What is prior attainment?
Prior attainment is used to assess and calculate pupil progress – e.g. between KS1 and KS2, and then between KS2 and KS4.
In KS2 and KS4 performance tables, pupils are categorised as high, middle and low attainers based on their prior attainment in KS1 (for KS2 performance tables) and KS2 (for KS4 performance tables).
KS2
Prior attainment in KS1 is used to calculate primary progress scores. Find out more about primary progress scores.
A pupil's teacher assessment outcomes in reading, writing and maths at KS1 are converted into point scores These scores are then used to calculate a KS1 average point score (APS) The KS1 APS is used to determine a pupil’s prior attainment group (PAG) – each group has a corresponding estimated average KS2 score A pupil’s progress score is the difference between: The result a pupil gets at KS2 (which is reported as a scaled score, with 100 as the