Independent primary/prep school results

[benthecat]

Is there a way to find out or assess pupils’ attainment in an independent primary/prep school? With state primary schools, you can get a sense of pupil progress/attainment from the Y6 SATS results. At senior school (whether state or independent) you can see GCSE results. How can you make a similar assessment for independent primary/prep schools which don’t have their pupils take SATs? Are there any results they have to publish?

Am new to the whole school thing and just wanting to make some assessments about different types of schools. I know it’s not all about results but that’s a good benchmark to start with imo.

Traditionally preps are assessed on the calibre of their 11+ /13+ offers and scholarships. Do they send a lot of pupils to top senior schools or grammars. How many academic scholarships (and other disciplines)?
SATs results don’t figure at all and I think most independents opt out.

Yes, it's all on 11+ results

What if it is a school which has a secondary school too so kids can join at 11, but those who started at 4/5 will simply just stay on once they reach secondary school age? How can their attainment during the primary school years be assessed? Does that make sense?!

‘Fraid there is no official attainment benchmarks independent schools publish. The only thing you can do to get a picture of attainment, and it will be a hazy one is to assess:

• is the school selective for entry and how selective is it
• what is the retention rate for children starting in the pre-prep
• how selective is the school at later entry points
• what are the GCSE results of the school compared to the local area
• what is the national reputation of the school

Ultimately, if you are choosing a pre-prep, you need to assess what you goals are for your child in the early years and what your expectations are for the school you choose. Do you have a target prep school? In pre-prep years, academic attainment is not usually the main reason for choosing a school.

What if it is a school which has a secondary school too so kids can join at 11, but those who started at 4/5 will simply just stay on once they reach secondary school age? How can their attainment during the primary school years be assessed? Does that make sense?!

then you're looking at GCSE/A-level results, if most go through.

And bear in mind that if the school is selective at entry, and/or manages out children at different points then you should expect its exam results to reflect this chosen cohort.
A school that is non selective may have better teaching and better results for each pupil but will not be reflected in the overall raw results which will be lower than for a selective school.
Finally there are threads each year about students who are not allowed to sit GCSE or A level exams at their school but instead their parents are required to enter them as private candidates, its another tool schools use to keep their public results high.

Finally there are threads each year about students who are not allowed to sit GCSE or A level exams at their school but instead their parents are required to enter them as private candidates, its another tool schools use to keep their public results high

Is that for real error? How utterly appalling. I've never heard of that before.

If it’s a prep ask for info on leavers destinations. The schools with least to fear will publish detailed info on their websites and you will not need to ask. This is a good sign. Others will publish vaguer info. This is a less good sign.
If you have a dd make sure you ask about 11 as well as 13+. The girls schools start at 11. Some prep schools are not friendly to that. I speak from experience.

"Is that for real error? How utterly appalling. I've never heard of that before"

Yes, it can be. For most schools it isn't, and private entries are only for subjects which the school doesn't actually teach (such as home languages)

It is far more common for pupils to be weeded at end of year 8.

Refusal of entry to exams can also occur in the state sector, or pupils may be selected for more vocational courses.

As an entering some candidates separately as described (thought the last time I heard of that was years ago, so the practice may have been abolished, but if it has been it was recent)

DD was at an all-through selective independent from Y3-6. In that time I saw a number ‘managed out’ who were not meeting the standards. Some took the state eleven plus tests but didn’t take up places, some did but they weren’t published as the school generally wanted their girls to stay on and didn’t like to advertise leavers.

Then in the senior school they had about 50% new cohort and few stayed on for A levels so it is impossible to correlate gcse or A level results with what is going on in the junior school (i wouldn’t call it a prep as it wasn’t preparing you for anything). So as the OP has discovered it can be very difficult to judge.

Advantages of the all through school were that it created a ‘middle school’ type environment so specialist science teaching and laboratories from the senior school and moving from class to class from Y5 etc which did help with transition to senior school wherever they ended up.

Not sure I agree with the comments about it all being about 11 plus and CE. It totally depends on what the school is doing to get that particular set of results- in some cases they are pushing children out and only selecting children who they know will do well. To my mind a school which actually “adds value” by enabling children who maybe slower developers is doing a much better job at education