Can anyone explain NFER tests in y3 please?

[PerspicaciaTick]

DC came home with their end of year 3 report last week.
It talks about taking NFER tests for reading, maths and spelling. It then gives the results of the test on a scale 1-5 which indicates how well DC is meeting expectations. This in addition to a separate set of results by the teacher indicating what DC's progress has been re: expectations and effort.
Do you know if the 1-5 scale is a national thing (because I've struggled to find out more about it online) or if it sounds like an interpretation of the results developed by DC's school to match the rest of their reporting.
Thanks.

[YogaDrone]

My son bought home his YR3 report yesterday and it doesn't sound like your child's at all!

His explained that the baseline for what was expected was L3 plus 6 half terms. They have expressed this on the report as 3.6. So if a child has attained 3.5 they are approximately half a term away from meeting the baseline expectation.

As well as this column there is an Effort column from 1 to 5 which is just subjective and expressing how much the child has tried.

Lastly was a column where, if the child had attained greater depth in a subject, how much greater depth expressed as a number. This is the column that I don't really understand - so DS has 3x1 for maths and 3x3 for reading. I'm assuming the 3 equates to the old Level 3 but I don't know what the "x1" or "x3" means. I'm sure his teacher will explain at parent's evening later this week.

[PerspicaciaTick]

Thanks Yoga, I feel that schools are very good at providing a report which feels like it has a lot of information in it but which is actually very hard to understand. So they provide data rather than information.

[YogaDrone]

Yes, I agree. I think schools are rather feeling their way this year. My son's teacher freely admitted to base lining all of the children more frequently than she would have done in previous years because of the uncertainty around the new curriculum and how she would have to report and validate her findings against it.