Exam Results

Academic Excellence

We are very proud of the academic achievements of our students. Students at Soar Valley achieve some of the highest results in the city year after year, and progress measures are consistently strong.

“The school is unfailingly ambitious for the achievement of pupils. Pupils rise to and exceed the school’s high expectations and consistently achieve highly.” Ofsted 2025

Results in 2025 were again outstanding! There is very little variation between subjects in school, with all performing equally well.

Progress Measures

A figure called Progress 8 is also reported by the Department for Education. This figure is a calculation based on the achievement across 8 subjects for each student based on whether they met, exceeded or were below their expected performance in each subject, from their attainment levels at the end of primary school. A figure is then calculated for the whole school. -0.5 is considered to be the ‘floor standard’, or the minimum expected standard set by the government, and national averages are just below 0.

*This is not an official figure. Students taking exams in 2025 did not sit SATs at the end of primary school and so no official data showing progress from Year 6 to Year 11 is available. This figure is based on data shared by a large number of schools nationally.

This means our students make significantly more progress than their peers nationally on average and indicates very strong performance.

Attainment 8

A key performance measure for schools is called Attainment 8. It is a measure of the average grade attained by a student across their best 8 subjects at the end of Key Stage 4. Given that our students have very varied starting points when they enter the school in Year 7, these represent very impressive outcomes and again demonstrate outstanding progress.

Results in 2022, 2021, 2020 have been omitted as these were based on Teacher Assessed grades.

Another key performance measure for schools is ‘The Basics’, the proportion of students who attained a Good Pass in English and mathematics (Grade 4 or above) and a Strong Pass (Grade 5 and above).  N.B. For English, it is the student’s best grade of English Language and Literature which is included.

As can be seen from the table, Soar Valley’s results are consistently strong. There are fluctuations each year to the differing abilities of cohorts, but Progress is very high again for 2025.

(Results in 2022 were higher nationally as part of a transition period from the Teacher Assessed Grades during Covid years of 2020 and 2021).

The English Baccalaureate

The English Baccalaureate, or EBacc, is a measure that continues to be reported on. However at Soar Valley we do not insist that students take the English Baccalaureate suite of subjects. Our policy is to not force any particular option choices on students, but to allow and guide them to follow their strengths and interests.  At Soar Valley, students who are capable of doing the EBacc are advised that this is a pathway that they should consider but they are not made to do so if their interests and abilities lie in other subjects. The EBacc figure reflects this student-centred approach and the breadth of our curriculum. This year 30% of students entered the full EBacc suite of subjects, meaning they studied English, maths, science, and two from Geography, History, Computer Science and French or German.  Many more entered most of those subjects but not all.

Destination measures

Another measure of a school’s success is how well-prepared students are for the next stage in their life. In 2022 96.8% of our students were in sustained full-time education, employment or training by November of the year they left school.  This reflects the strong emphasis in school on careers education and preparation for working life.