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Original poster

Year 7 Literacy: ability range in top set?

29 replies

Iamnotminterested · 23/07/2012 09:57

DD1 has had her SAT/TA results, did well and I'm naturally keen for her to be placed in a high set in high school - what parent wouldn't? The school she is going to do not set until October after they have done their own assessments post teaching in mixed ability groups for all subjects up until then.

I have two questions for any KS3 teachers around:

  1. As I said in the thread title, what ability range would you expect to see in a year 7 top group on entry/October? (School has I think a PAN of somewhere between 150-180, sorry, not sure) Will the level 6 sats papers make a difference this year? No-one did the writing at her school, and I'm pretty confident that DD's writing is as strong as her reading.
  1. How much of a nod would a non-selective, above average but not top comprehensive give to SAT/TA results anyway?

Thanks.

OP posts:
MrsSquirrel · 23/07/2012 12:18

In my dd's school, where the pupils come from many different primaries, they use their own CAT scores and don't rely on the SATs results at all. Also, they re-jig the sets periodically, so the groups they are in at the beginning of Y7 wouldn't necessarily stay the same.

Not what you asked, but I just want to come back on what you said, "I'm naturally keen for her to be placed in a high set in high school - what parent wouldn't?" Many parents, including me, would only want their child in the top set if that were the right place for her. IMO much better to be happy and making good progress in the middle set than struggling in the top set.

Niceweather · 23/07/2012 12:06

In the first few weeks of secondary, our school did CATS tests which I believe were used in conjunction with the SATS results. You would hope that they would also be fairly flexible and able to move children up and down if they were in the wrong group.

Original poster
Iamnotminterested · 23/07/2012 11:39

Thanks for the reply. So a secure 5b should be safe?

OP posts:
mnistooaddictive · 23/07/2012 11:06

SATs are a general guide, but not the whole picture. It does depend largely on the school, but generally a top set would be level 5s. It is also likely that some low level 5s will be in set 2. It does depend on the school though as one school I taught in had high level 4s in the top set. Also depends whether they set over the whole year or in 2 or 3 strands.

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