Exam Results & Performance Data
Understanding a school's academic performance requires looking beyond a single headline figure. The Department for Education (DfE) uses several key metrics to measure how well students perform at Key Stage 4 (GCSE level). Below, we break down what these metrics mean and how Oak Academy's results for the 2024-2025 cohort compare to the wider Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) area.
Attainment 8
Attainment 8 measures a student's average grade across eight key subjects, including English and Maths (which are double-weighted). It provides a broad picture of raw academic achievement. For the 2024-2025 academic year, Oak Academy achieved an Attainment 8 score of 32.5.
To put this into context, the average Attainment 8 score for all BCP secondary schools is 50.77, and 46.44 when looking only at non-selective schools. Across the 22 BCP schools with published data (which includes selective grammar schools), the school ranks 22 of 22. Furthermore, the England state-funded mainstream average is 46.3 (based on 2023-24 data). It is also important to note the disadvantaged gap: pupils eligible for pupil premium achieved an Attainment 8 score of 26.7. Comparing year-on-year, the school's previous score in 2023-2024 was 35.6.
Basics (9-5 and 9-4)
The 'Basics' metric tracks the percentage of students who achieve passing grades in both English and Mathematics. A 'strong pass' is considered a grade 5 or above, while a 'standard pass' is a grade 4 or above. At Oak Academy, 13.6% of students achieved a grade 5 or above in both subjects, compared to 30.4% in the prior year (2023-2024). Additionally, 33% achieved a grade 4 or above.
English Baccalaureate (EBacc)
The EBacc is not a qualification in itself, but a set of core academic subjects (English, Maths, Sciences, a Language, and History or Geography) that the government considers essential for keeping options open for further study. At Oak Academy, 28.4% of students were entered for the EBacc suite of qualifications. The Average Point Score (APS) for the EBacc at this school is 2.75, which sits below the BCP non-selective average of 4.16. In the wider local authority, the school ranks 22 of 22 out of 22 schools.
Progress 8 (2023-2024)
Progress 8 is widely considered a fairer measure of a school's impact than raw attainment, as it calculates how much progress students make from their starting points at the end of primary school (Key Stage 2) to their GCSEs. A score of 0 indicates that students made expected progress compared to peers nationally with similar starting points. A positive score means they made more progress, and a negative score means they made less.
Important Note regarding 2024-2025: Progress 8 was not published for 2024-2025 (no KS2 baseline for that cohort). Value shown is the most recent available year (2023-2024). Therefore, the figures presented here are from the 2023-2024 cohort.
For the 2023-2024 cohort, Oak Academy recorded a Progress 8 score of -0.63, with a confidence interval between -0.95 and -0.3. This compares to a BCP non-selective average of 0.11. Among the 21 BCP schools with published data for that year (including grammars), the school ranked 21 of 21.