 EAP - Publish Grades: Data Sets and Assessments (Admin).

Appendix 1/ File Health Check Issues

Below we have covered the main file health check issues that can be identified when importing custom Attainment 8 estimates, and how to check and resolve these. When issues are identified, you can click ‘Show/Hide Warning’ to see the students affected.

“X row(s) have conflicts within the imported file”

This error occurs when you have the same baseline listed in the file for more than one row. To resolve this, click ‘Cancel’ and remove the additional row, ensuring that each baseline is only listed once. Then re-import your custom estimates file.

“X row(s) have an invalid baseline A8 Estimate and will be excluded from the import”

This error arises when a baseline is included in your file which is not recognised within the baseline type selected. For example, if you have Scaled Scores selected as the baseline type, but instead import estimates mapped to NC Levels. If the row affected is not needed, you could continue with the import.
Alternatively, if there is an issue with the baselines in your file, click 'Cancel' and then click ‘Export A8 Estimates’ to open a table with the selected baselines to populate in Excel.

Thanks for reading.