KS1 results...tell me more

[debs227]

I am a new parent governor at DD's school, we were given data recently which shows that for the past 4 years the school has been performing 'significantly below' average in the KS1 sats.

Should this be a big concern for me as a parent and governor? School is currently satisfactory, ofsted are looming and i have been told the school has been improving for the past two years but these statistics just don't seem to show that.

Is this quite common? We have been informed by HT that the children are improving as they should relative to their starting points and it is being closely monitored but these statistics have shocked me as a parent.

First of all, they aren't KS1 SATs any more - and haven't been since 2005. And I suppose, in that case,that makes the information you've been given more alarmimg. They are teacher assessment, so as such they are far more accurate because they are based on several pieces of day to day evidence, not just the test.

No, this isn't common. Have a look at the national average tables here. They will give you an idea of how much you need to be concerned - I work in a deprived area, our children come in consistently below the national average, but by the end of Y2 they are at least at average, if not above.
What are your school doing to ensure that this position improves? You are right to be be concerned if the school are not explaining to you fully how they plan to address this discrepancy.

Sorry i mean KS1 data rather than Sats .......... They are teacher assessments, my mistake. I haven't been told they are sats.

It is raise online data....it shows KS1 APS. And also value added and KS2 sats which are equally shocking. Minus figure on the value added and KS2 sats at about 68% achieving level 4. Yes the school is in a deprived area. New head two years ago, change of teaching staff and we have been informed that teaching is 'good' across the school but surely that should show in the figures. But i would have expected an improvement in the last year at least, and this years figures are projected to be similar.

Surely even in a deprived area you cannot blame a poor cohort it is surely down to teaching and monitoring??

You need to look at the value-added. Are your children less behind the national average at then end of KS1 than they were when they were baseline assessed in Reception. If the answer to this is no, then you do have cause for concern.

thanks seeker, i will find out that information. The end of year data for EYFS that i do have shows the latest EYFS data which our SIP advised us is average. Mind you it shows that the school is below average in CLL achieving 6+ points and below average on achieving 6+ points in all areas.

When we were ofsted visited in 2008 the EYFS was classed as outstanding and it noted the poor performance in KS1. So to me, i cannot see that this situation has improved at all.

We as governors were told things were improving and we were on track to get a 'good' ofsted this time around.But i doubt very much we will get a good with these results.

I am also concerned as a parent of DD in Year 1 and Ds due to start next year. Area is mixed but i was trying to be positive in the hope that it would improve

You should be concerned.

The best schools teach all children to read - regardless of whether or not they come from a deprived background.

So I would definately be asking what reading scheme they use - and if you are getting anything less than 90% Level 2+ I would assume that either you are not using a good reading scheme - or that the teachers / ta's who deliver it aren't very good at teaching phonics.

Writing follows on from reading.

Maths is the subject which most children acheive a level 2 in.

This is your job as a governor - to ask exactly what procedures are in place to raise attainment. Also ask to see the school improvement partner's report (if you haven't already). That's someone from the LEA who is assigned to your school and who will also be very concerned about those results.

Coming from a deprived background is no excuse - ask MRZ.

In my experience of 2 schools it is the quality of the teaching that matters the most. So you should definately be also asking about what support the teachers will be getting to raise results. And also if TAs teach phonics groups ask what training the TAs have been given. (Often 'cheap' TAs are hired and given no training, yet they are expected to teach kids to read - often the kids who are furthers behind :( )

Also ask the borough governor support person about what you as a governor can do.....

Thanks indigo.........I have met with the SIP, which was all new to me, and she highlighted this in her report but said she was happy from observations that the school are making progress and most pupils will be making 2 sub levels of progress per year. She seemed to indicate that maybe base levels are quite low. BUT she thought that the predicted KS1 assessments were still low for 2012. Something about not enough reaching 2b? which i presume is average.

The Chair of governors seems very laid back about it and seems to be just ticking boxes in my opinion.

As far as reading schemes go, DD is in year 1 and comes home with widely different books everyday. There is no set pattern. I feel she is doing well but i do lots with her at home.

