EMS Examination Results
We never want to make the focus of what we do at EMS be examinations, but rather education itself: our students’ development, both personal and academic, matters above all else. To best equip our students for life beyond school we’ve taken a brave approach to the curriculum, have focused on project work, university experiences, developing study skills, confidence and independence and fostering a love of learning for its own sake.
We do, however, recognise that qualifications are important, that good qualifications broaden choices, facilitate access to higher education and improve employment prospects. We are also aware that, as a new school, this is one area on which we can be easily judged: are we achieving all that we have set out to do?
Our philosophy is to provide an excellent, rounded education and to trust that with the right support and encouragement, the examination results will follow. The data below confirms that, in our first year, this approach been successful.
Headline Achievement Figures
Pass Rate |
High grades (A or B): |
| Maths – 100% | Maths – 91% |
| Physics – 100% | Physics – 80% |
| College Subjects – 100% | College Subjects – 51% |
Does attending EMS make a positive difference to students’ results?
Whilst the results above look good, it is reasonable to expect students in a selective school to do well. Would they have achieved these grades elsewhere?
To answer this question we have used ALIS, a nationally recognised and established system, to analyse our results. Grades are predicted for each student based on their GCSE results and a “value added” score (VA) is calculated to indicate how much better, or worse, a school has performed than expected.
A value added score of 0 means that a school’s results are, on average, the same as those predicted. A positive score shows added value and a negative score shows underperformance.
We found that:
EMS is in the top 1% of schools for VA.
On average, EMS students achieved a grade higher in both Mathematics and Physics than expected based on their GCSE performance.
You can be 99.7% sure that these results are not due to chance or luck but that students at EMS have achieved significantly better results due to the teaching and learning that takes place here.
The Evidence
For those statistically-minded of you, further commentary and associated graphs and charts are below. Enjoy!
EMS results overall – This document shows the VA summary for all the results of EMS students. You can see that our value added score places us in the top 1% of all schools that use ALIS tracking data
VA for Mathematics – This documents shows the VA score for Mathematics at EMS.
VA for Physics – This document shows the VA score for Physics at EMS.
Achievement in Mathematics and Physics – The scatter diagrams show EMS students’AS results compared to their GCSE scores. The straight line indicates the predicted grades for AS based on GCSE. You will see that in Mathematics all students met or exceeded their predicted grades; in Physics all bar two met or exceeded their predicted grades. Whilst the raw residual is slightly Mathematics than in Physics, the standardised residual in Physics is the higher of the two.
