What really matters in primary school?

[Maybemaybenot76]

Our child is due to start reception 09/24 so we’ve been attending all the open days, around 8 in total!

A mix between small village and large (500 student) schools! Ultimately we think our child is best suited to something in between, not too small of a village school but around 200 pupils.

We had decided on first choice based on feel and buzz when we visited, beautiful grounds and kids seemed happy, however having just looked online on a website called “snobe” it says the Pupils Progress Scores KS2-KS3 are below average. I am finding the same outcome when searching for many of the schools in our area, but seemingly these are for the years 2018-2019.

How much does this matter? Should I be asking our preferred schools for the latest data?

thanks.

Do you mean KS1 to KS2? KS3 is secondary. How do KS2 results compare to national average?

The newest set of data should come out in December and yes I would definitely take it into consideration when picking the school. It’s good to know roughly how the school performs compared to others but the progress scores I found particularly helpful. I don’t think negative scores on this measure sound good (ie these students as a group did worse than you’d expect).

@Catifly Errr, maybe? I just copied it from the website. Apologies, I didn’t actually go to school in the UK so it’s all a bit of a minefield to me!

Oh and get the data from the .gov website if you can (‘compare school performance’ I think), I wouldn’t necessarily trust a third party website.

This is it.

How big is the school? That data is pretty poor unless it's a very small cohort.

How big is the school? That data is pretty poor unless it's a very small cohort.

This wouldn't matter to me at all. I think the feel, buzz, grounds, happy kids bit is way more important - that's something you can't influence once your child is at the school, whereas at least the academic progress you can. Also, if the school's had bad scores, I bet they are well aware and will be making efforts to improve them, so it may well be a non-issue by the time your child is that age.

In my are school rankings regularly change. My daughters school used to be one of the best, but has just come out of special measures.

When I was in primary school my school was the worst, then the best, and it alternated like that for a few years

@Catifly 210 students. A new head joined this year, and all this data is from years prior as mentioned. It’s so overwhelming!

Those stats you’re looking at aren’t that reliable.

If a school is in a deprived area where loads of the kids speak no English, their baseline tests scores will be low. If their school is ok, they will make huge progress and the school’s statistics will look really good.

At a quiet village school you’re much more likely to get middling results.

I think you’re worrying too much about this. We went to two open days, both seemed nice so we chose the one closest to our house. Kid loves it and is learning lots.

There is no way I would send my child to that school. They didn't have a single child performing at a higher standard (greater depth) from what I can see? And only half of the children at expected.

I prefer two form entry schools too (Aprox 420 student), so that would also put me off.

I’ve just had a look at other schools in the area again.

The one closest to us has above average scores on all, but we didn’t like the feel. The ones we loved the feel of, don’t have great academic data. How on earth are we supposed to make the right decision here?

Where I went to school you didn’t get a choice like this. You had literally 1 primary and secondary in your catchment area and you went there.

This one is actually the closest to us, literally a couple mins away. We didn’t love it, but it was “ok.” Presumably this data is much better though? I’m struggling to understand how relevant it is considering it is years old on all. Things may well have changed since then!

Your closest school has very impressive results. 23% achieving at a higher standard is brilliant. For me it would be a no brainer.

What did you prefer about the other school? What didn't you like at your closest school? Would you be looking at applying for selective schools for secondary?

@3WildOnes Our preferred school just felt like it would be a nice place to learn and the grounds were beautiful, with their own swimming pool too . All the staff and children seemed happy and there was a definite buzz about it.

Admittedly we did view the one on our road in the evening, so classes weren’t running. Harder to feel the buzz, but it felt more “school like”, less fun and more serious for sure.

I would look at the results of all schools here
https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/find-a-school-in-england
I am a bit confused by your photos as they seem to be saying the average scaled scores in England for maths and reading are 95 and 96, whereas the gov.uk site has them at 104 and 105.

I would view the one on your road again in the daytime.

We are looking for my daughter to start primary in 2024

This is our situation. We have view 4 schools, two our just out of catchment (rural location). 3 we viewed as 1 on 1 viewings and the 4th we viewed initially as an open day (evening) but found we didn't really get a good feel for the place as an open day so got a second viewing which was as a group of 4 parents.

I asked all schools how they find the balance between digital and analogue/traditional learning. I got 2 responses - apologetic for "only having tablets for 2 classes at a time" and those that said the focus was traditional learning and they added digital when they need. We are able to provide 2 classrooms of digital learning at a time. Very similar resources the attitude difference were interesting. I favoured the latter schools as they seemed more critical about balancing the risks and benefits of the digital world.

My daughter is a 1st percentile August born she's going to be tiny when she goes about the size of a 2 year old. I asked the question "how do you help little and young class members keep up with the bigger or older students". 3 of the 4 schools muttered something about kids come in all shapes and sizes we have seen it all. The 4th asked how being small impacted my daughter and then spoke about how they might work with it - mostly little legs and not realising she has little legs so gets stuck or upset when trying to copy people with less little legs.

My daughter has food allergies so we asked lots of details about that. 3 of the school have their own kitchen one orders in from other schools. 2 of the school asked more in depth questions than the others

1 school had carpet gaffer taped down. Noted but wouldn't be a deal-breaker
1 school purposefully only had a class size of 15. This was a deal-breaker
1 school had a headteacher who never once used the word "we" in our tour but spoke at length about every single grant he had brought into the school. He was ex businessman and had brought a lot of money to the school but I have a real problem with people that only speak in terms of I and it was a deal breaker for me
Religion, we weren't against a religious school but it would depend on how it was applied and during one of the tours we saw a hyper-religious lesson and that was the deal-breaker.

In the end we have settled on a school that 3 years ago made us hesitate viewing the house we currently own as we didn't want our daughter to go there. We were blown away by the transformation the new head has made. I was able to get a personal recommendation from some who knew her at her previous school. So leave all earlier ideas at the door!

We found it really useful having the two out of catchment areas to compare the local schools as the side by side comparison got a bit murky

@Superscientist Thanks for the reply.

Can I ask why a class size of 15 is a deal breaker for you?

Because they spent about half of the time taught as a class of 30 so years 1 and 2 together, 3 and 4 then 5 and 6. So it was the doubling of classes that was the bigger concern especially with her been August born and could have a 2 year difference between some kids in her class. We also wondered whether it would make the adjustment to secondary school harder if she has come up through a very small school

Just go to your local school and stop overthinking it.

My partner seems to recall our preferred school talking about this data during their presentation. He says they definitely stated they were performing above average.

Would it be reasonable to email in asking about this, or should we just wait until December when it is hopefully published? Im assuming the head had access, hence including it in their presentation to us.

@ThoughtEvokingReflectiveFemale There are several local to me!

My school experience was a shambles. I’m tying to make better choices for my kids.

What was shambolic... What's your underlying worry? I ask because it sounds like all the schools are basically fine, so it's hard to advise without understanding more about what you're looking to avoid. I think the stats can be a bit of a rabbit-hole and only get you so far.

As a primary Y6 teacher, if you’re concerned about data then I would ask for the data for the children they’ve had from reception up to Y6. In my old school, we would have up to 8 children per class leave/join throughout the year! A school can’t be accountable for another school’s teaching so if a child joined in Y5 and was really struggling then they would still be counted in the data. Checking how children have done who’ve been there all the way through the schooling career gives a better idea.
Although, I’ve also worked in an outstanding school where there was a crazy amount of expected and greater depth children. I would never send my child there as the focus was purely on maths and English all day everyday to get good results. Data isn’t everything!