West Notts amongst country’s top colleges for A-level progress

Figures released by the Department for Education last week, which ranked all schools and colleges in England on students’ progress and attainment in 2018, revealed that A-level learners at the Mansfield college achieved an ‘above average’ progress score of 0.27.

Progress is a ‘value-added’ accountability measure that shows how well students have developed when compared with others nationally who had similar levels of educational attainment at Key Stage 4, which incorporates GCSEs.

Students are compared with others studying the same qualification nationally before being aggregated to give an overall score for their institution. A score above zero means students made more progress than learners with similar Key Stage 4 results, while a negative score means they made less progress.

West Notts was ranked joint-sixth college in the national league table of students’ progress in A-level subjects – and is within the 17% of schools and colleges that scored ‘above average’.

This makes it the highest-scoring A-level provider in Mansfield and Ashfield, and best-performing college in Nottinghamshire, in this accountability measure.

It comes after 42.3% of A-level passes at the college last summer were at the ‘high grades’ of A*-B, which was a 13.1% increase on the previous year.

Jane Fishwick, head of HE, academic, professional and adult learning, said: “These are fantastic results and something to really be proud of. This shows our A-level students make excellent progress during their time with us, which is extremely well-deserved and is down to a lot of hard work.

“We focus a lot of attention on giving students the confidence and motivation to strive to reach their full potential, which is underpinned by fantastic teaching and support from tutors and staff across-the-board.

“Above all, it means students can come here feeling assured they will be given the platform and opportunity to get the grades needed for university or their career of choice.”