Can I make an FOI request to school for anonymised exam results?

[herewegoroundthebastardbush]

I've just been advised my DD will be going into a mixed year 1/2 class next term as a year 2. I have some concerns around this, nothing drastic but I want to find out all I can about how this works and if I need to be worried about her falling behind.

I've asked the head for anonymised exam results data for previous cohort of year 2 SATs, divided by mixed/not mixed classes, to see if overall year 2s in the mixed class do as well as year 2s in straight classes. Not sure if she will give me this info, so was wondering if I can request it by FOI if I need to, or if given the small number of year 2s in the mixed class this would be too easily identifiable.

I know I'm going to get a good few responses telling me not to be so precious and to wait and see how my DD does in mixed; but I just feel better having as much general information as I can get as a context to my own ongoing assessments of my individual DD's needs.

It is what I was told to do. I asked the class teacher about relative outcomes and she said she didn't know and I should ask the head.

I think its fair to ask them to explain how it works as I think its confusing for someone outside of education and its a shame you were fobbed off with 'trust us'

My son when to a school with mixed year groups and they carefully explained how it worked to us.

I dont think the sats data will give you anything meaningful.

If you got it, what will you do with the information depending on the answers?

If it says the year 2s in the mixed class have previously done worse - you've said you don't want her in the other class due to friendships, so she's staying there, but you'll want to ensure you keep on top of things with your DD's learning.

If it says the year 2's in the mixed class have previously done better - well okay but what if they tend to put the high-achieving ones in the mixed group, or it has previously by chance been a high-achieving group, you can't assume they did better due to the environment or teaching, so better still keep on top of things for your DD.

If it says the year 2's in the mixed class did the same as in the other classes - I mean who knows what that means. Best to still keep on top of it for your DD.

As a statistician I wouldn't draw conclusions from one year of tests results for all of the reasons mentioned on this thread already, as asking for that data is a waste of time.

Personally this wouldn't bother me as I would trust the teachers to be more than capable of managing this, as the educated experienced professionals they are.

If you do want more info I'd focus on things like how they differentiate the work, balance stretching the able year twos and catching up the year ones who are behind - but really, this is exactly a teacher's job so unless you have any actual concerns about the school or the teacher I'd just put your faith in them.

Well when you put it like that 😂

Yes obviously I should probably be more proactive whatever the outcome. I just don't see how knowing more can ever be a bad thing, so don't see the harm in asking!

Have you checked your schools policies to see how they select the mixed class? Our school often has mixed age classes throughout the school but how these are put together are documented in a policy signed off by the governors and readily available on the school website. In our school all KS1 mixed classes are done by age.

I don't have any concerns as such but there is quite a high number of SEN/ESL students in the school and in DD's year (partly due to the catchment), they have all the usual problems of not enough staff, class size etc, and I feel like maybe able but quiet kids like my DD fly under the radar a bit and aren't challenged as long as they're meeting standards expected for the generic age group. Took about two terms in year 1 before I felt the class teacher really knew who my DD was in terms of her comments at parents evenings etc.

So I do think there is already a risk that they perceive her doing 'ok' is good enough, rather than considering whether she could do better and pushing her (please don't suggest if I want this to send her to private school!!!) And while that's all to be expected and I haven't been overworried thus far, I feel that this may be exacerbated in a mixed class where half the class are already only just coming up from reception, never mind any additional support needs. Also her being a girl, as from what I see (admittedly limited) the boys seem to suck up a lot of attention due to higher levels of 'behaviour'.

Basically, I know she's smart enough and will be 'OK'. But I don't want her to be sidelined because of that and I want to know what measures they have in place to avoid that, or if I have to be very proactive to ensure that doesn't happen.

It's certainly not a 'take her out of school/set off a rocket under the head's desk' issue for me! AT ALL! I like the school, I like the teachers, I like the head. I just want to know more. That's all.

@herewegoroundthebastardbush - I agree that on the face of it more information can seem like it is always a good thing! But to think through another example:

What if there are two classes with Teacher A and Teacher B, and parents want an anonymised breakdown of all the SATs results for the children in their classes. Call them Pupil 01, Pupil 02, etc and publish the full set. What's the harm? Well if that data shows that Teacher A's pupils generally all got higher scores than Teacher B's pupils - next year, who is going to want their child to be in Teacher B's class? When perhaps Teacher B is much more experienced and skilled as a teacher so takes a higher percentage of the children with SEND, or English as an additional language, or the lower achievers from last year's tests, so getting them all to even that lower than Teacher A scoring point is still an amazing achievement. Or perhaps norovirus was going around Teacher B's class on test day. Or several pupils had recent bereavements or were in the middle of care proceedings. Lots of hidden context that can't reasonably be shared with the basic mathematical facts.

I'd have interpreted the comment about asking the head to be about the specific question of relative outcomes. I'd still want a meeting with the class teacher and/or Key stage lead to discuss in general how these classes work and how they ensure progress across all their Year 2 students.

FOIs are a bit of a nuclear option and I would only resort if communication had broken down with school and you suspected they were sat on some damning data that proved your point.

This. I've had to do a few FOIs and they are invariably people who believe their 'reckons' are vastly more important than professional judgment. I don't think I've had a single one where it's resulted in anyone saying, "HAHA I was right" because they never are. Or they are paranoid mentally ill people (which can't be helped and I feel for them).

