Key Stage 4 (GCSE) Academic Performance
Understanding a secondary school's academic performance involves looking beyond a single headline figure. The Department for Education uses several key metrics to evaluate how well a cohort of students has performed at the end of Key Stage 4 (typically Year 11). For The Cornerstone Academy, the latest published results for the 2024-2025 academic year are based on a cohort of 682 students.
Below, we break down what each of these core metrics means in plain English and provide the school's actual figures to help you gauge the academic outcomes against local and national benchmarks.
Attainment 8
What it means: Attainment 8 measures the raw academic achievement of a pupil across eight core qualifications, including English and Mathematics (which are double-weighted), three English Baccalaureate (EBacc) subjects, and three other approved qualifications. A higher score indicates stronger overall grades across these subjects.
The Cornerstone Academy Score: The school achieved a score of 41. When compared to other schools in the area, this is below the BCP average for non-selective schools (46.44). Overall, it ranks 19 of 22 across all BCP secondary schools with published data. The England state-funded mainstream mean for the prior year was 46.3.
By way of context, the Attainment 8 score for disadvantaged pupils at this school during the same period was 35.1, highlighting the gap often seen in educational outcomes. Looking back at the prior year (2023-2024), the school achieved an Attainment 8 score of 40.7.
Basics 9-5 (English and Maths)
What it means: This metric shows the percentage of students who achieved a "strong pass" (grade 5 or above) in both English and Mathematics GCSEs. It is a critical indicator because these two subjects are foundational for further education and most career paths.
The Cornerstone Academy Score: 37.3% of the cohort achieved this benchmark. The percentage of students achieving a standard pass (grade 4 or above) was 59.8%. In the prior year, 31% achieved the strong pass.
English Baccalaureate (EBacc)
What it means: The EBacc is not a standalone qualification but a set of subjects considered essential for keeping a student's options open for further study. The EBacc Average Point Score (APS) calculates the average grade achieved by pupils across this specific suite of subjects.
The Cornerstone Academy Score: The EBacc Average Point Score is 3.73. This is below the BCP non-selective average of 4.16 and ranks 18 of 22 across all BCP secondary schools. The data shows that 22.5% of students were entered for the complete EBacc subject suite.
Progress 8
What it means: Unlike Attainment 8 which measures raw grades, Progress 8 attempts to measure the value added by the school. It calculates how much progress pupils made between the end of primary school (Key Stage 2 SATs) and the end of secondary school (Key Stage 4 GCSEs), compared to pupils across England who had similar starting points.
A score of 0 indicates that pupils made average progress compared to the england mean progress 8 is 0.0 by construction; positive = above average progress..
Important Note on Latest Data: Progress 8 scores were not published for the 2024-2025 academic year. This is because that specific cohort of Year 11 students did not sit Key Stage 2 SATs in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic cancellations, meaning there was no prior attainment baseline from which to measure progress.
The Cornerstone Academy Score (2023-2024): The most recent available Progress 8 score is -0.03. This score is below the BCP average for non-selective schools (0.11). It ranks 15 of 21 across all BCP secondary schools. The statistical confidence interval for this score ranges from -0.3 to 0.24.