Could a teacher tell me how important these ratings are when choosing a school

[trunumber]

It's on a compare schools government website, and I've just found it and found our first choice of school rates MUCH lower than our second choice. Are these ratings important or meaningful?

Presenting Percy -- it does matter what you are comparing too.

Lower ability kids progressing slower than the rest of the higher ability students in the school is unfortunate but typical and a school wouldn't be seen as below average for that. They'd be seen as below average if those low ability kids did worse than the average low ability kid in England and they should be judged harshly for that.

Low progress scores are also often for high ability cohorts too as I've previously mentioned. It genuinely goes both ways!

X-post presenting percy!

Its extremely difficult for parents to understand what's happening in a school. Most decisions are made via playground gossip.

I've seen schools where the average high ability child does extremely well and has huge progress scores for that ability band be under subscribed because the intake skews slightly low ability and the average SATs are less impressive. The government hasn't done a good job at explaining progress scores so its not surprising

You can compare different groups of prior ability children to see how low, middle or high ability children are progressing and where greater depth sits.

You can compare your own selected schools against each not that is important to you. You can compare nationally, locally and your own selection. It is a part of school comparison but will never show a parent the full picture. Annual benchmarking is already out of date when it arrives on your desk and this often bears no resemblance to your schools present position.