Querying SATs results

[treas]

Due to an increased intake in reception and counties inability to see the effects further up the school, before moving into yr2, dd's year group was split with 5 children being moved into a Yr2/3/4 class and my dd and the rest remaining with their current p/t teachers to become a Yr1/2 class. Dd has had the same teachers since reception.

Apparently, this split was 'not based on ability' (school's wording) but on friendship group, confidence / maturity and teaching styles of teachers.

We were not happy on the split as all dd's friends had been moved up and having not responded to the teaching styles of the p/t teachers that she had had since reception, we hoped a move to new class with more mature children and challenging work would have helped her.

We were also assured that although the 5 children moved up would be getting work based on the yr3 plan it would be on the bottom end of the plan whilst dd's work based on yr2 plan would be at the top level and so effectively there would be no difference in level and dd would not miss out.

However, throughout this last yr the yr2s in the yr2/3/4 class have benefitted from not only the yr1/2 class activities but the yr2/3/4 ones as well. Dd's own perception is that her 5 friends are getting harder more interesting work.

As yet we have not had dd's final report or SATs results.
However, would it be unreasonable to ask where dd came within the Yr2 group as a whole, how many children above her came from the yr2/3/4 class, how far behind the yr2/3/4 class is she and what areas she needs to catch up in?

Same split has had to been done for the next set of Yr2 and funnily enough the chair of governors and one of the p/t teachers of the yr2/3/4 class dc have been selected to move up. O.K. I know they are probably setting an example, but don't tell me that they'd let their dc be disadvantaged.

Sorry - I think War and Peace was shorter!

[jobhuntersrus]

Ability in an age group varies widely and a good teacher should be able to adapt the work to suit all abilities. Therefore if shouldn't matter what class your child is in they should be given work to suit their needs. Whether this happens in reality is a totally different thing.

[Teacher401]

'As yet we have not had dd's final report or SATs results.
However, would it be unreasonable to ask where dd came within the Yr2 group as a whole, how many children above her came from the yr2/3/4 class, how far behind the yr2/3/4 class is she and what areas she needs to catch up in?'

They should be able to tell you the second part of your request, however they aren't really allowed to discuss another child's levels with you or say how many were above/below your DD.

[treas]

Don't even get me started on that topic jobhunter!!!

[treas]

Teacher401 -

Even if I'm asking a general question, I don't want a specific list of names of or levels e.g. 7 children achieved a better level 4 from yr2/3/4 class?

[Teacher401]

Treas, I very much doubt they will tell you anything like that. We are told that we are not allowed to discuss results of others at all and are often told just to tell the parent whether their child is 'on track' with the age related expectation or above/below this.

A parent asked the Year 1 teacher something similiar to your request last week and was told she wasn't allowed to know that sort of information. Basically, if we told you 'there are 5/6 level 3C's' etc. parents are clever enough to be able to work out which children it is easily.

[Goblinchild]

You mean like when parents come in to help little Jezabel find her lost cardi, and you catch them copying down your groupings so they can work out if darling DD is in the top group and who is in the bottom?
National averages should give you what you need.
The governors' report usually has KS1 results in it too. You can do a data analysis of results over the last decade and see how many L3s there were.

[Feenie]

They are legally obliged to provide a table of the school's Y2 results, which tells you how many children achieved each level in reading, writing, Maths, etc (and each level 2 sublevel in those subjects).

They must also give you a table of national results from 2009 for comparison.

[Feenie]

None of the results reported to you will be SAT results, though - only a teacher assessment is reported now at the end of Y2, backed up by lots of evidence, not just the tests.

[CarGirl]

For our sats results we were given our dds results and what percentage of children had got each grade in her year split between boys and girls and as a whole. That is usually the info that is published anyway????

[Feenie]

The boys/girls info isn't statutory, Cargirl. Some schools choose to publish them - all schools would do analysis of gender, etc, though.

[CarGirl]

I was going to add it's teacher assessed but it's already been done.

I wonder why our school does the extra boy/girl split?

[treas]

Thanks Feenie - that really would suffice, its a small school anyway - or I should say was a small school.

It would be nice just to get some straight answers, feeling let down and lied to by the school at the mo.

[treas]

Thing is Pixie she doesn't seem to be progressing, at least not within class.

She's been getting 100% in spellings throughout the year but is still on the same spelling level?? She has had the same target for literacy throughout the year even though she was capable of it in yr1. Admittedly her attitude to targets is "they'll only give me another".

She's a bright child - but we're frustrated that she is being allowed to get by on what she knows and not putting in any effort.

[Goblinchild]

With her spelling, when you get her books home, look at her independent writing.
Is she spelling the words correctly when she's not in test conditions and only thinking about the spelling, rather than the sentence and all the other aspects of writing at the same time?
I've seen 'frend' and yoosed' so many times I start to doubt myself.

[Feenie]

'Ponner' is my favourite!

(Once upon a time)

[Goblinchild]

And the uver won.
We get a lot of th/f/v confusion down here due to the accent.

[treas]

Actually, dd's spelling in her independent writing is really good - would say she spells her keywords correctly 98% of the time (everyones allowed an off day). The words she gets wrong are ones I wouldn't expect a child her age to spell correctly, or even some times attempt.

Her literacy target was to put more interesting words into her writing. She has described a fish as shimmering (not spelt correctly but near as damn it) and uses exclaimed, shouted, whispered, mumbled amongst other words instead of said.

Admittedly she writes as little as possible, although nothing wrong with the actual content or quality. She seems to subscribe to the why use 2 words when 1 will do. However, her teachers have allowed her to get away with this in class.

[treas]

2a / 3 - is that what you mean Pixie?

[treas]

Thanks Pixie - guess I would not have any concerns if all the Yr2's were together in either the Yr1/2 or Yr2/3/4 split rather than a small group being separated out.

[kittybrown]

"They are legally obliged to provide a table of the school's Y2 results, which tells you how many children achieved each level in reading, writing, Maths, etc (and each level 2 sublevel in those subjects).

They must also give you a table of national results from 2009 for comparison"

Feenie- Sorry to highjack the thread but is this true of the KS2 year 6 results as well?

[Feenie]

Yes, 'tis true.