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VALUE ADDED
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What do we mean by value added?
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While it is clear from raw examination results where students generally achieve above or below the national average, it is not obvious which schools and colleges have helped students to make more progress from one stage of their education to the next. The progress schools and colleges help individuals make relative to their different starting points is usually referred to as value added. Value added measures are intended to allow fairer comparisons between schools and colleges with different student intakes.
For example, using GCSE/GNVQ results as a starting point, it is possible to measure the progress made by students at a particular school or college by comparing their GCE A level, AS and Advanced GNVQ results with those achieved by other students nationally with the same or similar GCSE/GNVQ results. Students attending school 'A' may achieve GCE A/AS and Advanced GNVQ results above the national average while students at school 'B' achieve below, but in value added terms the students at school 'B' may have made more progress than other students relative to their GCSE/GNVQ starting point and therefore have a higher value added 'score'.
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About the 2000 Post-16 Value Added Pilot
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Records show that most students complete their post-16 studies in the two years following the end of their compulsory education. The pilot compared the progress made by students between their GCSE/GNVQ results at 15 and their GCE A/AS and Advanced GNVQ results at 17, and involved a broadly representative national sample of 155 volunteer schools and colleges. It was designed to test data collection and matching, as well as the calculation and presentation of value added. The Department provided the participating schools and colleges with their students' GCE A/AS and Advanced GNVQ results achieved up to the end of the 1999/2000 academic year, which forms the 'output' measure or finishing point for the value added calculation. Details of their GCSE/GNVQ achievement up to the end of the 1997/1998 academic year, which forms the 'input' measure or starting point of the value added calculation, were also provided. The schools and colleges were asked to check the GCE A/AS and Advanced GNVQ results and that, for each student, they matched with the correct GCSE/GNVQ results.
This is the first time that the Department has calculated and published a post-16 value added measure for individual schools and colleges. We will shortly issue a full consultation paper that will address general performance tables and value added issues in more detail. The Department does not favour one approach to post-16 value added over another and your views on the results published here will help inform the inclusion of value added measures in the performance tables. If you have any comments please write to Angela Smith at the Department for Education and Employment, Room 646, Caxton House, Tothill street, London SW1H 9NA or e-mail angela.smith@dfee.gov.uk.
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