Primary school performance tables - what do they really mean?

[CThove]

Hi everyone.

I, like most of the other mums in my child's Yr1 class have been pouring over the latest league tables for primary schools. Our school, despite being in a fairly affluent area and being a CofE school (factors which I think help attainment) has done pretty poorly this year. It has got worse consistently since 2016 when the tables started. In terms of progress, it does average in reading and writing and below average in maths.

My question is how concerned should we be about this? I realise its only a snapshot and other things matter just as much or more than performance, but as a parent you have so little to go on to judge whether your child's school is a good one, these tables take on a massive significance. I have a girl so I'm particularly concerned about the terrible figures for girls performance/progress in maths - which are pretty poor for the school.

Am I getting all steamed up about nothing, or does this indicate the school is on the slide? Any view

Thanks

It might mean the teaching is poor.
or
It might mean that the school doesn't stress the children out in y6, so they have a well rounded experience rather than purely focussing on y6 SATs.
or
If it is progress, it might mean their infants teaching is fab, but juniors teaching only average so progress from y2->y6 is less good, but still good attainment overall.
or
size of school is small so each pupil has a disproportionate effect on marks. In a single form entry, each child is 3.3% so it only takes 3 SEN pupils to pull things down by 10%.

CofE schools do not have any magic secret sauce other than they tend to attract naice parents and are located generally in more affluent areas. The money and parents make the big difference, not necessarily the school. Are the school resting on their laurels?

Yes, I would be concerned about a downward three year trend. It’s best to see the progress score as a reflection on a child’s experience over their entire primary career. As always, past performance does not predict future performance, especially if there are significant staffing changes.

Cohort sizes are accommodated by the average/above/below average ratings, rather than the score, because a small school with only 13 children sitting Y6 SATs will be very much affected by one child having a bad day, whereas a 2 form entry school won’t be. So it’s harder for a small school to break into the above average category but also harder to drop below.

Have a look at the non mobile pupils. These are children who were at the school for both Y5 and Y6, and therefore I think this is a good picture to look at.

Girls maths would be a massive worry for me - it’s clear there is something systematically wrong with the school if this is a problem over the 3 years and there are no signs of improvement. If it’s a small school then the percentages may look bad - you can have a look at the cohort size to see if it’s within one child of the national average. For a small cohort, within national by one child is OK.

I would much prefer steady progress across all three areas, rather than a +6 in reading and average across the rest of the areas, for example.

The school governors should be all over this. You might want to read some of their minutes to see what they are doing.

Thanks for these insights.

The school isn't small - 3 form entry so that's not an issue.

You're totally right about CofE - in and of itself not related to anything, but...we don't compare well with schools in our city with much more challenging cohorts. Something is off. I'll check the governors reports to see if they're looking at this. As you say - they should be!

I think it is very difficult to really make use of those performance tables.
First, you need to really properly crunch the numbers.
Then you need contextual info to interpret what is likely happening.
Then you need to consider what that means for you. For this, you need to estimate the future, and personalise it for your particular family/child.

Our school's results are a less great than they have been in the last two years, but the progress scores have slid way down.

I note for example that compared to recent years, the average score for reading/maths tests has come down at our school. But the % meeting expectations has stayed high. % getting greater depth has gone down. Progress scores are worst for 'previous high attainers' but bad for 'previous middle attainers' too. So I guess this was a high achieving cohort at Y2, that hasn't made as much progress as other high achieving cohorts (in the country, and in previous years at same school). Especially the 'high attainers' weren't all able to convert their Level 3s (as they were in 2014) into 'greater depth'.

Contextual knowledge of our particular school then tells me that the 2018 cohort was a lot happier, over all, than the two previous ones. And also the rumor is that the two previous Y6 teachers left due to disliking all the pressure put on them (and onto Y6 kids) from SLT. 2018 Y6 teacher also left but after having resisted much of that pressure.
That again allows me to interpret the data differently.

But that is all looking back. What does it mean to me, my kids, looking forwards? OP's child is in Y1, nearly six years to go until KS2 SATS. My eldest has nearly three years to go. In our case, chances are that the school will continue going through Y6 teachers (in the last 5 years every Y6 teacher has left at the end of the year), so past experiences say nothing as to how our Y6 teacher will be. Will they put results over the kids' wellbeing? Will they resist the pressure?

The headteacher being in charge, chances are that teachers will be recruited that are results-orientated. This year's slide in attainment and especially progress will be seen as proof that the 'happy' teacher's approach doesn't work. So I'm expecting exam-factory and unhappy Y6 kids in the next couple of years.

The next question is, what does that mean for my particular children? And there again, the overall data says very very little. I am not too concerned for my eldest, as he is fairly resilient to pressure. My younger child is too young yet to predict how she would deal with a potentially highly pressurised Y6 in six years time. By when there may be a new headteacher, and new priorities, anyway.

All that said, I am actually rather pleased at the slide in results, as it just might make the governors sit up and take notice, as opposed to taking the headteacher's word for gospel.

Ours are not good at all for 2018. Mostly negative progress.
Tbh it's not that much of a surprise as the other local school seemed to be doing so much more with them from yr r, which would have really helped the bright ones.
Thry just dont seem to push themselves (the school/teachers). The other school was giving like 5 books to read every day in yr r. Our was doing 2 books a week. Dd lost at least 8m reading books she could have read a year earlier. I think there strategy of leaving TA to read (only once every 2w or so still), rather than teachers is not a good one as they cant then move kids up.
Homework policies probably havent helped. As you need a lot of practice to get good at something.
So i am expecting to see issues like this throughout the school.

Can I ask where you checked? Can't get my head around it by googling.

www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/find-a-school-in-england

Without the contextual analysis it's hard to interpret fully. For example our attainment this year was slightly higher than usual however our progress scores are off the charts. We know that this is because the cohort who have just left had very low starting points and was very SEN heavy. Yes they've had fantastic teaching to get them to where they were, but with a school that has many children coming in at Reception as Exceeding or GD in Y2, showing high progress scores are much much harder.

I think the major issue the op has highlighted is lack of progress of girls in maths. I totally agree that the Governors should have this as a priority in ther Improvement Plan. If they have, they need to monitor the lack of success of what they doing and expect the Head to change tactics.

As a governor, I recognise this problem. Girls seem to pick up on mums saying they were not good at maths. They lack confidence and doubt their ability more readily than boys. By all means ask the Head what is being done to address this problem. A good Head will be able to tell you.

It can be very difficult to get good progress out of the lower ability children. We have great progress for higher and middle, but our lower cohort can be difficult to shift! They often come from other schools who have gilded attainment too.

Most schools now do have a push for Sats in y6, but most schools recognise that all years are important. No child should be trying to catch up in y6 because of poor teaching lower down the school.

Whether you need to be worried or not, depends on what the school is doing about it. Parents are able to see GB minutes and supporting papers that are not confidential. What is in the School Improvement Plan? Who is monitoring it and what are they doing about maths? It is a mistake to think C of E equals excellence. Schools are only as good as their staff and you can see other schools doing better. I think you are right to query what the school is doing to address any issues.