Poor SATS results

[nat73]

I just read the KS2 SATS results for our school. 25% meeting expected standard overall :-(. National average is something like 50%.... reading was good something like 83% but writing and maths 'well below average'. I had guessed there was an.issue with maths because 2 parents had asked me to tutor their kids in maths last year and they both seemed pretty poor compared to expectations.
On paper our school.has many advantages.. small, small classes, no EAL, low FSM. We are heavily white working class. DCs are happy at the school and school always says they are doing well but maybe school's expectations are low? So what to do? What's the problem here? Crap teachers? Parents with low expectations? All schools around here seem to have equally low results so no pointerest moving to another school only alternayive would be to go private..

Anyone else in a similar position? Where can I find KS1 results for the school?

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

They may publish the KS1 results on their website somewhere. Although I suspect that's unlikely if they are also very low.

What do the progress scores look like for the individual subjects?

[OdinsLoveChild]

The problem is the new sats tests were changed in the middle of the year to be taught for that year. It's a nationwide issue and not something you need to worry about. The results are exactly as expected. If you do a quick search you will find dozens of news stories that confirm this.

[ShoeEatingMonster]

83% expected in reading is great compared to a lot of schools! That paper was tough! We only had 65% reading and therefore 65% meeting expected standard across all three eventhough our maths was 90%+ and writing was 85%.

Exactly how low were the maths and writing? That's what I'd be concerned about.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

Seems to be writing that's let most schools down here. I know there was a national issue with moderation which I'd guess will have affected the progress scores.

Even the schools that have well above national results for progress in reading and maths have average progress scores in writing at best.

[MumTryingHerBest]

nat73 Sat 17-Dec-16 08:42:19 We are heavily white working class

www.newstatesman.com/politics/education/2015/08/why-do-white-working-class-kids-do-so-badly

www.theguardian.com/education/2016/nov/10/schools-focus-struggling-white-working-class-pupils-uk

All schools around here seem to have equally low results

So the problem is not specific to that school or the teachers in it.

[admission]

It is difficult to be specific because you really need to get behind the headline figures and understand what has been going on in the school. For a start was it a year group that had a particular bias. If the reading was high and the writing and maths low, that might suggest that there was a bias towards more girls than boys in the cohort. Did they have a significantly higher level of pupils with SEND.
Obviously from your comments on maths you have some background in that area. If the pupils you tutored were well below expectations is that because the school had not paid attention to the new curriculum (even though it was very late coming out) so pupils were disadvantaged by not being able to do some of the new curriculum. Or was it just that maths is a problem within the school? What were previous years results for maths like, to give some kind of comparison.
I think the results give some cause for concern but what you would hope to see is a very positive response from the school to address these areas of weakness. Is there any sign of that happening or are the school just doing the same again. In which case that would be worrying.

[nat73]

Thanks!
I am trying to get the same data as before but average score in reading was 107 and average score in maths 101 (national average 103). 0% of the students achieved the 'higher' level.
Compared to other schools of similar attainment at KS1 the school comes last out of 125 schools.. apparently well below average in writing and maths.
School progress score between KS1 and KS2 compared to other schools of similar standard at KS1:
Reading + 1.6 (national average),
Writing -8.5 (well below national average)
and maths -5.4 (well below national average.
The KS2 teacher left last easter...
There must have been more girls than boys in the group. 33% of the girls attained expected score compared to 17% of the boys. (The girls writing result was within 'average').

If anyone can decipher this that would be great! Our school probably has a higher SEN score than average. But all the local schools seemed to have comparable scores although the local authority average is more like 50% attainment.

Many thanks

[MumTryingHerBest]

nat73 are you a teacher at the school or a parent?

Have you used the DfE performance tables to compare results of the primary schools in the localised area?

As per the links, white working class males are amongst the lowest performers so don't be fooled by the EAL stats.

FSM stats don't indicate how many families there are just above the threshold, so again may not be giving a complete picture.

Is the school an integrated infant and junior school, an infant & junior linked school (i.e. seperate heads and leadership team) or do a number of infant schools feed into the junior school?

As suggested by admission, you need to look beyond the top line stats., place them into context to really identify where the weaknesses are.

[nat73]

Found it:
Overall 25%
reading 83%
Writing 33%
Maths 67%
Grammar, punctuation, spelling 67%

So the 'best' school near us which is Ofsted outstanding got:
Overall 38%
reading 63%
Writing 63%
Maths 50%
Grammar, punctuation, spelling 75%

So it seems we did well in Reading and Ok in Maths but writing was a disaster?
I haven't seen / heard of anything from the school re the results. And no sign of KS1 results on the website.

