55% Pass rate for phonics test

[Readytomakechanges]

I noticed that our school got a 55% pass rate this year as it was published in our school reading letter.
This seems a fair bit lower than the national results.
They also had a 55% working at age related expectations in both reading and writing in KS1 SATS (national 76% and 69% respectively nationally)
There is a line about the tests being particularly tough this year due to changing standards, but surely that would mean the national percentages would be lower also?
Would you be concerned about the above results?

It depends- sometimes you have a cohort who are much lower academically than others which obviously isn’t something the school could control.

Is English a second language at the school or is it in a deprived area?

Not great phonics teaching. 55% sound.

Deprived area or a few very low achievers. Not the schools fault. If you don't have concerns about your child or their progress I wouldn't pay it much attention tbh.

Sorry, the first line should have "would be my guess" after it. It's 20 to 3 am here and I should be sleeping. Lol

There's Low and there's Low though. How many pupils in a year? Is it possible that they had a large number of pupils start part way through year one?

Deprived area shouldn't' affect the phonics score but would have more effect on the KS2 results.

.. or there may be high mobility.
You really can't tell from the raw stats whether it's a bad result or not.

Many schools in areas of high deprivation (and high EAL) are achieving 100% pass rate

Adverse demographics or exceptionally high churn rate of pupils might be a reason. As might frequent changes of teacher.

But the likeliest is that phonics was not well taught, I'm afraid. Or was mixed with other methods.

In 2016 my DC school only had 22% pass. There was an Ofsted not long after where they reported that the teachers' knowledge of phonics was poor. Nothing exceptional about the year group. There were a lot of staff changes and the 2017 result was 80% passing.

I'd be concerned by 55% tbh. The test wasn't that challenging (DD did it in the summer) and the pass mark was only 32. If they've been teaching phonics properly you'd expect the rate to be much higher

I don't think there are any pupils who have English as a second language. The school has 45 kids per year and, according to the 2015 'good' ofsted report the "proportion of disadvantaged pupils supported by the pupil premium funding is broadly in line with the national average"

So that means 20/45 failed? That is shocking, indeed.

My kids school had 100% this year for the first time ever, I don't think it's got tougher, I would look to the teaching tbh

I would be interested to know what the school is doing to improve that score. There are mitigating factors and unusual years, but there can also be poor phonic teaching. I've certainly seen a school transition from low to average to just above average by actually deciding to do phonics properly.

I'd definitely blame school.
My ds's school had bad results above my ds's year. They've gone through massive change, including hiring literacy specialist for ks1, and results weren't as bad as OP's school.

I think DD would pass the phonics test. She's in Y1 and I asked her to read the words for the recent phonics test for my own reassurance. She got them all spot on.
However, they are always saying DD is 'very forward', but I'm not convinced.
When they sent home sight words for her to learn, including words like 'man', I reiterated to her how to decode them and taught her the code for the ones she didn't know so she was always using phonics. The books sent home were non decodable.
I'm wondering whether the school doesn't have high expectations for their pupils. I worry that if they're not teaching the basics, such as phonics, that DD will struggle when she needs to be learning in areas I can't back up at home.

I think that is very low. I can’t find results for DC school. But the other primary in the village is 85% and 75% for reading and writing for 2017. This is similar to the average in Hampshire which is 82% and 74%.

The stats I have is KS1 SATS btw. I can’t find the phonics results.

If it's a year group of 45, then that won't explain the results.

It pretty much has to be the teaching unless half the year group joined part way through the year and all happened to have had huge gaps in their knowledge.

55% is really, really bad.

If they are sending home words like 'man' as sight words, then it's definitely the teaching.

Not much turnover of pupils. The kids who start in nursery tend to be the same kids leaving at the end of year 6, give or take one or two.

Yep man isn't a sight word, it should be one of the first words they can decode surely

How was the results last year? If it's similar, school is not trying to do anything about it.
Reading is a basic skill needed for every other subject. How can they teach anything, if nearly the half of the class can't read?
If they aren't doing anything about it, I would think about moving school.
It will affect all the lessons, especially upper years.

Last year's phonics result was 79% compared to 81% national result.