2019 VA Calculator (the last of its kind!)

Here it is: the final VA calculator for pupils with KS1 levels. As usual, please don’t attempt to edit the online version; download a copy to your computer.

Main changes are: all estimates, lower threshold caps, standard deviations and nominal scores have been updates in line with latest primary accountability guidance. Also, I’ve built it as a table, which means you can now easily filter columns and insert new rows. This will require unlocking using password ‘primary’.

As stated above, this applies to the final cohort with KS1 levels (ie 2018/19 Year 6), which means it cannot be used to generate estimates for current cohorts. With that in mind, it is of limited use now but hopefully you can use it to remodel your progress scores by removing pupils from results or changing results and baselines to demonstrate the impact of outliers and those ‘what if’ scenarios.

I will build another VA calculator next year, for pupils with ‘new’ KS1 assessments, but chances are we won’t have the details until the primary accountability guidance is published at start of September 2020. It’s going to be a big change and I wrote a blog about likely approach here.

Hope the tool is useful.