Haute Vallee policy on setting MEG grades at GCSE (FOI)

​​Request 689398189

1. Provide Haute Vallee School's policy on setting MEG grades at GCSE.

2. Provide other secondary school policies on setting MEG grades at GCSE. 

3. Provide the education departments policy on setting MEG grades at GCSE.

4. Provide education policy and secondary school's policy on calculating "value added" at GCSE. Is this a formal tool used in each secondary school? Why is this tool even used?

5. At Haute Vallee School and others a child can have different MEG or minimum expected grades in different subjects at GCSE- how is this calculated? Is the same metric used in all secondary schools?

6. Why does a child have an increased MEG or a MEG+ at GCSE in some schools which is inflated in relation to CAT scores.

Response

1. Haute Vallee do not have a published policy around MEG grades. 

During Year 9, all Jersey students sit the Grenada Learning (GL) Cognitive Ability Tests (CATS) which provides estimates of the grades they are expected to achieve at the end of year 11 for each subject. These are the end of Key Stage 4 Minimum Expected Grades (MEG).  They are minimum expected grades that a student would be expected to achieve nationally (UK).  

2. Other Government of Jersey secondary schools do not have a published policy regarding MEG. Le Rocquier have a published policy, Assessment, Recording and Reporting Policy, which contains information about MEG. Please see the link below.  

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3. No there is no central policy. 

4. Government of Jersey schools look at pupils on an individual needs basis.

Please note our value-added methodology is based on the Department for Education’s (DfE) approach to calculating progress, which measures how much students improve during their time in secondary school. It compares their GCSE results with the expected outcomes based on their performance in Key Stage 2 (KS2) tests taken in Year 6.

Some students, such as new arrivals to the island, may not have KS2 scores. These students are excluded from the methodology, along with any students who have been disapplied.

A score of zero indicates that students, on average, made the expected amount of progress. A positive score means students performed better than expected, while a negative score means they performed worse. A score of 1 would suggest that the average student achieved one grade higher in each qualification compared to those with similar prior attainment.

It’s important to note that this data comes with several caveats. Jersey’s accountability measures differ from those in England. For example, we use the best entry rather than the first entry, and certain qualifications, such as IGCSEs, are accepted in Jersey but not in England. The methodology assumes Jersey has the same mix of characteristics as England, which may not be accurate. Therefore, our results cannot be directly compared with those from England. This tool is used locally to provide insights, alongside broader datasets, and most importantly, our in-depth understanding of school performance through the Jersey School Review Framework to track school improvement over time.

Comparing datasets across schools is often unhelpful because these measures don’t account for differences in characteristics. For instance, some schools have significantly more students in receipt of Jersey Premium, students with Special Educational Needs or Disabilities, or Multi-Lingual learners. Our system also includes some academic selection and a mix of fee-paying and non-fee-paying schools.

5. Please see response to question 1. Grenada Learning (GL) Cognitive Ability Tests (CATS) provide estimates of the grades students are expected to achieve at the end of year 11. These could be different for each subject. 

6. If students consistently exceed their MEG, in order to provide an appropriate target, some schools will use MEG+ instead. Subject staff will hold a professional discussion to determine MEG+ for each individual student.​