Times primary school table thigies?

[museumum]

Don’t suppose anyone has a share token or can explain the ranking system? I can tell from other articles that it’s to do with the demographics of the intake but not sure how? Our school did pretty well but the city’s more stereotypical “good” schools didn’t, is that just because they are in expensive catchments?
Basically - what does it mean? (If anything)

I'm afraid I don't but i'd be interested to see what they've done in terms of ranking. Not that I think it's a particularly good thing to have done or that it really means what they say it does as there are many factors that decide what a good school is.

While in some ways it's good that deprivation indexes are taken into account, part of me gets really angry that we expect so much less of deprived children and it's not really to do with schools, it's poor home environments where education is not valued or generally chaotic upbringing.

Instead of ranking children we should be doing more about increasing parental engagement or providing non school support.

I am similarly sceptical @ElephantOfRisk but if the tables can highlight those schools who are making a big difference in communities which have higher levels of poverty and other challenges that’s a positive thing.

It is and i'm also interested in seeing the actual numbers just because I like statistics. I don't have any children in school anymore anyway.

How on earth are they doing rankings when kids haven't done SATs this year?

SATs?

These rankings are from 2019, before the pandemic. As I understand it, they are entirely based on the judgement of individual teachers. In other words, entirely subjective. There appears to be no monitoring or moderation from any overseeing body.....thus pointless, in my opinion.
I think that there should be much more rigour in how these results are recorded, not as a stick to beat teachers with, simply to improve the chances of those children who are being short-changed by the system at the moment. Without robust data, how will you know where /what to concentrate efforts on?

I thought perhaps they were based on that testing they do? What they could be measuring is progress between points which again could be monitoring different DC if they move between schools and from what i understand can be flawed testing anyway, particularly with the youngest children. I know my DCs primary was one where they were turning up to high school below where they should have been in maths but my 2 were in the top maths group and whilst one caught up quickly and did well in Maths, the other didn't and went from being one of the top two or three in the school to failing his Nat 5 and resitting in s6 after a lot of tutoring from his brother. That's just anecdata though. I have no idea where there school placed but it wasn't in the top or bottom group.

If it's from SNSA it is a computer program that takes the pupils through the questions and marks the responses so nothing do with teacher judgement. And the data it produces is interesting if largely useless only acting as part of a body of evidence not a standalone indication of where a pupil is.

I believe that the Scottish government have refused to release the results of the SNSA tests. They would be a better way of carrying out the testing, although the P1 tests that I have seen are ridiculous and entirely ill-thought out. Someone somewhere is ,no doubt, making a fortune producing these things but to what end?

To be honest I think most parents who are engaged in their child's learning can make a reasonable judgement about progress. In my experience most teachers do a decent job, some more than decent. There are always a few that either can't be bothered or can't cope or don't do a good job with a particular class etc. We had one of those in DCs primary (both had the same teacher in the same primary year) but I believe that after she moved down the primary years, parents were really pleased. We also had one outstanding teacher and the rest were decent or above. However, they were rubbish at dealing with bullying and some other things that would mean i'd bump them down the ratings but nothing to do with teaching in particular. So measuring academic progress would be only one thing that would be of interest.

Again, i'd rather see extra resources trying to mimic the support and engagement that parents provide.

I remember being told by a teacher that one of the things that had come out of a long range study on reading was that children who were read to regularly and understood about books and stories etc (even if they weren't reading on entering school) picked up reading very quickly and jumped years ahead of those who didn't have a relationship with books. The sad bit was that nothing they did in those years going forward in school really ever made up that difference. Sure they'd learn to read and even do well academically but they'd always have that difference.

There is really such a short window and I think it's a good thing that more nursery hours are allocated so that nursery staff can try to make up that gap.

@ElephantOfRisk that's interesting as a teacher friend of mine said similar to me recently. The primary school she teaches at has a wide demographic as it sits on a catchment line and they get a lot of successful placing requests from out of catchment pupils in a more deprived area. The biggest factor she sees in the learning capabilities of children are those who are regularly read to, and those who in particular are never read to. I personally can't imagine why a child would never have been read a story but of course it absolutely happens.

A lot of houses don't have books. It's having an understanding that stories have a beginning, middle and end and in early books, that there are words that go with the pictures.

Children obviously get exposure at nursery but when they weren't at nursery until age 3, it's a bit later than ideal.

No smartphone and tablets in my day when mine were small but I imagine it's no substitute. I've heard of a baby trying to swipe the picture on a magazine...

Agree that the statistics are fairly meaningless given that there is no testing in primaries (and quite right too) and it's all made up numbers.

My kids went to a really good primary with great teachers and would also agree it;s all about parental engagement. We live in a middle-class area where most parents are well-educated, professionals who are determined that their children will have every opportunity. They are engaged and active in schools, everyone pitches up at parents' evening, parents are not slow to complain if there's a rubbish teacher.

My mum taught for years in a deprived area and children would arrive in P1 not knowing how a book "worked", in that you started at one end, read the pages from left to right and top to bottom. Their turnout at parents' evening was much lower, many parents had had a negative experience with school themselves and those attitudes were passed to their own children.

For many kids the damage is done and attitudes about school/learning are deeply entrenched by the time they arrive in P1. I don't agree with most of what the SNP does but increasing funding for early years in deprived areas is key.