Queen’s College, Taunton, has been ranked in the top 2% of schools nationally for GCSE value added for the second consecutive year, with pupils making even greater progress than the year before.

The latest figures show that, on average, pupils at Queen’s achieved one full grade higher in every GCSE subject than their nationally benchmarked expectations, while the College’s overall value-added score improved by a further 0.1 grades compared with last year.

It follows an exceptional summer of GCSE results for the proudly non-selective school. Queen’s achieved the strongest GCSE results in the Taunton and Wellington area, with 49% of grades awarded at 7–9, 14% at Grade 9 and a 98% overall pass rate.

Those are results the College is extremely proud of. But they are not how Queen’s ultimately measures its academic success.

As a non-selective school, Queen’s does not select pupils based on their academic ability. Children join the College with different strengths, different challenges and very different starting points. Simply counting the number of top grades therefore only tells part of the story.

For Queen’s, the more important question is, how much progress has each individual pupil made?

Value added provides that measure.

Using nationally benchmarked data, it compares a pupil’s eventual GCSE performance with the outcomes expected from their individual starting point. At Queen’s, the answer is striking: on average, pupils outperform those expectations by a full grade, in every subject.

And, for the second year running, that progress places Queen’s among the top 2% of schools nationally.

Pamela Pawley, Deputy Head Academic at Queen’s College, said:

“These results are a tremendous achievement for our pupils and for the staff who work so hard to support them every day. To be ranked in the top 2% nationally once is something to celebrate; to achieve it again the following year, while improving our value-added score further, tells us something much more significant about the strength and consistency of education at Queen’s.

“We are, of course, incredibly proud to have achieved the strongest GCSE results locally this summer. But as a non-selective school, that isn’t the measure that matters most to us. What matters is what happens to each young person from the moment they arrive at Queen’s, whatever their starting point.

“On average, our pupils are achieving a full grade higher in every subject than their nationally benchmarked expectations. That doesn’t happen by coincidence. It comes from excellent teaching, from teachers who really know the pupils in front of them, and from young people who work hard, respond to challenge and make the most of the opportunities available to them.

“To achieve this two years in succession, and to improve again this year, is something of which our whole school community should be immensely proud.”

The figures are based on independent national benchmarking. Pupils’ progress is measured using CAT4 GL Assessment data, with value added processed by FFT (Fischer Family Trust), allowing eventual GCSE performance to be compared with nationally benchmarked expectations.

Families can discover Queen’s for themselves at the Senior School and Sixth Form Open Morning on Saturday 26 September, from 9.00am –12.30pm, with the opportunity to meet pupils and staff, explore the school and find out more about the individual approach to learning at Queen’s.