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HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO PROGRESS 8?
The initial decline in arts subjects corresponds to the introduction of the EBacc as an accountability measure in 2010, which focused secondary schools’ curriculum on five ‘core’ subjects at GCSE: English, maths, the sciences, a humanities subject and a language
Progress 8 has reinforced the negative impact of the EBacc on arts and technology subjects. Introduced in 2016, it was designed (in part) to measure how well pupils progress between the end of primary and GCSEs, rather than focusing on the numbers who achieve 5 A* to C at GCSE level In Progress 8, a score is assigned to each pupil based on whether their actual GCSE scores in their best eight subjects are higher or lower than those achieved by pupils who had similar attainment at the end of primary school.
Those eight subjects are divided into three ‘buckets’:
English and maths (double weighted)
1. 2. 3 This leaves at most three and often just two slots for non-EBacc subjects.
Three other EBacc subjects chosen from the sciences, geography, history or a language
Three ‘other’ subjects, including EBacc subjects (However, English can only be double-weighted in bucket 1 if both language and literature are taken, one of which must sit in bucket 3)
As the Progress 8 score is used to calculate school league tables, many schools have responded by focusing on EBacc subjects We can see this in the figures[18] for GCSE entries in EBacc subjects, which grew strongly from 70.4% in 2015 to 81.4% in 2019, coinciding with when Progress 8 became the headline accountability measure, and a corresponding decline in non-EBacc subjects
English Maths
Bucket 1
English and maths (both double weighted)
Bucket 2
Three EBacc qualifications (sciences, computer sciences, geography, history or languages)
Bucket 3
Three ‘other’ slots (any remaining EBacc qualifications, other approved academic, arts or vocational qualifications)