Key Stage 1 SATS results....

[Wigeon]

Are the national average results available for Key Stage 1 SATS (ie end of Year 2)? I know they aren't on the Department of Education website, but various primary schools publish the national average figures alongside their own results.

However, I have just spent an agonising hour finding that the national averages given on St Bloggs Primary school website for 2012 or 2013 are DIFFERENT to the national averages given for Acacia Avenue Primary School, which are different to Greendale Primary School, which are different to.... etc!

Heeeelllp!

Legally, schools have to report their whole school results alongside the last year's national results for comparison.

Try here

WOW! You found it! I honestly couldn't find this on the Dept for Educ website. Thank you so much. I was thinking that because the KS1 results are all teacher-assessed, they aren't reported nationally or something.

Thank you again!

No probs

In my experience, they prefer to make these things quite difficult. Since this government came into office things have been nearly impossible to find - even when you know where to look!

The provisional data for 2013 is here:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/phonics-screening-check-and-national-curriculum-assessments-at-key-stage-1-in-england-2013

I think I have figured out why different schools give different national averages (when you might expect the national average to be the same, nationally!) - that link gives you spreadsheets where you can find the nat average for all schools, or just academies, or just free schools etc. So there are of course different national averages.

They're only supposed to provide one set of data from the previous year, and templates are provided online with the national data already on it, so theoretically there's no room for deviation.

However, schools still manage to mess it up by using the wrong data - or, in my ds's school's case, not bothering to meet the legal requirements at all.

Alternatively, you could go look at the school on Ofsted's dashboard site (2012 not 2013 data yet):

dashboard.ofsted.gov.uk

Gosh, it's easy to start getting obsessive about this....I am a infants school governor, and on a mission to improve the quality of the data which the governors receive (currently piss poor), starting with getting a grip on it myself. And have started producing tables with our 2012 and 2013 KS1 SATS data with these lovely links. For the first time I can actually see how our school is doing, compared to national and our local authority averages! And shortly the rest of the governors will be able to see my shiney new tables too!

Bit worrying about your DS's school, Feenie - do they realise they are not complying? What legal requirements are they ignoring?

PiqueABoo - thank you. I've looked at the Data Dashboard before, and it's quite helpful, although doesn't give you a local authority comparison, which is quite important in my school's case I think because our local authority tends to do pretty well compared to the national average (generally quite a well-off local authority).

Mmm.. you can arrange the data prettily and it's probably better than nowt, but I'm suspicious about the data itself i.e. the margin of error, the accuracy of end-KS1 levels .

For instance there's currently a nearby thread with a possible over-optimistic end-Y2 level and in my DD's case she was rated an entire level, not just a sub-level, too low at that point.

There's also the general murkiness of KS1 with the strong influence of differing physical maturity and environment (parental 'support') at the younger ages. Whether children should be doing much formal education with bean-counting prior to age 7 just hit the news again..

My ds's school failed to produce both school data and comparative data, and the phonics score for children who had retaken in y2 (53% including my son).

When called on it (I am an assessment and Literacy coordinator at a school in the same authority) they said they would publish the KS1 data on their website in September and that the LEA said they didn't have to report phonics scores. This fails the legal requirements. I contacted the DfE who confirmed I was correct and the LEA who said they said no such thing. I received a profuse apology from the Head who said they would change their reporting procedures to comply for next year.

Doesn't help parents this year though! Annoyed I received this level of flannel even though I know the law and who to contact at the DfE\LEA - doesn't seem to translate to anyone actually doing anything about it. Sadly, it's fairly typical of his school's attitude over many things.

Pique - yes, very good points. But as governors, I feel that we should at least be on top of what the data purports to tell us, before getting onto discussion how reliable it is etc etc...

Feenie - what a pain. My DD's school (well, the HT and DHT) are extremely defensive about absolutely anything which they construe as criticism. From what I read on here, and hear generally, this is not an isolated way of schools behaving (obvious disclaimer that I'm sure there are thousands of schools which are not like this).

Thanks again for your thoughts.

Great link Piqueaboo. I found this site schoolguide.co.uk
It lets you compare how primaries are doing in terms of getting kids up to level 5 by the end of year 6. Also interesting.