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Primary school performance tables
What are they?
The government publishes performance tables for primary schools every year. The tables usually appear in December and give the accumulated results of national curriculum tests taken by pupils in English, Maths and Science in over 16,000 schools in England. Year 6 pupils take the tests in May and they are commonly known as standard assessment tests (SATs).
To compile the performance tables, points are awarded to schools according to pupils' test results and then divided by the number of eligible pupils in each subject. This gives schools an overall score. By publishing results for thousands of schools nationally, the tables allow parents to compare the relative performance of primary schools in national curriculum tests.
As well as the school's score, the tables include information on the number of eligible pupils and the percentage of those pupils who achieved Level 4 or above in tests in English, Mathematics and Science. Level 4 is the level of achievement expected of pupils at the end of primary school.
The tables also show the percentage of pupils with special needs that may make it more difficult for schools to achieve expected levels; and the percentage of pupils who were absent or disqualified from taking tests, which can also affect a school's score. A new, value added measure attempts to iron out these variables. It gives a score for how well schools have brought pupils on from one test level to another. Results for all the children are combined into a number above or below 100. As a rough guide, statiticians put schools scoring above 102 in the top 5 per cent nationally and schools scoring below 97.9 are in the bottom 5 per cent. The range of value added scores nationally is 95.2 to 105.5.
What the government says
Without performance tables, the government argues, it would not have raised standards in literacy and numeracy: since 1998, 84,000 more 11-year-olds have achieved the expected level for their age in Maths and around 60,000 more have done so in English. Setting targets, putting strategies in place to meet those targets and then publishing the outcomes in performance tables, is absolutely central to the government's approach to improving standards.
The government rejects criticism of the tables and the compulsory tests on which they are based. 'The assessments are not pass or fail examinations - they aim to provide a measure of the child's progress in test subjects,' explains a spokesman. 'The results help parents and teachers to plan the next stage of a child's schooling.'
Tests inevitably raise stress levels, but the government argues it is better to prepare children in a low stakes environment before they have to face higher stakes public examinations later in their school career. Nor is there any need for schools to teach to the contents of the tests. Parental demand brought about the introduction of the primary tables, because tables provide the only easily accessible source of comparative performance information on schools. 'If you are considering which primary school your child might attend, you will find helpful information in the tables about the performance of schools in your area,' says the spokesperson.
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