Pupil Progress during Key Stage 1: a value added analysis of school effects

Abstract

Pupils in Wandsworth schools who completed baseline assessment at the start of reception class in 1992/93 were tracked through to their National Curriculum (NC) end of Key Stage 1 (KS1) assessments in 1995. Baseline results were used to assess the educational progress of pupils between the age of 4 and 7 years, and the ‘value added’ by schools. Girls made more progress than boys during KS1, increasing the size of the gender gap in attainment. Pupils entitled to free school meals (FSM) started with lower attainment and fell further behind their peers during the course of KS1. In contrast pupils with English as a second language (ESL) caught up with their monolingual English speaking peers. School compositional effects were also noted: pupils made on average more progress in schools with a high proportion of girls, and less progress in schools with a high proportion of pupils entitled to FSM, a high proportion of ESL pupils and where the school average on the baseline was high. Differences between schools in KS1 results were reduced substantially when account was taken of their pupil intakes, but significant differences between schools remained, supporting the conclusion that some schools are more effective than others in facilitating pupil progress during KS1. There were marked differences between the raw and value added KS1 results for a significant minority of schools, suggesting raw results can give a misleading impression of a school's effectiveness. Areas for further research and development are identified.