We have developed software to enable schools and colleges to set Alps targets for their students, based on the student’s prior attainment at GCSE. The Alps Data Collection Software (ADCS) can generate target grades and a range of useful reports for use within your school or college.

Central to the process of continuous improvement is the use of target setting which has contributed to significant and sustained improvements in student attainment.

Simply by inputting the data for your new year 12 and 13 students into the software, you can produce target grades both for individual students and by A, AS and BTEC level 3 subjects. This will enable you to provide
students, personal tutors and teachers with their Alps aspirational target grades from the outset of their courses.
Download the Target Setting Alps Data Collection Software.

Our Target Setting guide is available as a PDF download.

The target setting user guide is designed to help you through the target setting process step by step, but if you do encounter problems we have a dedicated technical support team on hand to assist you.

Aspirational target grades

Alps national benchmarks are used to set targets for students (studying A level, AS level and BTEC national courses), which in turn generate subject and school or college targets. The targets are aspirational; they are not seeking to match the national average student performance, but that of the top performing 25% of schools and colleges. Used alongside robust guidance and monitoring systems Alps targets have been used successfully to raise standards in schools and colleges across the country and enabled students to realise their full potential.

Non-subject specific

We do not set subject specific target grades. The targets are the same for each subject studied. This does not mean that there are no differences in achievement between subjects. If we analyse the subject value added scores it is clear that it is ‘easier’ for students to gain higher grades in some subjects compared with others. An Alps value added (VA) score of 1.00 indicates that, on average, students have achieved their target grades. In the Alps reports if the VA score for a subject exceeds 1.00, then on average the students have exceeded their targets.

So, why don’t we set lower target grades for students studying subject whose VA score is higher than 1.00? In setting targets, to drive quality improvement, the process needs to be simple and understandable to students, parents and teachers. We have found that there is for the majority of subjects only a minor variations in subject value added scores, which does not, we believe, justify setting differential target grades. If the subject VA scores are an indication of the degree of difficulty of a subject then the ‘hardest’ A level (excluding general studies) is human biology, with a score of 0.86 at the 75th percentile provider. Is human biology (VA score 0.86) conceptually more difficult for students than say mathematics (1.00), physics (0.92) or chemistry (0.92), or are there other factors that contribute to differential subject VA scores?

Isolating cause and effect can be problematic. The data shows that there is a difference in the VA scores, but does not tell us why. Factors such as variations in the quality of teaching, inappropriate specifications,
the prior learning of students, teacher attitudes to the ‘difficulty’ of their subject and the combination of subjects (for example studying biology without chemistry) are just a few of the issues which could impact on a subject VA score.

In the full Alps report, when comparing the performance of teams, the Alps approach is to compare physics departments with other physics departments, and likewise film studies departments with other film studies
departments, this allows teachers and department heads to see their performance compared to other classes in the same subject.