[nat73]

Hi there MumTryingHerBest,
I am a parent. Yes am using DofE tables. School is so small (less than 70 kids) so its an all in primary (age 3-11).

It seems like all the schools in the area have similar scores but on top of that the school did particularly badly in writing. Has anyone looked at these comparison to KS1 data before? Does it mean the KS1 teacher is doing ok and the KS2 one is not?

Many thanks

[nat73]

And even if we are 'suffering' from having 'too many' white working class what can be done about it to improve performance? Has anyone been down a similar road with their school previously?

[nat73]

Admission, re the maths. The students I tutored were 'top group' but were well behind in the curriculum from what I saw. After the teacher left they had 1 term of supply teacher with no homework, no spelling tests and no times tables tests.... so more of a night watchman performance..

[mrz]

Your Ofsted outstanding seems very poor

[nat73]

Exactly. How can this be? And how can all the local schools be consistently poor? Does this indicate the pupils rather than the teachers?

[mrz]

Impossible to know without full information

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

How many year 6 pupils were there? If the cohort is very small (which it will be in a school with 70 pupils) one pupil or a couple of pupils just missing will make a huge difference.

I'm not sure that maths result is as OK as you think. The national average was about 70% and depending on the confidence interval -5 is not a good progress score.

[nat73]

You are quite right it would have been no more than 20 students (at best) and could have been as small as 8. So 1 or 2 rogue results makes quite a big difference.

From my own experience the level of maths seemed very poor. I guess the worry is that indications are that the students are not progressing as well as they might between KS1 and KS2?

[Biscuitsneeded]

Meaning this kindly, I would chill out about this. The tests were far too difficult and imposed upon teachers with not enough notice. And as you have said, you're only taking about 8 - 20 students so a few weaker ones in the cohort will skew the results substantially. It really doesn't matter what they get in their SATs, and you've also identified that the so-called 'outstanding' school didn't fare much better. The local secondary will be taking all SATs results with a big pinch of salt (ours ignored them completely and used their own testing instead for setting, expectations etc). If you feel that YOUR child isn't being challenged, taught appropriately or meeting her potential, then you can worry about whether the school is doing the right things, but I wouldn't honestly lose sleep over the children in another year group.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

I don't know that I agree with that 100%. You definitely can't compare results across years, but to an extent, all schools were in the same boat. And it's quite difficult to explain away the progress measures in the same way.

The OP's school may well be in trouble anyway, since looking at those results, I think it is below the floor standard.

[nat73]

The thing is everyone was sitting the same test - so everyone has the new test, last minute notice excuse. How come given that some come out with more than 75% met expectations and our school managed 25%?

Its true that the cohort is tiny so easily skewed and they have higher than average SEN. Its also true that SATS don't count for anything for the child.

My concern is is it a measure of what's going on at the school? Why is the progress poor between KS1 and KS2? What will my child be doing in those years?

[mrz]

Do you know that the children who took the KS2 tests were at the same school in KS1? If not the progress measure can be a joke!

Do you know attendance history for every child?

Do you know medical history of every child's?

SEN history?

In a small cohort each child can represent 10% or more ...

[BlackDoglet]

Nat73 - have you ever thought about being a governor? You are asking precisely the right questions!

[nat73]

Euw they've already asked me but I said no thanks. I work full time and am too opinionated for most of them ;-)

[SisterViktorine]

I think it would have been really hard to prepare this (last) year with a mixed Y3/4/5/6 class.

My school is in a difficult catchment but we did very well. We are 2 form entry and Y6 had the most bootcampish year of test preparation I have ever known. We have a good number of intervention teachers (experienced, qualified teachers) and they were all pressed into action with Y6 so they were taught in groups of 10-15 each with a teacher and a TA for several months. Afternoons were given over to reactive intervention.

How could you do all this with only a few Y6s, mixed in with younger children and, by the sounds of it, only 2 teachers in the school.

I'm not saying what my school did is right. Y6 had a very pressured two terms. Just highlighting the difference in what we were able to do.

[SloeGinandTonic]

The results are low combined because of the writing. This will be an LA and possibly school moderation issue. Some LAs including York and Calderdale have declared their writing to be unreliable. Basically the STA gave out mixed messages about writing to LAs and schools. There were differences in the September and later guidance. LAs took their own decisions. Hence the unreliability in writing nationally.

You can see that the writing is wrong as it doesn't align with the reading and spag. If working had been in line when they would have been at or above national attainment combined.

Nothing to worry about at all.