GCSE results jump was even bigger

There is a progress gap between state and independent schools

The rise in GCSE-level exam results in England last year was even bigger than thought, final figures show.

The proportion of 15-year-olds getting the equivalent of five good grades was 56.3%, up from 53.7% the year before.

It was 0.6 points higher than in the provisional data in October, in part because of GNVQ results that were missing from the earlier statistics.

The proportion whose results included English and maths - ministers' new benchmark - was 44.3%, up from 42.6%.

Independent schools best

"Value added" figures have been given for pupils' progress from leaving primary school to when they take their GCSEs and other qualifications five years later.

These show that independent schools bring on their pupils far better than state schools.

Their performance is so good they raise the median score for all schools.

The scale is centred on a score of 1,000. State schools score 986.1, which official statisticians say is equivalent to about two GCSE grades below the median.

Independent schools score 1,034.5, between five and six grades above the median.

So the gap is at least seven grades, or the equivalent of almost a whole GCSE.

Context

The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) pointed out - as have its critics - that the value added scores take no account of influences outside a school's control.

For that reason it has introduced a new measure - "contextual" value added - which does factor in such things as gender, mobility and levels of deprivation.

This "levels the playing field and brings us very close to a single indicator of school effectiveness", the department said.

And it is now the measure by which Ofsted judges and reports on schools' effectiveness.

But it is not being published yet for each school. The DfES plans to start doing that from next year.

Tables

The exam statistics were published by the department on Wednesday.

They are drawn from the final school-by-school figures for 2005 due to be published on Thursday in the annual achievement and attainment tables.

The "league tables" which news organisations bring out will not however include schools' English and maths scores.

These were not in the data provided in advance to journalists preparing the tables - prompting a complaint from Tory education spokesman David Willetts.

The government has said it will publish them itself on Thursday and will include them in the main attainment tables from next year.

It can point to a sustained improvement in the English and maths results since 1997.

But the shadow schools minister Nick Gibb said: "It is alarming that over half of 15-year-olds are failing to achieve five or more good GCSEs including English and maths.

"The absence of these basic skills is hugely damaging to the prospects of hundreds of thousands of young people.

"In this new global economy we need ever higher levels of literacy and maths and it is, therefore, of enormous concern that so many are failing."