PENN HALL SCHOOL ATTAINMENT & PROGRESS ANALYSIS SEPTEMBER 2012
Context
Penn Hall has the broadest range of ability of any school in Wolverhampton.
The range encompasses children functioning at P1 in the P scales right
through to students at the higher end of the National Curriculum levels
who attain good grades at GCSE level. A broad variety of assessment tools
are used to capture and record progress along pupil’s journey through
the school. This starts with a baseline assessment on entry where pupils
are mapped on the newly introduced Early Learning Developmental Bands that
measure 7 areas of learning in this phase. For the most complex children
Routes for Learning are used to gauge the earliest developmental steps.
When pupils reach 5 years of age and onwards B Squared is the major assessment
tool used across the school. This breaks down learning into very small
steps (0.2 increments of each sub level) that means that even the smallest
progress can be recognized and recorded. Whilst acknowledging there are
certain issues around the terminology used (i.e. hop skip and jump for
WC users) Penn Hall staff have become adept in interpreting these occasional
difficulties and it has served us well since 2007. Alongside this CASPA
is used as an analytical tool to compare the progress of our children with
a database of over 100,000 pupils nationally. This enables us to track
individual progress easily and obviously over time, to compare progress
across Key Stages, to track and monitor attainment in all subjects and
to compare the performance of various groups and cohorts across the school
(i.e. gender, ethnicity, FSM, LAC). Certain CASPA data has to be viewed
with caution – when comparing pupils nationally it is most common
to use the pupil’s learning difficulty (PMLD, SLD, MLD or none) as
the basis for comparison. However, as we are well aware, there may be other
significant barriers to learning for example VI, HI, PD or complex health
issues like epilepsy that may have a greater bearing on learning. Many
pupils have ‘spiky’ profiles because of their individual difficulties,
for example those with SLCD in Speaking & Listening assessments. Care
needs to be taken when interpreting pupils in both the Red and Green zones,
as there may be many factors involved which is why we rely heavily on the
professionalism of our teacher’s judgments, secure in the knowledge
that they know each pupil very well. Increasingly we have begun to use
RAG graphs that ignore the basis of need and therefore eliminate potential
bias, as it looks at age and starting points only, in a similar way to
which Progression Guidance does.
CASPA excludes pupils working above NC 5 and those well above the 95 percentile as well as any Year 14 students, describing those as Out of Range (OOR). It is possible though to dig a little deeper for those pupils and monitor their progress individually. Those pupils just joining us and with only one set of data are also excluded from RAG graphs. However, CASPA does provide us with an excellent tool in which to begin our analysis of progress and identify areas of strength and weakness that need to be addressed.
Progression Guidance data sets are government produced milestones for progress across Key Stages in English, Maths and Science that use purely age and starting points as guides. In depth analysis has been undertaken for pupils over the past three years and the data reinforces our belief that pupils across the school are making excellent progress with 70-80% meeting or exceeding median or upper quartile targets.
Students in the 14-19 age range follow appropriate accredited courses that may include Entry Level & GCSE examinations, Vocational courses, ASDAN Bronze & Silver and Personal Development and D of E units. Students continue to be mapped in Core and ICT subjects using B squared.
Recently, we have formalized the target setting process for all children
across the school with the introduction of the Individual Attainment and
Target Setting (IATS) proforma. Teachers record progress three times annually,
and set targets using CASPA levels and Progression Guidance as benchmarks.
Teachers take these into account to ensure that targets set are realistic
but also contain challenge. Pupils are tracked and monitored mid year – those
not appearing on target are subject to an investigation and intervention
as necessary. Already this year we have seen much higher levels of moderation
and focused discussion around pupil attainment than in previous years.
HEADLINES – SEPTEMBER 2012
• RAISEonline provides mainstream schools with both contextual and performance data with which they can compare the progress of children in their school. It is less effective with Special schools where the data does not so readily comply with national norms. Analysis of our RAISEonline data undertaken with LA officers does indicate that Penn Hall is well above the 80th percentile nationally in terms of those pupils on Free School Meals, those pupils in Minority Ethnic groups and those for whom English is not their first language. This offers a context for the data analysis of pupil performance at Penn Hall given below.
• Data from CASPA last year shows the vast majority of pupils at Penn Hall are making expected or above expected progress. 98% of pupils fit this definitions with 15% in the above expected progress category. Nearly 80% of all pupils across the school have been included in this statistic.
•
Data analysis three years ago clearly indicated that a small cohort KS 2
of pupils were showing up as making below expected progress. Several steps
were undertaken at this point to attempt to address this. These included
the introduction of a teacher (graded Outstanding at Ofsted 2010) as a class
teacher, greater involvement of the Head of Lower School in Teaching KS2,
removal of Child Protection responsibilities from a teacher when it was deemed
to be affecting class teaching, whole school focus on Makaton as there was
a high representation of SLCN children in this area as well as seeking and
establishing greater involvement and support from the SIS team.
•
Tracking the progress of this cohort over the past three years has shown
a pronounced improvement year-on-year and the vast majority are now well
into the expected or above progress range which would indicate that the measures
undertaken were successful.
