ofsted schools dashboard

[MerryMingeWhingesAgain]

Sorry I can't link from
phone, has anyone else looked at their school on this? It gives a brief summary/overview of how well the children in the school are doing.

My school looks truly appalling.

LandS I don't understand what is difficult to understand, similar school is based on attainment at end of KS1 for KS2 data. For KS1 data there is no similar school data. The number of pupils isn't taken into account. It is a tool, all tools have their uses and limitations. This is a useful tool for most schools.

similar school is based on attainment at end of KS1 for KS2 data

This is a bit nuts, though, no? It doesn't take account of eg a primary school with a very challenging intake which has worked hard and imaginatively to get those children to a decent standard at the end of KS1 compared with a school with a privileged intake and high levels of parental input which has had to work much less hard to get its kids to a similar standard at the end of KS1. In the second school, there is also likely to be a shedload of tutoring going on during KS2 which is likely to change the attainment figures quite significantly for the end of KS2. Looking at what children achieve after three years of education tells you nothing about what the intake is actually like at the start of their school career, quite honestly. They're still the same children and they still have the same backgrounds and problems (or lack of them).

I think a parent's view of a similar school is probably very different from what you're describing and based on lots of factors like size, budget, location, staff turnover, ofstead report and many other things.

What you're describing are "statistically similar in only one aspect" schools which doesn't mean the same thing.

Also I didn't think they could publish results for school with low numbers. And does the percentage go on just the numbers sitting SATs in year6 if so that would mean only two children last year in our children's school. And 30 in the other school we have been looking at.

How is it possible to figure out which is the better school for children to go to?

This is an email that I sent out to my governors yesterday, I chair a group of governors some who like me have 20+ years to recently elected PGs. We have always had excellent access to stats, as the stat guru at our LA was copied by many others... through him I learnt to loathe piano graphs... anyway here is my note:

Dear Governors

You will probably have heard that Ofsted launched a couple of new tools yesterday so that you can examine data about schools.

To be honest these are very blunt tools which although they tell part of the story, they do not tell the full story as they lack the full context. Let?s take a look at the dashboard? if you look at KS1, you will see that we sit in lowest quintile? I can see you all thinking, OMG that is dreadful, but stop and think, where do are children start? are they at the same baseline with children in leafy suburbs? Well no, our children start way behind the baseline, many will enter school with little or no English, hence the bilingual classes but the progress that they make from when they start is sound.

Now look at the tab for KS2 and see how far they have come sitting above the national average, look at how the staff have narrowed the gap between disadvantaged and other children. Then look at our results for 2011 and remember how we tracked this cohort to within an inch of their lives to ensure that they had as much support as possible as we knew that they were a challenging cohort and our monitoring meant that the results were not a surprise to us.

Other parts are self-explanatory but remember this is just a top level data? it is not sliced and diced like the data we receive at our GB when we can look at Girls vs. Boys, by ethnic group, FSM/Deprivation factors and so on.

Dashboard

The second is locality specific? and if I thought the first one was blunt, this is worse than a plastic knife. It allows you to compare regional and LAs results, regional results are so broad that it is difficult to apply them to us but you will need to whizz down to the bottom of the chart to check out the LAs, but really this just gives you a feel for what is happening in our LA but no real tangible detail.

Dataview

At our last meeting I promised to send out the SATs comparison tables

Comparison Tables

As you will remember (cos I know you hang on my every word) this now shows financial spend per pupil, if you want to look at similar schools in our LA, look at ?? and ??? or any other two form entry school. We did have a caveat around the issue that not every school will code costs in exactly the same way so remember this when you look at comparisons.

Finally, can I say that some of Sir Michael?s comments about GBs not challenging or being aware of data just do not apply to us. I am proud of the way that you challenge not only the SLT but me too? I know that some of you may worry that you are not all over every aspect of school governance, but governance is teamwork and as a team we have the skills together to do the best for our pupils.

DD's school looks terrible on this (bottom or 4th quintile for everything) but having thought about it for a few minutes. I don't mind. I love the school because it is takes a holistic view of the kids and doesn't teach to the test. I like the laid-back approach, and there will be time in secondary school for exams and grades to be important.

Hi MerryMingeWhingesAgain:

I love it! Does it cost anything to generate data - data already there from KS1/2 SATs tests results gathered by schools for LEA/ Government - but hidden & 'spun' by schools.

Our school for example scored 83% level 4 or above for combined English/ Reading and 79% level 4 or above for maths - but the combined score (on which schools are judged - i.e. 'floor standard' must be 60% or better combined maths/ english) was 62%, just 2% above government floor level.

We're bottom quartile for everything accept math, where we are lowest!

I've been tracking this type of data for teh 5 years previous to my child joining the school to date and have been saying our school is seriously slipping down in standards to OFSTED, the Head and to governors for oh 3 years and they've all said but the Head says we're doing well in her reports. I'm thrilled by this independent confirmation of my own review of published KS1/ KS2 data and my own gut instinct that the school isn't delivering.

Absolutely gells with all I've observed, commented and indeed complained about.

PastSellByDate - does it cost anything? I have no idea, I wouldn't think so as it is data they were already collecting just presented differently.

For me it has been useful, while I know it is an extremely blunt instrument. I knew our school was not doing well compared to national expectations.

But there are always excuses (from the school) why - we changed the way we assess, that year group is a difficult cohort, that year group experienced a lot of change due to XYZ and so on.

To see just how poor things are compared to other schools, especially other local schools with not vastly different intakes, was very enlightening. And alarming, as a parent. There are 2 nearby schools in the same town, each about half a mile away in different directions, not in a leafy suburb, doing massively, hugely, better.

We need to find out what they are doing differently and copy them .

Past this is how I feel.

Got to go in and complain again next week.Bracing myself for the usual waffle,excuses and fobbing off.Maybe I'll wave the data(bottom for everything in tests and progress in KS2)whilst saying this is why we are worried.

I think schools should be made to send this data home,most parents won't even know it exists.

I haven't read all messages so apologies if I repeat a post made earlier.

The school at which I teach looks appalling on this - but parents rate the school highly. What it doesn't tell you is the starting points of the children who enter Reception and the mobility of pupils which has a negative and dramtic effect on the results of a school.

Our entry points are well below average. We also have a high proportion of children who come from impoverished backgrounds - little money, parents who themselves are uneducated and do not see any value in education at all, violence at home and are in looked after care. In my year group alone, 26 of the 56 children are on our pupil premium list. Of those children, all but 6 of them are working well below national average. In the same year group, HALF of the children's parents turned up to parents evening. My class also had 5 new starters since Year 1. One child had no education prior to spring term of Y1, another moved to us due to her father receiving an ASBO, so was kicked out of his home town, witnessed violence and has since been permanently removed from her family though is still with us, another has severe speech, language and communication difficulties, is obese and didn't walk until he was 4 due to severe neglect from his family, another also has speech and language difficulties and the final child is moving AGAIN for the fourth time since he was in reception.

Mobility is VERY high. As I have said, 5 new starters to a class of 25 (all but 4 on track in my class) brings the percentage down from 84% to 70% of reaching Level 2+. The Y6 children have had half leave the school (moved away due to seasonal employment here only!) and of the rest who turned up from Y3 upwards have ALL been SEN accordingto their previous schools.

It really does matter when you look further into school statistics and look at the mobility and the 'quality of education' these children have received from birth.

This is interesting:

www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2013/02/ofsted-dashboard-uses-the-wrong-data/