So worried about school’s performance

[Worried2010000]

During lockdown, I realised my year 2 (now year 3) daughter had no knowledge of SPAG, her spelling was behind and she just didn’t seem to be learning the things her friends from other schools were learning. I was stunned as she would have been about to sit her SATS and didn’t know the basics such as verbs, nouns, adjectives etc etc. She’s a bright girl and I worked through lots of this with her and she picked it up quickly. The primary school also didn’t give any work out at all during lockdown, so I was using work from other school’s websites as a guide

FWIW I was a primary school teacher until last year (now doing a medical degree to career change), so I do know quite a bit about the national curriculum.

Anyway, today I just so happened to look on the government compare schools guide and looked at the progress guide for the school.

In reading they get -4 (well below average), in writing they get -4.9 (well below average) and in maths they also get -4.9
They have a LOW rate of SEN in the school, well below the national average. They did get a GOOD ofsted score but this was in early 2016

I’m now really worried. She’s happy at school but I could tell the school were not teaching the required things before I looked at this.

We have 2 schools that are making excellent progress near us, but the little village school she’s in are doing terribly. I phoned up these schools today and both have a place. I’m really tempted.

What would you do? Would you also be shocked by these progress schools?

I would be concerned but not necessarily for the reasons described by Iamnotthe1

My son didn’t do brilliantly in his SATS. He had undiagnosed ADHD and struggled through primary school.

He has improved hugely at secondary and school do not (seem) to under estimate him based on his predicted grades. He is top set and will do higher papers.

However what is an issue is that there are gaps in his knowledge still. I know this is due to his ADHD and the fact that he simply wasn’t paying attention but it matters now.

Therefore if they are missing parts of the curriculum your daughter will miss foundations and that is what will follow her through her education. What she will be taught later will be based on what she should have been taught in primary.

Child may have done some spag bit not known it under that name. It may still have been a part of phonics sessions. Which also plays a factor, depending where she is in her phonics knowledge would play a role

It's also worth remembering that those progress scores of -4 and -4.9 are an average too so the message they show becomes:
On average, the children at this school make significantly less progress through KS2 than others at an average school.

That means that there will be a number of children at this school that made even worse progress. But there may well be a small number of other children who do manage to make the same progress as an average child at an average school.

Just so you are aware, the year 2 SPAG test is optional. Obviously those things are in the NC but it is the school's choice whether or not to administer the SPAG paper. Pupils have to sit the reading and maths papers but the only thing the school is required to submit is a teacher assessment for reading, writing and maths. Neither the reading not writing assessment frameworks ask whether a child can identify those parts of speech.

I'm not defending the school - I would have no hesitation about moving my child if the school wasn't up to scratch!! I'm just trying to clarify some of the confusion about what the tests administered in year 2 are actually all about.

We are in an 11+ area so I would.

If we weren’t in this area and had guaranteed place in a secondary school. I would keep her where she is, IF she was happy, the school was a good environment otherwise (except for actual learning!!) and if I could spend some time making sure she knew a good level of maths and literacy.

• I would move her school

I would take on board what the school have shown you and I would look to leave.

I have had similar issues. Zero work provided my the school during lockdown for my year 5 child , no interest in whether my child has done anything. One call which they had to cut off and leave when I asked about work as they were so busy.

Only me and one other parent thought that was poor. So the vibe I get from many other parents is "whatever", to be fair if children are set homework the same parents who have children with behaviour issues will be sure to complain loudly and say "she ain't doing that!"

I ignored rumblings and I really should not have. Shitty behaviour, other children doing nothing.

My year 3 child was lucky to have good teaching but it has been a fluke. Whatever you do do, look at changing schools.

The work I have to do now in year 6 for my child is ridiculous and exhausting. It took lockdown for me to have my eyes opened.

I don't think year 6 is an ideal time to change and that is the only reason we have not left but as soon as this year is over my younger child will be leaving.. pronto!

We had this and a poor Ofstead report. This is the second poor Ofstead report in a row. There are major leadership issues at the school. We are moving schools.

I wouldn't worry about sats and progress in isolation as there can be reasons for poorer scores but the very poor scores combined with your other concerns would bother me and yes I'd consider moving. Obvious caveat would be that the new school is a good fit where she'd be happy.

The poster who said that, as a governor, she would look into this is way behind the curve. The governors and the Head should be all over improving this situation. No outcomes should be a surprise to anyone - and that definitely includes governors!

The key document you need to discuss (if they will let you see it!) is their School Improvement Plan. This should be addressing all the issues you mentioned. If they don’t wish to discuss how they intend to improve, I really would go.

Many schools are incapable of improving because they don’t recognise they need to. Governors don’t monitor progress or benchmark the school. So when they are rock bottom it comes as a surprise. They then have to improve very rapidly but with poor teaching being the usual problem, it’s not a quick of easy task! So if you hang around, be prepared for Ofsted to arrive as soon as they can, turmoil after that with staff turbulence. It’s inevitable with results like this.

And, yes they do matter. The school isn’t teaching effectively and is letting children down.

I would look at what the trend is.