They are massively time consuming and onerous and take precious resources away from the actual work. Yours is particularly onerous because it's children's data, which means them having to be incredibly careful and thinking about any route to knowing personal data. It won't be readily available, already sorted, anonymised data, easy to share.

DD has been in two mixed classes and they've been great.

There's no information about the mixed class in the policies on the website.

I certainly wouldn't be treating it as some kind of gotcha. Literally just one more bit of info to add to the mix of what I already know, and the stuff I have yet to find out.

As the younger or the older cohort? I can see how they younger kids benefit from exposure to the more advanced work, not so much the other way around. I'd be really interested in your experiences as a parent of an older child in a mixed class! Maybe I should start a thread on MN asking for those actually...

Once older, most recently younger. Both good.

Exam results aren't anything in primary. Get a tutor if that's the concern. Socially, it was great. The better teacher got the mixed classes in both cases.

Boys sucking all the attention happens in almost every class.

Oh, however DD is one of those SEN kids you're concerned about so probably best if I don't say what I think about that.

@herewegoroundthebastardbush ,My DD is 17 but went to a small village primary, there was R,Y1 and Y2 in one class, Y3 & Y4 in another and finally Y5 & Y6 in the last class. I was a little apprehensive but honestly it was fine. She thrived, learnt by example from the older kids and then loved the responsibility of being one of the older ones and leading by example.

We still have the 11+ in my area and the primary school had a very high pass rate (apart from one year it was only 50%, two children had taken the test and one had passed and one had failed!). My daughter passed the 11+ and was in the top 5% of the country for SATS.

I know many parents who said they would've sent their DC's elsewhere because of the setup but honestly it worked well.

I was in a composite class for most of primary school. The way they chose the class is that they took the youngest kids from the higher year and the oldest kids from the younger year. So the kids who were in the year above me were only actually a month or two older than me.

This sounds very far from easy going OP. I think it’s quite intense to be approaching your child’s Y2 class in this way. If I were a parent of the other children in the class, I really wouldn’t want you looking at the data, I’d think it was inappropriate and if I found out you were trying to get it, I’d be straight to the head with concerns.

Honestly, quiet, well behaved, achieves expectations children are going to be sidelined in any class of 30+ that's just the way state schools are right now and it's going to become worse with continuing budget and staffing issues.

School is also about more than grades, it's socialisation and building relationships too. If you want to look at school data then look at it as a whole how do the children progress through the school from KS1 to KS2, how much value is added overall?

Foster interest in learning outside of school too, not with formal tuition but with the activities you do together.

I don't have a problem with SEN kids! I'm just saying high numbers of them in a class without adequate TA/121 support means they get more teacher attention (quite rightly, they need it more). I'm just saying add to that a cohort of younger children who also need more teacher input to adjust to the 'sitting and working' shift that happens in year 1, that's a lot of teacher attention going WHERE IT'S NEEDED - but I of course need to think about my DD and where she fits into that as well as the wider needs of the class. I'd be a shit parent if I didn't.

I couldn’t get worked up about this at this level! I was in a year 2/3 class as a year 3!! I turned out just fine. I was also in a year 5/6 class as a year 6!! Honestly at primary level it barely makes a difference.

Can you explain why it is inappropriate? Not saying you're wrong just wondering about your reasons.

All a very good point. This is part of my worry as well tbh, DD is very 'young' in her ways despite being quite verbally advanced - I'm sure she'll make a lot f friends with the year 1s, which is great, but then when they move up they don't do it as a group. Also I wonder if being in that younger environment means she won't progress as much socially as she would in a straight class with 'older' behaving peers. Not so sure I want that for her either, though, I find her 'youngness' very charming compared to some of the pre-tweenage behaviour one sees sometimes... it's just another thing to consider. There's a lot to consider, which is why I wish they'd told us not the minute before we met the class teacher, three das before the end of term!! 😂

And this is also true. I ratchet a bit in my head between just wanting to focus on her being happy, and then wondering if I'm too slack and need to be more on it in terms of being sure she is making progress in various areas, being stretched to her ability level. It's not in my nature to be pushy, I'm a bit allergic to the idea of 'potential' because it was bandied around about me as a very advanced small child, and the feeling of not having lived up to that early 'potential' has been a bit of a blight... but equally everyone just assumed because I was clever I'd just naturally do well, and nothing was done to scaffold that, so I sometimes feel like it's my responsibility to DD to make sure she is supported to do her very best and not just leave her to coast.

I don't know. It's my first time at this! And I want to get things right for her. I'm very envious of parents who just feel they know what to do for the best. Hence my desire to collect as much info as possible to inform my thinking!

In Scotland composite classes legally have to be smaller - so no more than 24 in years 1 and 2. The split works with the oldest in the year group being in the mixed class, so anyone whose birthday makes them close in age to the above year - in Scotland the cut off is February. Then, usually the group belonging to the straight class age group join up for some classes / activities. The stages 1-3 are centred around play based learning so they mix a lot anyway. The early years should be mixing and play centred with foundation learning weaving through the play, not testing as the range can be so great at these stages.

I’d think it was inappropriate because you’d be asking for data related to other children, perhaps my child, albeit anonymised. I’d think you should focus on your own child and mind your business about what mine got in SATS exams.