Disappointed in sat results for son's primary

[confusedinlondon]

I have selected a primary school for my son, and he has a very good chance of getting in. How the sat results publish today are really odd: the school had 85% of students reaching the required standard, one of the highest in our borough, but only 5% reached the higher standard, one of the lowest scores in the borough. Last year it was almost 20% of students who reached the higher standard, and 82% reached the required standard. Is this a cause for concern, i just find the results odd as I would have expected more students to reach the higher level.I am worried my child won't be streched, but I have visited the school last month on an open day and it seemed like a good school

How big is the school? It’s entirely possible that they had a ‘better’ intake the previous year, and in fact they’ve done a fabulous job with the pupils they had.

What was the make up of the cohort? What was their entry level?

This is why results alone tell you nothing. One child’s “working towards” May actually take an awful lot more effort than another child’s “exceeding”

I would say it’s really not worth worrying about. Cohorts very wildly and sometimes getting that 85% at expected is a fab achievement. So long as you’ve looked round and feel it’s the right place for your child, then let that be your guide

Remember that to hit the "higher" standard goalpost you have to be working at higher standard in all subjects.
My very able DD was way above the expected level in writing and reading, but had a nightmare (for her) on her maths paper and missed the maths "higher" standard by 2 marks. She therefore doesn't feature in the "higher standard" statistics, and if there are several students like her, the school's results will dip, without any real change in standards.

The key to understanding the results is not the results themselves, but how much progress the children have made over the years to attain the results they did. If the vast majority of children have made good or better progress then it shows the school is good and different children in each cohort produce different results. No two year groups are the same.

Another things to consider is that school changes over the years.
What's the school like before starting, and what's it's like after 7 years maybe totally different.
That's why other factors are more important than sats results when choosing school.

My son achieved full marks on the reading element of the SATs and yet was down as "at expected level" and is now in gifted and talented at secondary. You couldn't make this stuff up.

He also achieved above average scores on the other areas of SATs and again was at expected level.

At the end of the day you have to drill down further into low ability/middle ability/high ability children, how have they progressed?

SATs are not the be all end all. One mark can be the difference between expected and above. It is ridiculous. How do you feel about the school as a whole?

And you can have "glitch" years where one year group either bombs or does incredibly well.

Results in smaller schools with single intakes are very volatile, depends so much on the year group. My son's class ended up full of somewhat immature summer-born boys many of who just want to be out on the playground and still find writing hard going, whilst the year above has a completely different mix. Each teacher so far has commented on how lovely a class they are but how it's a different experience and that it can be quite challenging at times.

Maya has described our village school. Only has 25 children per year (less in some higher years). The results can vary widely when based on few pupils. This year they did less well due to the indiviuals compared to the previous year.

Don't hang too much on SATS as the others have said. I chose our school on wide mix of kids, sports, music, inclusive ethos etc as education is so much more than SATS. I want well rounded children who can cope in the modern world. Its a big diverse school so life lessons learnt every day

I didn’t even know that people worried about SATS. Where I’m from you only get into the school if you’re in the catchment, so no choice based on results.

Sats are bollocks please don’t pick your school on them.

Small-ish schools do vary a lot from year to year depending on the cohort. If you’re happy with the school I wouldn’t worry about this too much.

SATs are bollocks

^^ This

If you liked the school when you went and looked then that is the important thing. SATs results are, in my opinion, an awful way of judging if a school is the right place for your child. If SATs are important to you (why?why?why?!!) then you have 8 years before your child sits them and it will probably all have changed again!

My DD is in Year 6 at a very small village school. In 2016 they had over 90% reaching required standard (one child with profound SEN) and over 20% reaching higher. standard. This year they had only 57% reaching required standard and no children reaching higher standard. The school is the same, no change to teaching or SMT staff, but the fluctuations are due to the very small cohorts - 13 in 2016 and 7 in 2017.

Please make your school preferences on whether you feel the School is the right one for your child, not on their SATs results.

With a small cohort, you can easily get 'bright' years and 'not so bright' years. You should look at SATs results, yes, but in the context of everything else, not in isolation.

Plus, some schools are way more pushy on SATs than others. If you choose a school for SATs results alone, you may be on here in 7 years moaning how y6 is nothing but English, maths and practice papers, with no art, PE, extra curricular. Be careful what you wish for.

Hard though isn't it? Our school (naice, mc southern village) just got absolutely dreadful SATS results for the second year running. I am slightly panicked now.

To get exceeding in maths, a year 6 needed to get over 86.3% in the 2017 Sats. That’s quite an ask even for a capable child.

I try not to worry about Sats results but it's hard.
Our school (90 per year) achieved 51% expected and 5% exceeding which is an improvement on last years - 43% expected and 4% exceeding.
I'm worried as the progress figures are all -2.1 or worse.

My ds's school had below average results for 2 years running.
My ds's teacher told me he would do well even he took sats now, in yr5.
So, way I see it, results as a whole school doesn't really matter. your child is 1 out of xx %. Sats results may matter for school, but not for individual child.

Its completely meaningless, and a measure of how effectively the staff cheat as much as it is a measure of anything