How can you sustain progress in Year 7?

How can you sustain progress in Year 7?

By mattwo16 Comments
What can help pupils make a successful Transition to Secondary School? We surveyed secondary schools up and down the country asking about Transition. Every school and area has a different way of working. Most focus first on getting to know their pupils with activity days in school or a mock timetable. This is really important. But what about academic transition? Stalled Progress at Key Stage 3 A recent Ofsted report stated.. "the transition to secondary is too often poorly managed and teaching fails to build on the gains pupils have made in primary school. Inspectors have found that pupils often leave primary school with good literacy and numeracy skills, confident and eager to learn, but their progress then stalls when they start secondary school." https://www.gov.uk/government/news/too-many-students-let-down-in-early-stages-of-secondary-school The fact is that the importance of a good start to secondary school education cannot be overstated. Pupils need to enjoy school and get involved with the many subjects to choose them at Key Stage 4. The report continues.. "School leaders need...
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Release the potential of Analysis

Release the potential of Analysis

By mattwo17 Comments
One of the most popular sports across the world at the moment is Formula One. Here a matter of millimetres or milliseconds can make the difference between finishing first or last. Aerodynamics are checked constantly for any extra speed, the cars are fine-tuned with the latest data to make them go faster and faster. All parts will be updated at a cost of millions of pounds if it means the car will go a simple second quicker. “Data is becoming increasingly important – not just in the world of Formula One, but the world in general. In F1, we use our data on our relentless search for performance, across all functions of the team – both at the track and at the factory,” Toto Wolff - Head of Mercedes F1 Even the driving styles of each driver is manipulated with guidance from the computers for every corner - what line to take, when to brake, how much to brake. Every lap is...
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Ofsted Inspections – Good Schools – Progress

By mattwoNo Comments
This series of articles examines the comments of Ofsted Inspectors from 80 full inspections of schools which were deemed to be "good". Previous articles have looked at Ofsted's comments regarding attainment at KS2. This article looks at progress. Progress Whilst inspectors have advanced knowledge of the school's progress at the end of Key Stage 2, as calculated by the DfE, and the 5 levels (e.g. "below average", "well above average") which are displayed on the DfE's website, this headline measure was often not explicitly commented on by inspectors. When it was, the measures showed the school to be broadly in line with national averages: Progress in writing across key stage 2 has improved steadily since the last inspection and is now broadly average.As a result, pupils’ progress in mathematics improved from well below average to average...Progress has also improved during this time and is in line with other schools nationally. Pupils’ progress from the end of key stage 1 to the end of...
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Progress 8 Bandings

By mattwo2 Comments
A Guide to Progress 8 This guide is designed to help alleviate the confusion between the different bandings. It is also available as a video on our YouTube channel. https://youtu.be/9xTPAs20BeA Progress 8 Bandings In early 2017 the DfE categorised schools into 5 different Progress Bandings: But it is easy to get things wrong. BBC News website The BBC News website did so on 16 April 2019, when it said: A school's performance is measured through pupils' progress, called Progress 8, via a scoring system of between -1 and 1, with the average being 0.A score lower than 0 is recognised as not achieving the minimum standard expected by the government, with -1 being well below average. There are three things are wrong with these two sentences: Firstly, Progress 8 is not a scoring system of between -1 and 1. There are no such arbitrary limits, and in 2018 there are 70 mainstream schools with a Progress 8 score below -1, and 50 schools above +1.A score...
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How does the DfE and Ofsted measure Progress at Key Stage 1?

By mattwoNo Comments
Why should KS1 progress be measured at all? Paragraphs 185 and 187 of Ofsted's School Inspection Handbook, which is the manual for Ofsted inspectors, include the following: 185. Inspectors will take account of current standards and progress, including the school’s own performance information, and make a relevant judgement on academic and other learning outcomes for pupils by evaluating the extent to which all pupils:•progress well from their different starting points and achieve or exceed standards expected for their age nationally (at the end of a key stage), or within the school’s own curriculum...187. In judging achievement, inspectors will give most weight to pupils’ progress. They will take account of pupils’ starting points in terms of their prior attainment and age when evaluating progress. Within this, they will give most weight to the progress of pupils currently in the school, taking account of how this compares with the progress of recent cohorts, where there are any. Inspectors will consider the progress of...
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How is Key Stage 2 Progress calculated?

By mattwoNo Comments
This series of articles will be looking at Ofsted's Inspection Data Summary Report (IDSR). In our series about the IDSR we had a look at how your school's Key Stage 2 Progress scores are shown in the IDSR in chart form, and the significance of your school's progress scores. In this article, we'll have a look at the calculation. Your pupil's Scaled Scores In May, most of your pupils take exams in Reading, Writing and Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling. Their marks (also known as a "raw score") is then converted into a "scaled score" between 80 and 120, where 100 is a pass mark and 110 is a high score - the DfE decides after the exams how the scaled score conversion is to be done. For the pupils that didn't take the test, then your Teacher Assessment is converted in a Scaled Score of between 59 to 79. In 2017 and 2018, the conversion was as follows: Scaled scores P1i to P4 -...
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Primary IDSR – Key Stage 2 Progress Significance

By mattwoNo Comments
This series of articles will be looking at Ofsted's Inspection Data Summary Report (IDSR). In the previous article in this series, we had a look at how Key Stage 2 progress is represented in the IDSR. We saw that: The central dot represents your school's progress score, andThe line represents a calculation of the cohort's confidence interval. In this article, we'll look at how Ofsted interprets this, and what significance it has to your school. Key Stage 2 Progress Significance So how do we interpret these shapes? If the entirety of these shapes, the dot and the line, is to the right of the zero line, then your school is, in old money, significantly above average.If it is entirely to the left of the zero line, then you are significantly below average.If it even just touches the line, and you see that the Middle Prior Attainers just touches the line, then you are neither significantly above, nor significantly below – you are in line with...
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Primary IDSR – Key Stage 2 Progress charts

By mattwoNo Comments
This series of articles will be looking at Ofsted's Inspection Data Summary Report (IDSR). In the previous articles, we had a look at the Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 attainment charts. In this article, we'll have a look at the Key Stage 2 progress charts. Key Stage 2 Progress Charts On the right-hand side is a typical progress chart - there is one for Reading, Writing and Maths. There are 5 different types of cohort: All Pupils,Low Prior Attaining Pupils (pupils with a Key Stage 1 Average Point Score below 12),Middle Prior Attaining Pupils (a KS1 APS between 12 and 17.99), andHigh Prior Attaining Pupils (a KS1 APS of 18 or above), andDisadvantaged pupils. More information about how your pupils' Key Stage 1 is calculation can be found in our How is Key Stage 2 Progress calculated article. The progress score for this school overall is +1.3. What does that mean? For each pupil: We look at their Scaled Score from their test...
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