•
When ignoring the category of need Table 8 shows 100% of pupils across all
key stages making expected or above progress which is outstanding.
•
Interestingly, when basis of need is introduced nearly 30% of pupils are
making above expected progress across the school. Two pupils show in the
Red – one registered blind with PMLD and one whose physical and cognitive
deterioration has been well documented over the past two years.
•
Last year progress in English, Maths and Science was excellent and comparable – Number
of pupils across the school making above expected progress was;
English (12 – 25%) Maths (15 – 31%) Science (13 – 27%)
Foundation subjects taken as a whole also prove strong across the
school
•
Using PROGRESSION GUIDANCE:
Detailed analysis of pupil’s progress across Key Stages has been undertaken
for the last 3 years and has shown high levels of attainment each year for
the majority of pupils and outstanding progress across the Key Stages. Percentages
of pupils attaining Median and Upper Quartile Targets are extremely high
over the past 3 years which reinforces our conclusions drawn from our CASPA
data that progress overall at Penn Hall compares very well with pupils nationally.
The Headlines from this analysis are as follows:
2010
KS 1-2 (5 pupils 11 targets) 85% Median & Up Quartile targets met
(46% UQ)
KS 2-3 (3 pupils 7 targets) 57% Median & Upper Quartile targets met (14%
UQ)
KS 3-4 (3 pupils 7 targets) 100% Upper Quartile targets met
Overall 13 UQ 8 MQ 5LQ
21/26 M+U TARGETS MET 81%
2011
KS 1-2 (2 pupils* 6 targets) 16% Upper Quartile targets met
KS 2-3 (5 pupils 14 targets) 79% Median & Up Quartile targets met
(43% UQ)
KS 3-4 (7 pupils 17 targets) 88% Median & Up Quartile targets met
(64% UQ)
Overall 18 UQ 9 MQ 10 LQ
27/37 M +U TARGETS MET 73%
2012
KS 1-2 (2 pupils 6 targets) 66% Median & Upper Quartile targets met (33%
UQ)
KS 2-3 (4** pupils 9 targets) 78% Median & Up Quartile targets met
(11% UQ)
KS 3-4 (3 pupils 7 targets) 85% Median & Upper Quartile targets met (57%
UQ)
Overall 7 UQ 10 MQ 5LQ
17/22 M +U TARGETS MET 77%
*2011 – The two pupils in this cohort experienced severe health difficulties during this period which involved seizures and epileptic fits (extreme for one of these pupils which resulted in regression of levels)
**2012¬ – One of these pupils has serious health issues that resulted
in her missing between 20-40% of each school day while these issues were
addressed by the nursing team). Consequently progress during this period
was significantly affected.
During this 3 year period over 50% (39/76) of targets met were at or above the Upper Quartile
• Using CASPA and ignoring the category of need several sub groups were compared including Gender, FSM/ Pupil Premium, LAC, Ethnicity and SLCN. There were no statistical significant differences between any of the groups of pupils. The only potential difference is within the FSM group who will be carefully monitored.
•
In summary, progress last year across the school was excellent and the concerns
of two years ago have been eradicated. Teachers are growing in confidence
with the assessment tools and greater moderation opportunities both internally
and externally develop this confidence as a school. Measures introduced this
year, IATS and the proposed termly assessment days should further reinforce
the validity and strength of assessment data.
Update – January 2013
•
The latest update of CASPA (released in December) has been installed and
it includes some Progression Guidance analysis for those on P Scales. This
will be further analysed following the data transfer after the Assessment
week in February. Furthermore, the school has purchased the latest Version
4 of B Squared , had a half day training for all teaching staff and paid
for Connecting Steps to host this for us particularly through the BSF process
and change of server.
Whole School Success
Very successful holiday scheme and residence extended to 2 weeks
Mander Centre nominated Penn Hall as their Charity of the Year
“OUTSTANDING” Residential Ofsted, congratulations to the Residential Team
Fantastic whole school Christmas Production
Penn Hall Christmas Card selected by local MP to send to Prime Minister
Second
Penn Hall Full Colour Calendar produced and sold
Battled through the “Big Snow” school never closed!
Water rationing at Penn Hall – the taps ran dry
Governors received Platinum Governance Award
Whole school “Super Heroes” school of creativity week
Filled “Time Capsule” which was buried by Major at Hollybush Public House
Selected by British Council in National Link 2 Learn Awards as Best
International Project (Comenius) in Special School
Air Ambulance chosen as the school charity
Reached finals of Kielder Challenge competition again
3 short break weekends undertaken throughout the year
New and exciting family support worker role at Penn Hall School
Residential visit by senior pupils to Olympic Village
Official opening of new Storytellers area
Completion of Early Years Creative Outdoor Classroom
Three successful residential visits to the Outdoor Education Centre in North Wales
School of Creativity ‘Unlocked Project’ – Portraits currently displayed on the South Bank
Innovative partnership with local radio station
Hydrotherapy pool refurbishment undertaken
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