Primary school league tables explained: How are England's best performing primary schools ranked?

Education Primary school league tables explained: How are England's best performing primary schools ranked? By Amber Allott Education writer Comment Published 20th Aug 2024, 14:43 BST Watch more of our videos on Shots! and live on Freeview channel 276 Visit Shots! now Primary schools are ranked based on one key figure 🥇 The government publishes performance data for state-funded schools each year. Primary schools are ranked based the percentage of their pupils meeting the government’s expected level in three key subjects. These rankings are based on exams pupils sit in Year 6.

But not all league tables you might see measure exactly the same things. Grades aren’t everything, but school league tables can be a valuable source of information for parents trying to do the best by their children. Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more.



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The UK various government releases annual rankings of state schools based on pupil performance. But unlike for secondary schools, where league tables can easily be calculated based on the proportion of pupils passing set numbers of GCSEs or A Levels, or even achieving a certain grade, what exactly makes primary schools shine can be a little trickier to measure. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad There are also many more primary schools with over 16 thousand in England alone, compared to a little over 3,400 secondary or post-primary schools, according to teachers’ trade magazine Tes .

So what metric do the government, and various other school ranking systems, actually use to measure how well they are educating their pupils? Here’s what you need to know: England's primary schools are ranked based on one key measure (Image: National World/Adobe Stock) How are primary schools ranked - and how is it calculated? The Department for Education publishes performance tables each year for state-funded maintained schools and academies in England, including for primary schools. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland typically publish their own guides and data sets. This data is available across a range of different metrics, and anyone is able to search them up - and even sort schools based on things like their Ofsted inspection grades.

But the government uses one key figure to rank primary schools’ performance; the percentage of their pupils meeting the expected standards for reading, writing, and maths. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad This percentage is calculated based on the SATs, or Standard Assessment Tests, a series of exams children sit at the end of the National Curriculum’s Key Stage 2. This means most students who sit them are in Year 6, aged about 11.

They sit six papers total, on mathematics, reading, and English grammar, punctuation and spelling. Their teachers also give them grades on writing skills and science based on their classwork. How many marks they receive overall in each subject is considered their ‘raw score’, and this will be converted into a scaled score between 80 and 120.

Any score of 100 or above means that a child has met the expected standard for their age group, a level set by the government’s education experts to outline the basic academic skills a child should have by the time they leave primary school. Parents will also be sent a special report card letting them know whether or not their children reached the expected level in each key subject - so they know whether they may need extra support going forwards. To count towards the figure in the government’s league tables, a child must have achieved a scaled score of 100 or more in their reading and maths tests, plus their teacher assessed them as “working at the expected standard” or better in writing.

The percentage is the number of children who hit this mark, compared to the total number of pupils who sat the SATs that year. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Schools can also be sorted by average scores in reading and maths, and since 2016, by the percentage of their pupils achieving at a ‘higher’ standard. These children have achieve a scaled score of 110 or more in their reading and maths tests, “and their teacher assesses them as ‘working at a greater depth within the expected standard’ in writing”.

It’s worth noting that if you look at other league tables besides the official Department for Education one, they may also take other things into account that simply performance on a single set of tests. You should check their description of the metric they use, so that you fully understand how they are ranking schools. What do you think about how primary schools are ranked? Join the conversation and make your voice heard by leaving a comment below.

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