Worried about primary school

[Redforest]

Would you be concerned if your child's school was getting below average results?
We relocated a year ago and chose this school as most others were full in the area and it's our closest school. It is C of E with a strong religious ethos and a lot of time appear to be spent on this. It doesn't appear to be very academic looking at the results over several years (I've seen the most recent years ones too).

It is our nearest school (across the road), my son loves it and skips in happily every day, it is friendly and nurturing.
My son is meeting expectations in all areas and greater depth in maths, but I think he should be greater depth elsewhere too, he just isn't challenged at this school, but it isn't bothering him.

We are now choosing whether to send our second child there. He really wants to go with his brother, it is SO convenient.
How much would this bother you?

Is that below average overall results, or below average progress levels? It's worth digging deeper into the data if you can. For example, how do they do for high prior attainers?

Our DD went to the local primary up the road, a one-form entry intake C of E school that gets average results. She would have had a chance at a couple of other local schools with better results but they'd have been considerably less convenient. There's a lot to be said for a local school at primary age - DD walked herself to and from school from Y5 and had a happy time there.

Some years she was well challenged, and others less so. We encouraged her to be a positive problem by finishing her work quickly (and, if possible, neatly and accurately too!) and then asking for more/harder work. Once or twice we had to ask the teacher not to keep asking her to help others once she had finished her work, as this was becoming awkward (though I know it's supposed to deepen the learning, blah blah.)

The main extra thing we did during primary was to make sure to keep up with the reading at home - DD read out loud to us most nights throughout primary, and we really talked about the book and looked up new vocab etc. She also learned an instrument and we encouraged good questions and wider learning in our home life.

What year is he in? What are your plans for secondary? We are in an area with some grammar schools, did workbooks at home and DD easily got into her preferred grammar and is doing very well, so her primary didn't hold her back.

I think it's ok in the earlier years but I had a capable ds who was so frustrated at being asked to do the same stuff over and over in yrs 5&6 that he became bored, angry and resentful. It's a difficult call when the school is so close.

Have you spoken to the HT?

It wouldn't bother me that the school as a whole had below average results.

You can't know the approximate ability of the current cohort, which will differ from year to year. It may be that the current year 6 has more underachievers, and this brings the average down.

The most important factor in children's school attainment is parental involvement, and you are clearly motivated to ensure that your child achieves his potential.

It's also very important that your child is happy at school, which he seems to be.

Agree that it could be cohort-specific. However, it should be something that the governing body and Head are on top of. You could ask if minutes are publicly available which would give a fuller picture, eg a high level of SEND in Y6, or sudden influx of EFL children.

OP my child's primary school was a nurturing one that had below average results at one stage. However it improved massively over the years and by the time that she left the results were above average.
You can't really tell much just from the percentage results though, the important thing is how they compare to schools with a similar intake nationally. Nurturing schools tend to attract a higher percentage of children with SEND for example and this is likely to affect results.

Thanks for the responses. He is in year 3.
I asked the head for the results and she had a meeting with me. She very much skirted around the issue. This year's results were particularly bad (low % of children meeting expected standard) but she said the higher standard was fairly consistent and the previous years were around the average mark.
She said they'd had a lot of movement of children, that a few EAL children had started, that they had identified gaps in knowledge from COVID, lots of reasons/excuses.
I didn't get to see progress marks. She took the sheet away at the end of of the meeting.

In terms of secondary, we are not in a grammar area, all the schools are non-selective and mixed ability, so I'm not concerned about any 11+ or anything.

There are some other schools in the area with similar cohorts where the results are a lot higher.

@LetItGoToRuin good advice about reading with him. That's one thing we are really going to work on. We've got in the bad habit of just reading the same book to him and his younger sibling as I've been busy with the baby. They like having the same book but it's not challenging him. And he tends to read his own book from school on his own. I will definitely focus on spending time reading and helping with vocabulary etc, I feel like I've been given a bit of a kick up the backside now I know I need to put some more work in myself.