The Progress 8 score of pupils in multi-academy trusts is below the national average, new DfE data shows.

The news comes as the DfE publishes performance tables for secondary schools in England.

Today’s DfE analysis of the data places MATs into five different bands, ranging from “well above average” to “well below average”.

The number of MATs in the worst-performing category is double the number in the top-performing category.

The report says: "The national Progress 8 score for MATs was -0.04, compared to 0.01 for all state-funded mainstream schools.

"In 2018, 27 per cent of MATs had Progress 8 scores above the national average and 4 per cent were well above.

"33 per cent of MATs were below the national average and 7 per cent well below. The remaining 29 per cent were not significantly different from the national average."

MATs are included in the statistics if they have at least three schools that have been with them for at least three years, and have results in 2018.

A total of 85 MATs met the eligibility criteria, up from 62 last year.

The report says: “The national average in MATs for Progress 8 is mainly lower than the average for all mainstream schools because of different proportions of sponsor-led and converter academies.

“In MATs, sponsor-led academies made up 64 per cent of pupils included in Progress 8 and converter academies 31 per cent.

“In comparison, nationally pupils in sponsor-led and converter academies made up 18 per cent and 51 per cent of pupils in Progress 8 respectively.”

According to the report, the gap between the Progress 8 scores of disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils was smaller in MATs than the national average.

However, the report adds that non-disadvantaged pupils made less progress in MATs than nationally.

The data also shows that the EBacc entry rate was lower in MATs than the national average.

Last year, 39.1 per cent of all pupils entered the EBacc suite of subjects, compared to 35.2 per cent of pupils in MATs.

The averages masked wide variations in the EBacc entry rates in individual MATs. The highest rate was 94.8 per cent, while the lowest was 7.2 per cent.

However, the report points out that the range for all state-funded mainstream schools was from 100 per cent to 0 per cent.

The report also shows that the average EBacc point score in MATs (3.78) was below the national average of 4.12.

The DfE also says that pupils with English as an additional language made more progress in MATs than the national average, but those with English as a first language made less progress.