‘Ecstatic’: Northampton school SATs results beat most national averages

A Northampton primary school has achieved higher than the national average across all subjects, bar one.

The Good Shepherd Catholic Primary School, in Kingsthorpe, beat the national average in the reading, writing, maths, spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPAG), and combined tests.

For reading, the school achieved two percent more than the national average (73 percent), seven percent higher for writing (76 percent) and two percent more for maths (73 percent).

They also scored five percent higher for SPAG (77 percent) and five percent higher for combined (64 percent).

Carmel Dodds headteacher said: “We are all ecstatic and overwhelmed.

“These results are a testimony to the amount of hard work everyone has put in – the students, staff, parents, governors and the trust.

“Everyone has gone above and beyond.”

The headteacher also puts the success down to the teachers knowing what the students are capable of and having “high expectations” for them, which has cultivated an environment where the “children have a love of learning”.

Carmel said: “Everyone has worked together and the parents have been behind everything we and their children do.”

The students were “overwhelmed”, “really proud of themselves” and it has “given them the confidence in moving to secondary school”.

The school believes how they managed the Covid-19 pandemic has also had a positive impact on the outcomes.

When students could not come into school, the staff maintained good communication with parents and adapted to online learning quickly.

Carmel said: “We lost learning during the pandemic, but we’ve continued to make up for that.

“Our children were happy to be back at school and were given solid support for personal and social development.”

To ease both students and parents back into schooling as we knew it before the pandemic, Good Shepherd held face-to-face workshops for parents so they could support their children – which they intend to do again at the start of the next academic year.

Day visits were also held for each year group so they could get used to being back in the school environment.

Although Good Shepherd was 10 percent lower than the national average for science – 69 percent compared to 79 – this is something they will continue to work on leading up to and during next year.

“We hope to continue our upward journey and achieve above the national averages next year,” said Carmel.

“We want to ensure the children remain happy throughout their school journey.”

The students went on their residential trip last week, which they used as a time to celebrate their achievements with their peers and teachers.

They have also enjoyed enrichment activities, including Jeff Rich, former drummer for Status Quo, coming to do a drumming workshop.

Carmel also says they will continue to use forest school, which is an outdoor schooling method, to support the children’s social and emotional wellbeing.

Are you involved in a school that has done really well in SATs this year? Chronicle & Echo would love to hear about it. Let us know by emailing editor@northantsnews.co.uk.