44% ARE jump in Y6 for Walsall school using SATs Springboard

The challenge: rebuilding pupil confidence after disruption

Like many schools up and down the country, Brownhills West Primary in Walsall faced an uphill battle post-pandemic. Deputy Headteacher Jon MacNamee describes the reality:

“The [year 6] cohort had quite a tough time re-adjusting to coming back to school. They were quite impacted by the pandemic. We had children not wanting to learn, not wanting to be in the classroom, children even hiding under tables. On some days I’d have to physically go and pick children up from their houses.”

The school serves a community with high levels of deprivation and pupil premium. Before academic catch-up for the cohort began, staff needed to focus on emotional regulation and reaffirming a sense of belonging and engagement in the classroom. Jon and his team had to start with “how do we get children ready to learn in the first place?” before they tackled pupil progress and outcomes.

The scale of the problem

• Children refusing to enter the classroom
• Low pupil confidence, pupils disengaged from their work
• Staff collecting pupils from home 
• Children hiding under tables, preventing their learning 

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The approach: finding the right tools at the right time 

The turning point for Brownhills West came when Jon spotted an opportunity that aligned perfectly with the school’s needs and existing resources:

“It was like the planets aligned. I saw the SATs Springboard advertised on Twitter, a free trial using the Springboard with the children. I had a year six teacher who really embraces tech in his classroom. I had the resources: Chromebooks and laptops. We were very fortunate and we brought [it] in.”

Key factors that made it work:

• A year 6 teacher ready to embrace technology 
• Existing device infrastructure (Chromebooks/ laptops)
• Urgent need, met at the right time with targeted intervention
• Low-barrier entry (no-obligation trial of Learning by Questions)

Crucially, Brownhills West didn’t overhaul their approach overnight. Instead, they started with one targeted intervention to boost year 6 confidence and pupil outcomes: SATs Springboard from Learning by Questions.

The transformation: what happened next?

Within weeks, something shifted:

“All of a sudden, something happened. We gave children the opportunity to come into school at 8am. I’d pop into the year 6 classroom and see a full house. A full house of children voluntarily coming in, getting their chromebooks out, practising the questions that they wanted to practise and improve on.”

Children who had been hiding under tables just a few short weeks before were now coming in early (and voluntarily!) to learn:

“They were motivated, not by rewards, they were intrinsically motivated because they could see the progress that they were making every single day.”

The most telling moment came when Jon asked pupils what value they saw with this new approach: 

“They tell me that they can use the feedback to help them learn, that they know exactly where they’re going wrong, or right, and they want to use [SATs Springboard] across every lesson. Even when SATs had finished, a hand went up and a child asked ‘Can we still come in early and go on LbQ?’, and that tells its own story.”

The results: pupil progress data that “speaks for itself”

Children exhibited more regulated behaviour, and their results had also skyrocketed! In just 5 months, children reaching ARE in year 6 had increased by 44%. Additionally, 20% of pupils had reached Greater Depth. 

As Jon attests:

“The results really speak for themselves! In January, we had 40% of children on track to achieve age related expectations in maths. By March, that climbed to 64%, which was amazing. So we were thinking, wow, the progress these children were making was incredible. But by May, we had 84% of children at age related, and 20% at greater depth.”

What drove the transformation?

Jon attributes the shift in both behaviour and outcomes to three key factors:

1. Resilience and independence

"[It] supports the children to become far more resilient, far more independent learners. It allowed them to find that love of learning and take control over their own learning."

2. Personalised classroom support at scale

"Learning by Questions, for me, is like having 30 high-quality textbooks in your classroom that come with 30 individual teachers for the pupils. What that brings to the classroom is maximum progress."

3. Live feedback as the engine of progress

"Because the assessment is built into the system, the feedback is live. They can then analyse the feedback straight away without having to look through lots of different books. As teachers, we know that live, in-the-moment feedback is the most powerful tool to help move learning forward. That's happening straight away in every lesson."

The teacher's perspective: workload and wellbeing

Year 6 teacher Charley Birch added a crucial dimension; the impact on staff:

"Work/life balance has definitely improved because of Learning by Questions. It just does everything for you that you need, in terms of data, marking the work, looking through what questions the children got stuck on. It's really useful."

Jon summarised the teacher benefit of SATs Springboard from Learning by Questions:

"[It] allows teachers to really maximise their potential as teachers. It really reduces their workload. Time for teachers is one of their most precious commodities. Using [it] saves time with their planning and especially their preparation. The marking as well."

Looking forward: embedding the approach

Brownhills West isn't stopping with one successful year 6 cohort:

"Our goal is to make sure that children are prepared and ready for the next phase of their education: secondary school. I believe [this] really allows us to help them get there. Moving forward, children… right through to year 6 are going to be using [it] daily."

Key takeaways for other schools

Ready to transform pupil progress and SATs outcomes at your school?

Brownhills West’s story shows what's possible when children rediscover their love of learning, using the right tools for progress at the right time. 

Explore how your school could achieve similar results with a free SATs Springboard trial.