Does your child go to a "Good" junior school? Or do you know of one near you?

[ShoeWhore]

Junior not primary, I mean. I have heard it said it's almost impossible for Junior schools at the moment as they have no control over the end of KS1 SATS results (and apparently primary schools just fiddle theirs to beat the system)

I want to prove it can be done Can you help me? PM me if the info's too sensitive for a public post.

No ghoul I am not a journo, just a concerned parent. My dcs' school sadly isn't good (yet).

Thanks for explaining the situation to me. I've PMed you the details of the school I had in mind :)

My DS goes to a "good" junior school - as per Ofsted inspection last term. Please do PM me if you would like more details.

www.ourladyofgracejuniors.co.uk/

This is outstanding, results amazing and a lovely place.

I've wondered similarly how Junior schools compare to all-the-way-through primaries in OFSTEDs given the current emphasis on value added and progress.

I've done a very quick & crude analysis of Ofsted levels from a copy of the DofE data I took a few months back.

Interestingly, I found about 11% of junior schools get Outstanding compared with 17% of all-the-way-through primaries. Then about 69% of juniors got Outstanding+Good to 77.5% for the all-the-way-through primaries.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Is it that primary schools function better when the infant and junior departments are combined into one. Or is it that the playing field isn't level in the Ofsted game?

I have to admit that I'm leaning towards the latter. Particularly given that I also found that for infant-only schools, a staggering 35% got Outstanding, and 92% got Outstanding+Good...

Behaviour and attitude to learning is important. If a child has disinterested parents then it is harder for the teachers. Young children in infants are easier to discipline than unruely year 6. Learning is far more automenous in juniors and there is less ta support spoonfeeding.

I think that all the way through primaries do malipulate keystage 1 SATs to make them look lower so that they can show progress in juniors. Infant school over inflate the results to make themselves look better because they don't need to show progess in keystage 2.

Sometimes glaring poor teaching in infants shows up later on even if the children did well in keystage 1 SATs. For example if a child cannot blend words with phonics they may get by with look-say, but struggle later on as work gets more advanced.

Toomuchicecream - schools near me (wealthy area) would love to have targets of only 85% level 4 and above, its usually 93% or more (and in infants used to be something like 97% with only 60 children).
Now Ofsted don't look at anything more than the figures it is getting very hard to get Good or Outstanding (unless you drop into Needs Improving and then improve out again).

That's really interesting, Guinevere.

I would love to see data for the percentage of children tutored externally!

I also wonder how many Junior schools have one main feeder infant school (The junior school I used to teach in shared a site with an infants, but they were separate schools). If there is one main feeder, wouldn't it be interesting to see how the children progress from FS to KS2?

They've recently had an interim assessment but they are rated good.

My DD1 went there for a year before going to secondary school, and it has a pretty mixed catchment area.

OLOG Junior has one main infant school feeder. The Infants is also outstanding, although under the old criteria. The results at the Infants are excellent but somehow the Juniors manages to build on them, this is an exceptional school though with lots of support for those struggling.

My DS goes to a good junior school, it was inspected 2012. In my opinion it is far far better than the so called outstanding infant school that feeds it.

I'm not convinced that it's especially hard for some schools to get Good or Outstanding. But it's certainly very hard indeed for some other schools to do so, irrespective of how hard-working, talented or inspirational the teachers are.

I find it frustrating that OFSTED reports are so closely correlated to data, which in turn is closely correlated to the quality of intake. Analysis of the data and demographics is something that can be (and is) done on a computer in a remote office. What's the point of wasting money on an inspection team if they aren't looking for something deeper that can only be found out by visiting the school?

Galena: in our borough all Junior school have a feeder Infant. Most of the times the schools are next to each other, I know only of two who are geographically apart.

In the admission papers for the Juniors it states clearly that you apply for "your" Junior school. If you want a different Junior then you need to do the usual "in-year" application.

Therefore most Infants are not interested in manipulating KS1 Sats as the Junior head would knock at the door and asks what is going on.

Also a family member teaches in our lea and as a junior school teacher has told me that as a whole the the infant heads are not popular with the junior teachers as they ALL inflate levels.
As this means the junior teachers cannot show as much progress as they have really made and the poor year three teachers have to explain to parents why their chikd has made no progress.

this one in Hampshire was inspected in February 2012 and was graded as 'Good'.

I know of two but not sure when their ofsteds were. Holland and st Mary's in oxted.

Highfield junior - outstanding 2009 now academy
Pickhurst junior school - outstanding in 2011. Now an academy
Darrick wood junior school - good in 2012.

All in Bromley. Suspect that Highfield may suffer when next ofsted-ed. But being an academy they seem to be being avoided in Bromley at the moment. Lots of inspections of the non- academised schools. Seems political to me.

Interesting our local junior school RI despite the infants being in almost on the same site (2013 inspection) DDs 5-11 school went from satisfactory to good a year or so before.

DC's junior school was graded as "Good" (with outstanding features) last year. It has 2 main feeder schools and also picks up significant numbers of children from elsewhere.

They do moan about inflated KS1 results though.