Guidance on possible preliminary data analysis of your 2012 KS2 results

The following pieces of data can easily be extracted from the SIMS AM7 report ‘HCC KS1 2008 to KS2 2012 Tests’, which is available from the SITSS website using the shortcut:

1. Headline Figures – Floor Standards

On the first sheet of the report (called ‘Cohort’) you can see the cohort level summary figures. Three highlighted figures relate to what we expect to be the floor standard this year i.e.

  • 65% of pupils achieving Level 4+ in both English and maths
  • 87% of pupils making 2 levels of progress in English
  • 86% of pupils making 2 levels of progress in maths

Are you above/below each of these?

(If below all 3, then the school is below the floor standard.)

If below on any of these, why do you think this happened this year?

Do these figures suggest any key issues for future development?

(If below on the attainment in English and maths, which area/s contributed most to this outcome – reading, writing or maths?)

2.Attainment and Progress of different Prior Attainment groups

The other tables on the cohort tab show attainment (L4 and L5) and progress (levels of progress from KS1 to KS2) broken down into prior attainment groups.

Are there any particularly pleasing results? (compare with national figures in RAISEonline)

To what can you attribute these successes?

Do any of these groups cause concern in terms of attainment or progress?

Why might this be the case this year?

What action points might you consider for further development?

3. Attainment - APS

Use the ‘Pupil data’ sheet of the SIMS AM7 report to find your Y6 Average Points Scores for:

- reading (test)

- writing (TA)

- English (combination of reading test + writing TA)

- maths

- overall APS (average of English and maths)

Compare each of these with last year’s national APS in RAISEonline.

Would you describe these as broadly average, below or above average?

(A score that is 1 point higher than national might be sig+ in RAISE – depending on cohort size.

A difference of 2 points is very likely to be statistically significant.)

Compare each of these APS figures with your school’s previous APS figures in RAISEonline.

How would you describe the trend in attainment?

(e.g. improving, maintaining high standards, declining)

Pupil groups

Having explored the overall APS and the APS by subject, use the filters to look at the differences in attainment by different pupil groups (e.g. gender, FSM, SEN, EAL etc).

(You can record these in the attached table ‘Attainment_Progress_Judgements_endY6.doc’)

You can also use the ‘custom’ column to explore other groups of pupils that you might define, e.g. pupils that took part in an intervention programme.

Are there any significantly sizeable groups (e.g. 5 pupils or more) whose attainment is significantly different to the rest of the cohort?

What action points (if any) might you consider for further development?

4. Progress – increase in APS from KS1 to KS2

Use the ‘Pupil Data (fine levels)’ sheet of the SIMS report to find the overall increase in APS for:

- reading

- writing

- maths

- overall

As a guide:

11*/12 points = satisfactory; 13/14 = good; 15+ = outstanding

(However, bear in mind that the judgement on Learning and Progress is based not just on what the data suggests, but also on other evidence – lesson observations, children’s work etc.)

NB this sheet uses fine levels (based on test scores) for reading and maths and Teacher Assessment sub-levels for writing. At this stage we do not know how Value Added will be calculated in RAISEonline this autumn.

Again, use the filters to explore the progress made by different groups of pupils (SEN, EAL, FSM, BME etc)

Are there any significantly sizeable groups (e.g. 5 pupils or more) whose progress is significantly different to the rest of the cohort?

In terms of pupil progress, where has the school been particularly successful and where is progress not so good?

What action points might you consider for further development?

NB where a pupil has joined during the Key Stage, it is worth exploring his/her progress separately since the date they joined. Use ‘3 points progress per academic year’ as a guide for satisfactory progress; 3.5 points per year for good.

You can filter these pupils out of the overall data, using the Date of Admission (DOA) column.

5. Progress – individual pupils

It can be useful to explore the progress of individuals and consider those cases where pupils made exceptionally good progress and exceptionally poor progress. What explanations might there be and what lessons can be learnt for the future?

One approach for doing this would be to look at the increase in individual pupils’ point scores from KS1 to KS2, as above.

Think particularly about any pupils making 10 points progress or less across the Key Stage – what were the issues for that child? What strategies did you put in place?

Any pupils making more than 14 points progress? How was this achieved?

Alternatively, compare the pupils’ KS2 results (sub-levels)against their most recent FFT estimates – are any pupils more than one sub-level above/below the FFT estimate? This would indicate significantly +/- value added for that pupil.

6.Conclusions

Thinking about all of these areas:

  • headline attainment figures (including trend from previous years)
  • headline progress figures
  • differences in attainment and progress between significant groups of learners

and using the current Ofsted guidance, how would you self-evaluate your school’s achievement grade?

What are the key areas for development?

What might your key actions be to try to improve these areas?

Further analysis of KS2 pupil data:

Question level analysis can be carried out in RAISEonline to identify key areas of the curriculum where pupils underperformed, e.g. maths topics, Assessment Focuses in reading etc.

These can be useful in thinking about the teaching throughout the school, particularly if these are part of a trend, not merely a one-off picture relevant only to that cohort.

NB QLA can also be carried out on QCA optional tests, and it might prove a more beneficial use of time to do this for current Y5, to analyse gaps that could be addressed during Y6, than to analyse the data for the pupils who are leaving your school.

Explanatory Notes on how 2 levels of progress in English is measured from KS1 to KS2:

At KS1 the data is submitted as Reading and Writing separately. These are then combined to from an overall English level, from which progress across KS2 can be measured.

See table below to see how this average is calculated.

You will note that there are some interesting anomalies in this system, e.g. that the combination of levels 3 and 2b is treated as a 3, and the combination of a 1 and a 2b is a 2.

Source: National Indicator Definitions

NB if there are any pupils whose KS1 results you do not know, these may be found in the Pupil Estimates area of FFTLive, or by logging in to the Key to Success website.

The KS2 English level is the combination of the reading test result and the writing Teacher Assessment, explained at this page of the DfE website:

Ben Fuller, Assessment & Analysis Adviser, Hertfordshire CSF