Please help me digest the SATS results

[Blossom8]

just read the SATS test in my borough. Academically, which school would you say had perform better.

First school with 96% pass at Level 4+, 28% high achieving pupils with 29% pupils achieving Level 5+ in English and Maths or

Second school with 79% pass at Level 4+, 28% high achieving pupils with 40% pupils achieving Level 5+ in English and Maths?

both schools rated good by Ofsted.

Hard to tell, one may have got better results with children who were brighter, so they might have made less progress than the children in the other school who got lower results.

Have a look at the progress measures for English and Maths (on the right hand side of the performance tables) and also data about FSM and EAL. This will give you more detail to base your judgement on.

I reckon: find other criteria to define "performance". Like how happy pupils or parents generally are, how good the provision is for sport and art, anti-bullying reputation, etc.

This is exactly why SATS results mean nothing. Did the 96% school have brighter pupils? Did they drive the pupils in to the ground to get that? Are they just genuinely very good at teahing? Or very good at teaching for SATS. Your child is likely to do fine at either. I assume you're looking at both? Visit them and pick the one your gut says your child will be happiest in.

Have you visited the school? Thats the only way to know if it's suitable

Yellowsubmarine53 - are you referring to the "percentage of pupils making expected progress in English and the same for maths"?

If so

first school English = 100% under disadvantaged pupils (FSM/CLA)
and 93% under other pupils
first school Maths = 91% under disadvantaged pupils (FSM/CLA)
and 93% under other pupils

second school English = 100% under disadvantaged
and 95% under other pupils
second school Maths = 100% under disadvantaged pupils and
90% under other pupils

There's so much information take it, I'm not even sure what I should be referring to. What is your opinion based on these results

I have visited both schools, much of a muchiness, however, first school is a big school with over 1000 children on roll.

Can you link to the tables you're using? I'm struggling to find anything which mentions level 5s. Thanks!

Value added!
Any other data pretty meaningless ime.

I work in an excellent school, in which 71% of children achieved expected levels, and 26% higher.
However, we are in the top 5% in our borough in terms of progress made.

Beware the value added in this case. School 2's data looks suspiciously like they've tried to increase the value added by providing interventions to middle ability children so they make 3 levels progress across KS2 rather than the expected 2.

Savoir you go to this page,

find your local school, then scroll down to look at % gains for low-med-high attainers. % in Level 4s, Level 5s, Level 6s.

(Here's a question: whose child is at a school where the % for Level 6s wasn't suppressed?

The problem with Value-added-Measure is that it usually reflects the social character of the intake, too. So people who start with advantages in life keep them as they move thru school. VAM is not purely about quality of teaching either.

Over 1000 children at primary? Wow that's huge! I personally would not consider a school as big as that. School is intimidating enough for wee ones without being one in one thousand!

Thank you. I was obviously being a bit thick last night - didn't see the tabs across the top.

Whistlingwaves - my child is fairly bright, she's 3 years old and can already read Oxford Tree Stages 1 and part of 2 etc, recognise and count to 100 so I'm looking for a school that will challenge able children so I am trying to distinguish the SAT figures between schools but not sure what to really look for as some are saying check out the Level 5+ results, others are saying the progress made etc .....

I find the sats confusing.

1local school has 100% kids to stage 4.
wonder how heck tbey manage it as its non selective state.

That school does give silly amount homework

I knwo another school thats 97%that coaches key stage 1 and 2sats within inch of their lives.,

dds schools 86%level 4.

Im also unsure what chort my dd is in.
hse struggled year 1 but think shes middle.

we moved her from last school as realised that school dident cater well for the middle she was middle age, average middle ability,

whats more important level 4?
how high should 5 be? im assuming 5 high then must be good .

My children's school has rubbish SATs results (if you look at the headline figures).

But they are very good at challenging bright children, IMO.

Which just goes to show that you can drive yourself mad looking at statistics and still be none the wiser!

It sounds like both schools are fine - so go with the one that feels best and where your children enjoy looking around.

What do you call Rubbish, Achicken?
Is that MN rubbish or DfE rubbish?

I would say it depends what the average level of attainment was at entry. And whether there are many kids with SEN/EAL etc (I do appreciate some kids with SEN/EAL are academic high achievers btw!).

TBH it sounds like both schools get good SATs results, I wouldn't over think it in terms of league tables, but visit the 2 schools and get a feel for which seems more of a fit for your DD.

For a bright kid i would look at % at level 5. It's great if schools bring weak students up to speed but of little use to a far above child esp if it comes at cost of challenging the bright kids. Some schools seem to have very good sats when you just look at the lvl 4 percentage but they focus all their efforts on this measure - so i'd rather send my child to a school with 79% at lvl 4 and 40% at lvl 5 than one with 96% at lvl 4 and 28% at lvl 5 ( all else equal).

lljkk "rubbish" is probably over-stating it (but you wouldn't believe it if you heard the snobbery that exists about people that attend our school!)

But the school has one of the lowest % of pupils meeting L4 English and Maths in the County - below 70% in an area where the County average is over 80%. But if you analyse the figures for each ability grouping - low, middle, high attainers etc - they can demonstrate that each group is, on average, doing better than they would be at neighbouring schools whose bottom line looks a lot healthier.

That's not to say that the school feels happy about its bottom line figure - but it's frustratingly difficult to paint an accurate picture of how well the majority of children are doing at the school.

Our county average is 75%.
There's a school in the county with at 29%, though.

Interesting - particularly as the ability range, socio-economic grouping etc of the children at our school is actually quite "average" on a national scale, but in relation to the surrounding (stockbroker belt) area is perceived as being highly deprived. Hence having results that appear dramatically worse than any alternative school within striking distance, all of which have a rather different socio-economic profile. (So perhaps I should have said "rubbish by comparison with our competitors")

29% school is in one of the more deprived wards in the UK.

It's maybe 4 miles from schools that typically have 80-85% results (as good as it gets in our county).

Our school gets 70% level 4s in maths and english.

This puts it very near the bottom of the schools in our leafy southern town (plenty of schools get 90% plus in our town).

However, the school has an autistic centre whose children's sats results probably reflect 10% of those doing sats.

It is 40% free school meals.

With respect to progress, it's at the top of the league tables in the LA.

The results that the OP are quoting - probably not different enough to make a proper judgement on. They should choose a school based on how it feels!