anyone help me interpret school gobbledegook?

[MacarenaFerreiro]

I have children in P7 and P4, they both did maths testing a few weeks ago. Have had the results home today and can't make head nor tail of them. Spoke to both children's teachers at parents evening a few weeks ago and they had no issues over how they are performing in maths. The P7 teacher also said she thought the testing was very poor - all computer based and daughter certainly felt under a lot of pressure and one difficult question had a knock on effect on the rest as it was all timed - she was still working out the answer to the hard one and it had already moved onto the next. Anyway, see attached for scores.

Firstly why is it talking about KS1 and KS2 when we don't have those in Scotland so surely direct comparison is impossible?

The "scores" line I don't get at all - no explanation of what SAS means, what ST is or NPR? Then the KS2 indicator thing. There's then a breakdown of different categories telling you how well your child performed across the national average (national Scotland or national UK - your guess is as good as mine) but again this is meaningless as some categories have 30 questions and others have 4. DS got 80% in the Statistics section but that's only 3 questions out of 4.

Just to put the icing on the cake there's a "description of scores" section which is word for word identical for both children. Suggestions that we ask them to calculate the shopping bills and weigh ingredients.

Thinking this is one almighty waste of time and actually raises more questions than it answers...

[forfuckssakenet]

Why are they being measured against English benchmarks? Is ks2 not an English thing?

[MacarenaFerreiro]

I thought it was. That's why I 'm confused.

I have no idea WHY they've been tested - I know that when DD moves up to senior school the school do their own testing to put them into sets. I've had detailed feedback which actually made sense from the teachers and this form makes no sense to me at all.

[Thecaravan]

SAS means standardised age score so that compares your child's score against others of exactly the same age. The average is 100 so your child getting an SAS of 109 means they are working slightly above average compared to others of the same age. ST means stanine where 5 would be an average while working at age related expectations. Your child getting a 6 means that they are working slightly above that. Can't remember NPR off the top.of my head sorry and not at work today.
Hope that's a little clearer. Not sure why it isnt written for scottish schools though...

[MacarenaFerreiro]

OK that makes more sense. Would have been helpful to include a crib sheet for those of us without a background in statistics!!

Both children's SAS scores are around the same 109 and 102. So pretty much average compared with whoever they're comparing them with. Think DD's scores are skewed by the fact she panicked in the test and ended up just guessing answers - taken on its own I don't think it reflects how well she's doing in Maths which I suppose is the issue with all exams.

Still struggling to see the point of it all mind you...