A school with seriously amazing KS1 results - Lewisham

[flexybex]

Just researching information to include in a report (i.e. surfing) and came across a government publication that used Fairlawn Primary in Lewisham as an example of excellence.

This school apparently has 21% EAL and achieves 40%+ level 3 for writing at KS1.
I am gobsmacked (and depressed).

How do they do it? Anyone know the school who can throw some light on this for me? Do they run a writing scheme from nursery?

And, while I'm here, how can the average salary of their teachers be £47K?

flexybex - children need to hear a really rich vocabulary in order to acquire it. My DD is bilingual, we live in France and our family is French speaking, so English really and truly is the minority language. I was so panicked at the prospect of her English vocabulary not being up to scratch that I invested in zillions of language-rich DVDs - loads of BBC period drama, films etc (no censorship at all, btw).

Her English vocabulary is startlingly good. Sadly, not having had the same treatment, her French vocab is not up to par.

So - it can be done, with a minority language. You need to encourage parents to keep those DVDs on!

Normally reading levels are higher than writing flexybex so I would expect the KS2 levels to reflect that.

Talking Partners is the S&L intervention we use quite early for Reception EAL children who need it.

I know, but polly was comparing the two earlier.

Is that like talking partners in lessons, or a particular intervention called Talking Partners feenie?

It's a particular intervention for EAL chldren.

Link

Presumably you had to receive training for that?
Our lea support is dire. Many local schools don't have eal intake and any that do generally have 60%+ eal and are bombarded with teaching assistants so county doesn't have to take responsibility.

Many of our children (in addition to the few eal) are entering school with poor language skills (5/60 didn't know any colours last year) and we know we have to address their language skills before we can expect to bump up level 3 writing at ks1.

There used to be extensive training in our area - I doubt there is any now, our LEA has been massively scaled down.

www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/school.pl?urn=100710

Any comments mrz?

Looks like a school that progresses its children well, although that needs to be put in the context of an EXTREMELY low SEN stat and VERY low FSM.

Issues around SEN (not just a disability, but the child's needs not being adequately supported) and poverty are far bigger influences in educational attainment or not than whether children speak 1, 2 or 3 languages invhe.

Low Free school meals
Low SEN
Low absenteeism
Small classes
High level of support (although don't know how qualified)
V High wages

Value Added from KS1 to KS2 in English OK
82% HA in KS1 make expected progress in KS2

Some of the most able children in DD's year (and she is in Y1) have EAL. They come from families who are very keen that their children succeed and give them a lot of support at home. Unless there is a lot of children that have arrived in Y4/5 with no English at all, I don't see why a high EAL should preclude high SATs results in Y6?

redsky I'm really concerned about KS1 here, and see no reason why EAL should preclude high SATs results in Y6. I'm not being 'isty' at all. Several of our younger EAL children go to Explore and Kumon and learn to write mechanically, but are let down by their vocab at the end of KS1.

mrz All the progress stats may be useful, but that doesn't explain how you get nearly half your cohort to write like 8 or 9 year olds at the end of KS1. The majority of my class write like 6 and 7 year olds, in much the same way as they talk like 6 and 7 year olds.
FWIW (compared to Fairlawn)
Our school has insignificant FSM, even lower SEN, v low absenteeism, lower class sizes.... but much less support (and certainly lower wages!)
Our VA is about the same as theirs and our expected progress from KS1-KS2 is about the same as well.

I feel like I'm tearing my hair out getting level 3s at KS1, and just wonder how other schools get such high percentages. It must be something they do in Y1 and YR that we're not doing.

I think writing is so subjective so without seeing examples of the work it is difficult to tell if they are writing like 8-9 year olds or not.
I put some examples of my class's work on TES which quite a number of people levelled as high 3s or even 4s (they had been moderated by my LA as 2A/3C)

That's true mrz but if there was 'easy' moderation going on in Lewisham, surely other lewisham schools would be showing the same high KS1 achievement.... or maybe they do??!!

I've had that problem at moderation meetings too - it depends on who you sit with (it helps if you have someone with some really crap work on your table) and whether people are matey with the moderator. Two years ago we had problems retaining a 2B for a piece of work: last year they couldn't praise us enough and upped a 2B to a 3. My assessment procedures hadn't changed......

Our moderation process involves the moderator looking at children's work rather than moderation meetings with other people at a table and I'd assessed the work as 2A/3C which the moderator agreed with. It was interesting that other teachers thought it was 3A or even level 4 ...

Random schools are selected for writing moderation around here - we haven't had one for 13 years!!!

We need someone on this thread who works in Lewisham!

In my LA schools are moderated every year

Our LEA does a 3 year cycle - and the process is as mrz describes, a moderator looking at children's work.

What homogeneity to produce the national results..........!

My was at flexybex's 13 year gap, obv, not mrz's yearly moderation.