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?

Do we know how small the school is?

@Onceuponatimethen

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.

But that's the point with this school and this data: they aren't just underachieving as a cohort, their progress data and value added is terrible too.

This isn't an example of a few child just missing out or a whole class being lower attainers and so getting a reduced number of age-related or greater depth scores. This is a school where the children are making significantly stunted progress against their own starting points. There is no reasonable reason for why this could be an issue that is cohort specific.

That’s what I’ve been trying to say too. You said it better!

Op I could have written your post word for word, I had to check the name to make sure it definitely wasn't me. Re the progress.
Can she read, are you sure there isn't dyslexia or something going on?.
I also found out over lock down dd had no idea what a verb is etc and again like your dd, mine did little and often and didn't seem to have any issues learning it with me? I suspect she has dyslexia or something.

Our school have put measures into place and I've hired tutors who are brilliant.
I've agonised about moving mine, I would have in a flash but we didn't have anywhere suitable
I'd definitely move your dd!! No thoughts about it.

Another move them both advocate - difficult if they are happy and settled but the impact it will have on their learning and secondary school targets and classes isn’t good.