I will seek more advice i think from the council governor advisor. We don't have an abundance of parents wanting to be governors so i can see why not alot of questions have been asked before!

You can't blame 3 year's sig- on cohort. Maybe the odd year you have a rum bunch, but every year? [hmmm]

What do the graphs look like for KS1 - are they going up (even if below average)?

What are expectations like in the school? Do KS managers report targets at governors' meetings? Are governors aware of targets for this year? Have you discussed them? We are asked all sorts of squirm-making questions by our governors when we present our figures!

OP
Are you reading the Fischer Family Trust or the Raiseonline?
Value added is EVERYTHING
an inner city school with multi ethnic and high FSM will be EXCELLING if its at the 75th cohort
a home counties Chelsea Tractor destination needs all the staff retraining if it is.
As a former governor (long story) I have a HUGE issue with Ofsted devaluing Value added.

Surely the measure should be how well the school can achieve with what it receives....

At secondary, grammars that take the top 15% and then pride themselves at ending up in the top 20% have clearly FAILED 1/4 of their pupils - they are worse out than they were in...

Ignore raw results and look at value added. More interesting and more room to make teachers focused and valued which gets the best results for the bright kids too.

The government is scrapping the contextualised value added measure

I daresay that will significantly change positive trends for schools in areas of economic deprivation....

mrz
I was aware that they plan to - its been brewing for a while.
I wonder how they plan to fill all those HT and DHT vacancies when they take away the incentive to work in tricky schools.
Hubby was visiting one of the first schools to be marked on a non CVA basis. Their whole senior management team has moved on to pastures easier. Cannot blame them. But those kids are now even more nadgered than they were before.

The data is from Raiseonline

Stoats.......the KS1 graphs go up and down like a zig zag but always below average. this years are worst so far.We get a HT report at governors meetings but the KS managers do not report to us directly. That sounds like something we should introduce! We have a standards committee but it seems a bit woolly.

Talkin...........the value added is definately a SIG- for this year, this is based on KS1 to KS2 data (with the KS1 data being below average)

Contextualised attainment for KS1 is very SIG- for the past 4 years.

It is in a rural town with quite high deprivation. So maybe it is doing the best with what it receives, but surely all children whatever their starting point or home life should still achieve at least the national average??

why?
half of all children are below the average
that is what average means after all.

NB if you look at the final page of FFT and raiseonline it shows you the margin of error for your cohort size.
for a single class year (30 kids) anything less than a 5% difference is statistical noise and should be ignored. Staff should not take credit for a 3% rise, nor should they be whacked for a 3% fall.

In FFT you should have your VA comparison with matched schools (by size and deprivation) - check that bit.

What do you think the problem is debs27?

Governors are there for strategic planning - if more teaching assistants are needed to hear readers everyday, they need to address it. If you need a new phonics scheme then they need to redirect money to that.

With a rigorous phonics scheme (we have just introduced Read Write Inc because it suits our school population), TAs, mums or governors (!) to hear individaul readers, group reading, etc, there should be NO excuses for poor readers.

I can't understand why the SIP is so complacent. (Perhaps she is about to be made redundant and doesn't care?) Accepting this kind of trend is like saying that all the children are thick and nothing can be done.

Your HT and governors need to come up with a detailed plan of how to address the problems, and they need to back this up with training for the teachers and TAs and the willingness to spend money on resources. Is there much money available?

What about local secondary teachers - we have one coming in to support our maths for no cost at the moment? Local ASTs?

IN her report, what does the HT say she's doing about the poor results? What strategies does she say she is implementing in her development plan? (You should have seen a copy.)

If the value added was fine i wouldn't worry too much - what a shame they are scrapping V.A!

The HT is relatively new to school, 2 years, but he has never mentioned the poor results in all the reports i have seen and noone has mentioned it at meetings, it was only when we received the raiseonline that we could see the poor results. His reports just mention 'improving' standards in English. I was just so shocked that it had not been brought up before.

Having looked at the school development plan thoroughly now i can see we are allocating funding to ECaW and a literacy scheme. An Infant Phase Manager has been recently appointed and she is to improve the phonics through the early years. No set targets as such, just general improvement. and just improving on teaching 'letters and sounds'.

