Performance and Progress Case Study

St Saviour’s RC Primary School in Lewisham has been using EducationCity for over five years now in English, Maths and Science. They are an inner-city school with above average EAL and SEN learners, and in 2017, their Key Stage 2 progress scores have put them in the top 10% of schools nationally.

Headteacher, Mr Houson, explains how the school has benefitted from using EducationCity for improving students’ performance and progress. We chose EducationCity for two reasons. The first being it is a wonderful diagnostic tool which reiterates to the children with an explanation whether they are right or wrong. The second reason is the ability to offer children Home Access of this superb software.

How EducationCity’s Resources Help to Improve Students’ Performance

We particularly use the phonics and maths areas as they offer superb pictorial and animated explanations which engage all learners, particularly EAL learners. The PlayLive function is an amazing tool for consolidating mental maths and is proving very useful for preparing our Year 3 class for the computerised times table testing being introduced next year.

Our Phonics scores have risen from 52% (2012) to 86% (2017), and our EYFS scores from 48% (2012) to 83% (2017). EducationCity has played a huge part in this in terms of allowing teachers greater flexibility and offering parents out of hours learning.

At St Saviour’s we champion PlayLive in all our Key Stage 2 classes as it boosts the attainment in core and mental maths skills so successfully. When tracking six of our low attaining students last academic year, five made more than six steps progress, and five steps is considered good. EducationCity benefitted these children as they were missing the ‘core’ skills of times tables.

What is PlayLive?

PlayLive is available in English and Maths, they are interactive, competitive games that allow students to pitch their knowledge against others in a timed environment. PlayLive is great for testing students’ knowledge and improving recall skills.

Using EducationCity’s Learn Screens with Differentiated Learning

EducationCity helps a great deal with differentiated learning, particularly with the ‘topic finder’ tool in Search to find Learn Screens. If we have SEN/EAL learners it is incredibly simple to find the year group and use a Learn Screen that is linked to an Activity as scaffolding for the main task.

What are Learn Screens?

Animated Learn Screens introduce and reinforce topics or concepts. They can be used by individual students or a whole class to help them gain a thorough understanding of a topic.

What is an Activity?

Activities offer engaging, curriculum-aligned content to develop students’ understanding. They can be teacher-led for group work on the whiteboard, or for individual learning where the progress of each student is tracked.

Using SuccessTracker for Deep Learning & Mastery

EducationCity’s resources help improve our students’ progress in terms of mastery and consolidating deep learning. This is done through using the diagnostic tool, SuccessTracker. It allows us to see how children are performing and enables us to challenge children with higher level tasks through the year group Topic Tools.

Many of the students who missed ‘core’ skills in times tables as mentioned above were EAL or in-year admissions, and the fact we could communicate with parents as to what areas they should focus on out of school with SuccessTracker meant no learning time was lost, even in the holidays.

What is SuccessTracker?

SuccessTracker lets you monitor students’ progress by automatically recording all Activity and Test scores. You can filter the data you’d like to view and export for reporting purposes.

Student Feedback

Here’s what a couple of Mr Houson’s students said about EducationCity’s PlayLive English.

“I like EducationCity because it has inspired me to use new words in PlayLive English which I now use in my writing. I like how fair it is when I’m competing and we have to find the same words. It’s great!”

Abigail*,
Year 5 Student

“I like the fact that it widens my vocabulary and it keeps the word selection randomised. It also gives you a bonus for certain words. I love it!”

Thomas*,
Year 5 Student

“Overall, I’d recommend just making sure EducationCity is built into programmes of study such as maths. Our Key Stage 2 are timetabled each week for 30 minutes simply to take part in PlayLive due to the impact it has on core skills.”

Dean Houson
Head Teacher, St Saviour’s RC Primary School

*Names have been changed to protect the individual’s identity.