Confused about levels given at parents evening for year 4 ...

[sandyballs]

...... do they do SATs tests every year? I was told my DD is a 3A - is this good, average, bad. I know I should have asked for more info but was bombarded by stuff!

[Feenie]

It refers to NC levels - hopefully the figure is from continuous and sound teacher assessment, not a one off test.

Expected levels at the end of Y4 should be 3b (but it also depends on what your dd was assessed at in Y2, where the expected level is 2b).

[sandyballs]

Thanks Feenie, that's interesting.

[Spillage21]

Here in Lewisham, children are expected to be 3a in year 6!

I'm ridiculously confused, because the banding results are slightly different again...

They only do SATs in year 2 and 6.

[Feenie]

That can't be right, spillage - the NATIONAL expectation at the end of Year 6 is 4b.

Chidren are teacher assessed against NC levels all the way through school, whether they do SATs in a year group or not.

[scoobydoobydoobydoobydoo]

Children working at age related expectations will be expected to be working at level 4B at the end of year 6.

Individual target levels for individual children may vary above and below this.

Children in other years should be assessed by continuous assessment in order to assess what level they are working at.

[Madsometimes]

Spillage21, I am in the next door borough and here children are expected to be at least 3a at the end of Y5 (so possibly the very beginning of Y6, but not the end of Y6).

[bellissima]

Okay - I only managed to get this from a primary teacher friend, not the school. Any teachers feel free to correct.

They do KS1 SATS maths and english in Year 2 - okay they don't have to anymore but most do. Most children seem to get a 2 (a or b), some might get a 3 on one or more papers. Often, but not always, the relative age of the child will make a big difference in the score at this age.

In Years 3,4 and 5 they do 'optional' SATS - only again most schools do them as they want good scores in Year 6. In years 3 and 4 it is only possible to get a maximum of 4a (and most won't). Only in Year 5 is the '5' mark achievable. Thus if your child is a very bright bunny in say maths they might appear to plateau a bit. On the other hand please remember that being young for the year can still make a difference for most of primary school. Plus remember that some schools even practise and go over past papers for the 'optional' SATs - whereas others don't put much emphasis on them at all.

In years 5 and 6 the '5' mark is achievable - and again some schools will have them doing practice papers from well before Christmas in Year 6, inevitably leading to a possible inflation in marks. Thus marks for a 'similar child' might easily vary between schools. Not that SATs results mean nothing, but simply that saying a child is '3a' or '4b' is only looking at one aspect on one (possibly rehearsed) day.

[bellissima]

To be completely honest I reckon that in my day (cue hovis ad) a decent primary teacher could have given you a better five minute assessment of any child in the class without resorting to '2a's or whatever and without having to spend their time teaching to the paper. But that just shows my age. And the fact that for the last term my Yr 6 DC seems to have spent most of the time doing practice papers whereas I would rather she learnt stuff...

[Feenie]

Your test information is correct, bellissima, except to say that children are continuously teacher assessed and levelled against the NC, regardless of whether they are tested in that term/year or not.

There is no ceiling on levels in teacher assessment.

The optional SAT is just one tiny aspect of the levelling process in Y2, Y3, Y4, and Y5.

So when teachers talk about levels at parents' evenings, don't necessarily assume they mean a test result, they probably don't. Although it would help if they made that clear.

[scoobydoobydoobydoobydoo]

bellissima I think a decent primary school teacher could still do that. Unfortunately, we have to fill in tracking sheets using letters and numbers that record exactly how much progress has been made by each pupil in reading, writing and maths in a half term so that we can be lynched by the LEA and the media for being rubbish.

Otherwise, how would they know!

Levelling is useful for making sure chn don't slip through the net, but the different approaches of different schools towards the KS2 sats makes a mockery of them anyway. Some schools coach the chn for them for months and others do a couple of papers after Easter so they're not an accurate reflection of all chn's abilities anyway.

[Spillage21]

On parents evening paperwork (last tuesday), it says national expectations at this point in year 6 is 3a, so maybe 4b at end of year 6??

[Feenie]

Blooming heck, that's a bit of a jump in 2 months - which is when y6 teacher assessment is due. That's 3 sublevels - to make good progress according to Ofsted in one whole year you only have to make 2 sublevels progress!

[Spillage21]

Well, yes, that's what I thought. They did say however that they like children to be 4-something at this point.

TBH I tend to just sit, smile and nod through all the banding/grading stuff...