Phonics screen results - how bad is bad for the school as a whole?

[workatemylife]

We got a letter home today with the results of the Year 1 phonics screen. It gives a simple met / didn't meet expected level for the individual child, then underneath gives the total number of children in each category in the school.

I'm a bit . Only about half the year group met the expected level. The letter from the headmaster says that the KS1 teachers do a fantastic job of teaching children to read, and that a lot of good readers don't deal well with the phonics screen. Then, in bold, a reminder that it is the responsibility of parents to support phonics learning at home. That seems like passing the buck. Is a 50 /50 pass / fail rate normal, or would you be asking questions of the school rather than accepting that parents are in some way to blame?

[TeenAndTween]

and that a lot of good readers don't deal well with the phonics screen

Major cop out by the school.

I now leave it to Mrz to prove this by saying that at her school they almost all pass (that's because they teach phonics well), and for Masha to write one of her long irrelevant lists (because she always does on phonics threads).

[ReallyTired]

A 50% pass rate will not cut the mustard with OFSTED. The school's phonics teaching is clearly crap. There are schools with really challenging circumstances (ie. lots of children who can't speak English, lots of chidlren on free school meals) which manage to get a 90% pass rate for the phonics check.

A parents' job is to support the school and not to do the teaching. If a child has good attendance and no major special needs then they should pass the phonics check. It is not fair to expect small children to do huge amounts of homework. They need high quality teaching.

[spanieleyes]

We have a 94% pass rate this year, which includes children with SEN and EAL who have joined in Reception. The only one who "failed" was an EAL child who joined us in January with no English. 50% pass rate is DIRE

[LadyIsabellaWrotham]

"Good readers fail the phonics test" is a massive cop out. A tiny number of savant or hearing impaired children might have an issue with phonics, but never ever 50%. If you can't decode words phonically how the hell are you going to read Roald Dahl?

[FatalCabbage]

Ouch. I was getting twitchy at 79% tbh.

If 50% of a class that hasn't unusual levels of deprivation or EAL or SEN can't pass, I'd say the school hasn't taught phonics properly.

[ReallyTired]

"If 50% of a class that hasn't unusual levels of deprivation or EAL or SEN can't pass, I'd say the school hasn't taught phonics properly."

There are schools with high levels of EAL and high levels of social deprivation that do better than 50%. Rather than blaming the parents what is your HT doing to raise standards. A new head has raised the phonics check pass mark from 29% to around 90% in dd's school. Prehaps your child's school needs a new head teacher.

[AnnieLobeseder]

A question about this, because they didn't make it clear - is the mark for your child out of 40 or in %? DD2 got 35, and I don't know if she did really well (35/40) or really badly (40%)?

I was shocked that the National marks are around 25% for boys and 75% for girls.

[FatalCabbage]

I wasn't blaming the parents but excepting out the children who would struggle to pass anywhere. Deprivation doesn't mean "a bit poor".

[FatalCabbage]

Annie that's not the numbers we got.

Boys 65%, girls 73%.

[workatemylife]

There are maybe one or two bilingual pupils. EAL / SEN information would not be public I assume, but I doubt that these are large numbers. The figures and the HT's response make me concerned, especially if the national picture is so very different.

DC1 passed despite being able to read but I do worry about what it says about teaching in the school. End of term is nearly here but I would quite like to corner the HT and ask what precisely he intends to DO. Half the year will receive what he calls 'appropriate additional support', which is as it should be. But your replies make me think that this says more about current teaching and support for phonics rather than poor input from parents. And class time spent covering what should have been done in year 1 on this scale surely comes at a cost to other activities and parts of the curriculum?

[workatemylife]

annie our letter made it clear that the mark was out of 40, so not a percentage. I don't know if that is standard or not though. I didn't realise that the national marks for boys and girls were so different though. Are you suggesting that boys average out at 10 / 40 while girls average 30 / 40? Maybe I need to do a pony-tail count in the playground at school!

[HerRoyalNotness]

Surely they can only do so much in school, what with everything else they need to teach, 30 DC to a class, and disruptions etc.... There should be support from parents to practice at home for sure!

Our school had some stats which I can't quite remember, but their goal was to get each child reading 20mins a day, building up to it slowly. They said 5mins reading a day and child would know x low number of words by age y. 20mins a day they would now x high number of words by age y. Type of thing. Wish I could remember the stats, but it does make a difference. DS1 started Year1 with zero reading level, if we hadn't supported him and read with him every night, and left it to school, he was in great danger of not passing the grade.

[workatemylife]

Or maybe I just misread what annie meant as scores rather than percentage pass rate. Just as well they don't assess parents on their numeracy skills.

[LadyIsabellaWrotham]

EAL and SEN numbers will be available through OFSTED and league tables actually.

[Bunnyjo]

Annie, that bit in your post about national marks is incorrect. The below is from the DfE:

In 2013, pupils were deemed to have met the required standard of phonic decoding if they scored 32 or more out of a possible 40 in the test (the threshold was also 32 in 2012). In 2013, 69% of year 1 pupils achieved the expected level in phonics compared to 58% in 2012, an increase of 11 percentage points. Girls outperformed boys in the test with 73% meeting the required standard compared to 65% of boys, both seeing an increase of 11 percentage points when compared to last year.

The above is consistent with what FatalCabbage has said.

[AnnieLobeseder]

Am I mixing my numbers up? Maybe it was 25% of boys in our school. There was a 25% of boys somewhere....

[Bunnyjo]

It could be, Annie. I know many schools give out the school pass %. Ours usually don't as, with a PAN of 8, it could identify individual pupils.

[GhoulWithADragonTattoo]

The chart our school gave says:

At our school 77% passed this year
Nationally 58% passed last year (which is 54% of boys and 62% of girls)

[Bunnyjo]

Ghoul, the school have given you the national figures for 2012, not 2013. My above quote is direct from a DfE publication.

[GhoulWithADragonTattoo]

Yes I know that why I highlighted last year. I'm not sure why they've done that if the 2013 pass rate is already available. I rather assumed it wasn't available yet until seeing this thread. I guess it's a simple exercise in making their stats look better.

[QueenofLouisiana]

We are in special measures and we got nearly 85%. Phonics aren't the be all and end all, but they help a lot.

[MrsKCastle]

Are schools supposed to report the % pass rate to parents? I know DD's score, but would love to know the pass rate.

[LostTeacher]

I know of a school (cough cough) where it's been a real struggle to introduce phonics as the majority of parents were extremely vocal about not believing in it.

The parents did not like the fact that the children were encouraged to spell words (wrongly in their eyes) by sounding out. They also were against children "sounding funny" sounding out when reading as they didn't learn to read or write like this and nor did their older DCs. Sight reading was what they wanted and encouraged at home.

However, even with no parental support the school managed about 65% pass in the first year. This has increased now in the third year but it has been a battle with parents.

[TheEnchantedForest]

How many children are in the year group? unless it is such a tiny number that makes percentages meaningless then a 50% pass rate is terrible. it suggests phonics isn't being taught at all, let alone properly!

what are Ks1 and 2 results like?

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

TheEnchanted I think the phrase 'good readers don't deal well with the phonics screen' would give the school away even without knowing their pass rate.

It's one of those phrases that no teacher with a good understanding of phonics and the simple view of reading would ever use. And in schools where phonics is taught well all the good readers ace the test. They certainly never get enough wrong to even get close to failing the test. It's a bit of a red flag for poor teaching of reading.