I think i now have a few ideas that i am going to ask at our next meeting and as governors we need to be more aware of what is going on in KS1 and ask for more feedback on why and how we can improve.

Funnily enough i have offered several times to help in class (DD is in Yr1) with reading as a parent and/or governor and have never been taken up on the offer!!

I don't know what the problem is?? changes in teaching staff, maybe? We had a few staff leave last year and a couple of NQT's starting.

HT is not a teaching head (don't know whether this matters) and is not very visible, but has made quite a few changes to staff and maybe we just need time to see these come into effect?

I am trying to be positive!! :)

I think high expectations and high quality phonics teaching is the answer to an awful lot of problems.

Doesn't sound like your school has either. The lack of high expectations is the most worrying concern and one which you as a governor can challenge.

Remember neither deprivation nor SEN are excuses for children not learning to read, write and add up.

Unless the school is an infants school the main performance indicator is KS2 SATs not KS1.

What you need to look at is the data relative to the children's entry level for KS1 and the progress made from KS1 to KS2.

There are other factors that may affect results for example a lack of pre-school provision in the area. Yes children with SEN do catch up but if the number of children with SEN is above average this will affect results.

Also you need to look at numbers on the school roll if number of pupils is very small (less than 30 say) then one child's results have a big effect.

Data should also be available to help identify which pupils are underachieving e.g. boys, girls, FSM, SEN etc.

You are right there does need to be an Action plan for dealing with this and it is the governors responsibility. At my child's school this is done through the Standards committee. A word of warning - my child's school was put into Special Measures because of poor SATs results and SMT not having a suitable plan of action so you are right to be concerned. Having a list of excuses isn't the same as having a plan! However the LEA should be monitoring this as well and governors should also be seeing any LEA performance reviews.

Hope this helps

However the LEA should be monitoring this as well and governors should also be seeing any LEA performance reviews.

I agree, which made it rather surprising that the SIP didn't seem worried.

Also when comparing schools with national results each school is put into a band or group. This reflects the socio-economic mix of the area. The school's performance can then be compared with similar schools nationally. As a governor you should be made aware of which group your school is in.

The LEA should be helping the school with targets and if they are achieving the LEA target this may be why they are not concerned. But my dds infants school did go from satisfactory to failing because of this issue and the SMT lost their jobs so there is no room for complacency!

thanks............we have been told that as a school we are in Band 3? i didn't know whether this related to the 'satisfactory' grading from ofsted or something else? But i know the HT says we have more funding because of it. The HT was hoping we would move up to a 2 but this looks unlikely. I will ask.

KS2 sats up until this year have been very good, above average, but with a dramatic and sudden dip this year. The Y6 teacher has also been off ill since sept, which is a strange coincidence and he is being moved from y6 even though he has taught it for years and KS2 sats have been high.

In fact the KS2 sats were unbelievably good compared to the KS1 assessments up until this year, so for some reason something has changed dramatically?

Stoats.........are the LEa perfomance reviews the same as the HT performance review or are they seperate??

Crazy.....we have a standards committee (which i do not sit on) and as far as i know nothing has ever been discussed about these results. From the raise data it looks as though SEN doing ok (below average still)but it is the mainstream girls and boys who seem to be underacheiving! and not much difference whether FSM or not.

School is one form entry so 30 in class.

Sounds similar to my dds school which has now moved up to band 2. A band 3 school does get more support from LEA. I think it's linked to OFSTED and socio-economic mix of the area.

The KS2 SATs for this year 2010 have dipped at my dds school as well possibly due to some slight changes in the assessment. But it will be difficult to get a national picture as they were boycotted by many schools due to NUT action.

debs - I smell a rat.

If your KS1 results are very bad and then your KS2 results are very good, then your school will have a very good CVA. Which is a good thing to have.

KS1 results aren't published - so nobody besides you knows how bad the school is doing at KS1. Everyone else just sees the KS2 results and the CVA results.

Now, KS1 are internally assessed. And not always moderated. So it is perfectly possible that the school is deliberately grading the kids low at KS1 so that they get great CVA at KS2.