Is that a one off that year? It could be that something happened that year-perhaps a poor cohort.
If that's typical, what's the trend?
Is it getting better/worse/staying the same?
If it's getting worse or staying the same then I'd be a rat deserting the sinking ship. It'll get OFSTED in at some point, who may well declare it failing, and then people and good teachers will leave in droves.
If it's getting better, then it may be they have realised a problem. Have a chat to a governor, or the head. Ask what measures they're putting in to improve standards, see what you think. But keep monitoring it.

Saw it with a relative's school. They told me how OFSTED unfairly had come in. I looked at the OFSTED and it really was the worst I'd ever seen. Slammed on all fronts. Then I looked at the results and could see why the visit had been triggered. Couldn't see why the school hadn't acted 5 years previously as it was clearly getting worse from a bad basis.
Headteacher put out statements about how mean and nasty and unfair it was. Governors did similar... then they suddenly apparently resigned en masse "in protest". Roughly translated as OFSTED pushed them.
Relative was very vocal about how unfair it was and she was sticking by them despite everything... After a year she moved the children because the ds had not had a proper teacher in a year, 2 weeks worth of supplies, and the dd hadn't had much better, but now was the only girl left in her class. Then they had to take what spaces were available in the local schools rather than having the choice as the earlier leavers did.

I would look to move your child. Those results would concern me too...

These results suggest its In the worst 10% of schools nationally. It’s very very unusual to get to this position in one year without something really going wrong at the school or they have a cohort with no high attainers. Even if that’s the case, this is a poor set of results. A school I know has serious issues with Writing. Other results are average, but writing is -4. So in the red zone. It’s RI from Ofsted but if it was red in every area of attainment, and progress was poor as well, Ofsted will not be happy. I would use the Govt website to drill down a bit further to look at trends and previous attainment of cohorts. What progress are DC making. Do the school have their Heads in the Sand? What are they doing to address this? But, I would also take a place at a better school before they all get snapped up.

You’ve had two lots of evidence that agree - your own child’s learning and the statistics. Moving school is a big decision, I’d be looking at other schools locally at the same time as seeking a third piece of evidence - does the school acknowledge there’s a problem? If they know there’s a problem and have a decent plan, I’d give them to the end of this year and see what changes, and then decide. Either way, I’d research and get on waiting lists for other schools.

I think it’s very easy for parents to overlook the shortcomings of nice little village schools. Frequent staff absences are definitely a sign of problems. Generally people think village schools can do little wrong but in fact they can coast along and not plan work effectively for the brighter children. It’s always important to look at the data. Getting hold of improvement plans is difficult but a Head should be able to reassure parents about having robust plans. Some schools do publish a snapshot of them.

What were the previous years progress scores? If just one year could be that cohort. If more than one then a trend coupled with lack of teaching the curriculum.

Why would any school go from good progress the year before to being in the bottom 10% in the next cohort? This is virtually saying that the normal intake for the year was suspended and a whole lot of different children were in the school and that the school didn’t see the problem and did nothing about it - for just that year. It’s more likely it’s been sliding for a while and staff changes have exacerbated it.

Or could be a blip and an unrepresentative cohort going through SATS? We just don’t know

Op I wouldn’t worry about this in all honesty

Mainly because my kids go to a school that takes a very slow approach to the curriculum and the kids still get great a level and gcse results.

I don’t think sats are the be all and end all and having had to move an unhappy child to a new school I would say whole child development and happiness is what would worry me - I would only love if I felt that wee impacted, provided that I felt my child had good attainment in the basics eg reading, writing and maths

Without child specific info the data can be misleading. Sometimes 2 children missing out by one point in a level can mean a 6% or more drop. Year 6 is often when you get new starter frequently without any schooling. You would have had a report about her levels from the teacher in July and I would speak to the teacher about this. You can have a child well below national levels which can negatively affect your data but that child have made exceptional progress.

Yes exactly - the data can be very misleading. I used to be school governor of a school with extremely good SATs year in year out and then one year there was a cohort with many children who struggled academically. This was flagged by the head from some years before that SATS would dip when that group went through - even though the value add for those kids had been phenomenal and they were often achieving very good scores for them. After that cohort the usual pattern resumed.

This is much more apparent in those village schools which have tiny class sizes. Big jumps up and down in performance aren’t ironed out by a big pool of SATS performances.

Another issue is that you don’t know the kids’ start points. If a school gets a well deserved and brilliant rep for being good with children with sn and attracts a high number of those children, then the raw data might Look poor but the kids could be getting a fantastic education.

As a governor I’ve seen data that’s never misleading! However it would need a lot of DC with very poor results over a long time to be this bad. This is not a blip. In most schools it would be a catastrophe. Why does a previously decent school suddenly have so many DC who are under achieving. Yes, the odd child can appear. Yes, children in care might turn up, but all of this happening in large numbers to drag the stats down this far is far fetched. The school year would have a high number of low achievers or SEN to be at this level so how has that suddenly happened?

Schools regularly have low achievers who struggle to make progress. We all have the children who arrive and can drag progress down. But not to this level. I’ve been a governor for over 20 years and I’ve only seen such figures in poor schools. They spiral downwards and they are never a rogue year.

@guymere I mentioned if it was more than 1 year poor performance as OP had mentioned it was a small school and small schools can be adversely affected by 1 cohort. If there are only circa 15 in a year Like my DDs school.

I just moved my child for similar reasons. Half a term into the new school and he’s absolutely thriving.
I’m a teacher too and disappointed in myself that I let it go on for so long.