Mumsnet Talk

Does anyone know what grade they should be getting in their year 9 mock sats (or the proper ones)?

Level 5 is the expected level.

But it depends what they got in Year 6 really.

Grade 5 is an 'average' child, who can then be expected to get around 5 A* to C grades at GCSE.

Above a grade 5, more than 5 GCSEs, below a grade 5, less than 5 A * to Cs at GCSE

For an A-A* in science at GCSE you are generaly looking at kids getting high 6s and 7s

and currently children are expected to make 1.1 levels of progress through KS3.

Next year they are expected to make 2. God knows how we are expected to get this to happen, but there you go!

But MB - we are all superhuman aren't we? At least that's what I feel they want us to be sometimes!!!!

Thanks for the info, I was wanting to know this as well
I thought it was more like level 6, not level 5 they had to aim for to be on target for getting five good GCSEs.
Am I right in thinking that a secondary school level 5 is harder to achieve than a primary school, year 6 level 5?

We had a barking mad meeting with the head over this.

Blue sky thinking, we were told, what do we need to get them to make 2 levels?

More teaching staff? No
More support staff? No
More computing? No
More timetable time? No
More books/ other resources? No

In other words we can't have anything to help us, but they have to do twice as well at KS3!

I once got a class to make 1.6 and it nearly killed me, and them!

But we are not dumbing down, nooooooooooooo siree!

The level 5 at ks3 is tougher in some respects. A level 5 (KS3) kid is an average kids and they are expected to get 5 GCSE 'passing' grades

Yes - in English the KS3 paper stretches them much more to achieve the L5 than the KS2 paper does - which is another cause for confusion and for making it so hard to ensure that all pupils make the "required" amount of progress.

If your child has already got L5 at KS2, he/she should be aiming for L7 at KS3 (although 6 would still be quite impressive and tbh it matters far more to the school than it does to the individual pupils).

I read in a newspaper that the GCSE grades relate to SATs grades like this:
A*: 10
A: 9
B: 8
C: 7
D: 6 etc

and that you would expect an increase of about 2 grades from KS3 SATs to GCSE, so the SATs levels are a VERY ROUGH indicator of GCSE attainment if progress continues at the same level.

Unfortunately I can't find the article or remember which paper, so apologies if I haven't got it quite right.

You can't get above a 7.9 in science at KS3 sats so that is not true, I'm afraid

I would say:

Level 8 =A* at GCSE
Level 7=A
Level6=B
Level 5=C

Or thereabouts. I use it as a rough guide

agree 100%

Yes, I work on around the same guestimates as Fizzbuzz, allowing for the progress they should make during KS4.

Thanks for the info MB and everyone. I know what my son should be aiming for, now. Interim school reports at the end of this term - fingers crossed.

I think what amicissima and fizzbuzz are saying is the same though, except that amicissima is saying the levels at yr 11 which are 2 higher than what you might get at year 9. I wonder how often it works and how often someone really over or underperforms?

Thanks everyone.

I'm a bit worried because my mum phoned me yesterday absolutely thrilled to bits...really over the moon she was.

Apparantly my sister had got a level 4b in her mock sats. She does have problems but my mum was under the impression that this was one of the highest scores she could have got and was going on about how she'll do great when she leaves school with "all these qualifications" etc...

I didn't want to say anything (and still wont) but I didnt think the grades were as good as she thought they were.

4b is national average for the end of year 6.

Thanks Snorkle, those were the GCSE grades. I didn't make it clear.

My DS's Yr 9 Sats and predicted GCSE grades confirm what fizzbuzz says. Most of his year group had level 5 in yr 6 (not boasting, too many of them got straight 5s for me to think mine was special! Just fact based on good primary feeding selective grammar).

Level 5 in English as average. I wouldn't make predictions based on SATs results for GCSE as they can be marked out on what a student usually achieves. Most schools will give you a teacher assessment level for the end of Year 9 as well as the SATs results. (Given, that with English, it takes until late summer for them to turn up, our setting and target grades for GCSE are largely based on their teacher assessment; even if they did turn up earlier, I still
think we would discount them in favour of our own judgement where setting is concerned).

I have had the experience of students with Level 6 at SAT; GCSE target B getting A*s on more than one occasion. Yet it works the other way - in my first year of teaching (in a different school) the SATs marks were inflated. Obviously, school was delighted with the result. However, I was then teaching a Year 10 set 4 group who had up to A grade targets for GCSE which were unrealistic - more like C, B tops. I also had fun trying to explain to them why they were still in set 4 when they had the same SAT result as children in a higher set.

As a parent (my dd is about to do KS2), I would try not to worry too much about the SATs. Teacher assessment and coursework marks are a better reflection of their ability. Their GCSEs are the ones that count for them.

I hope this helps

Sorry - should clarify level 5 is average at Year 9. I hope I didn't sound like I was being rude about lilo's son attaining level 5 in Year 6 - which is a brilliant result!

DD is in year 9
and she got level 7s in her mocks

she is expected a level 6 in her maths
level 7 in her science
and level 6 in her english

she got 7s in her mocks

the exepcted level is for the proper sats.

expected level 6 is normal for about a nearly top set child

DD is in set 2

One less than the top set

Top set is expected level 7s or above

hope it helps

just read this and my head hurts. Why have they made it all so complicated!!!!!!!!!