Any year 2 teachers around? SATs and attainment levels

[Coffeedreaming]

Hello just want some clarity on a few things and wondering whether I should speak to the teacher.

As an aside I always get the feeling the teacher doesn’t like my child although I’m unclear why as if we’ve had to talk about any issues at school there’s a lot of them doing similar things eg not listening at break time etc. (A whole other issue is I think there are different standards for girls and boys - my daughter has been told off for not listening and boys are barely being told off for hitting people etc)

Anyway back to the school report which has come home this week.

My child scored
Maths - 115
Reading 115
GPS 112

And yet in her report the teacher has only scored her GDS on reading and scored her WTS+ for writing and EXS for maths.

These don’t add up to me and I can’t help but feel it’s because the teacher seems not to like her.

Do I just need to let it go and focus on next year

I’ve heard similar and planning on a tutor for the 11 plus.

Now worried we won’t get one as I didn’t realise people booked them from reception around here and originally hadn’t even thought of using one as didn’t want to pressure her ☹️

Reading chapter books means they can decode words. I can READ a book in French, I could read it out loud and you’d say I can read French - but I can only understand a small proportion of it. I’ve known children who can read fluently but when asked about the story or the feelings of the characters they just look blank.

Knowing the planets at age 3 is no different to knowing all the Thomas the Tank characters (my special needs son) or the Paw Patrol characters (most of EYFS at my school).

Im not saying OPs DD isn’t bright but reading chapter books and knowing the planets isn’t how it’s assessed.

We tutored from yr 5 for DS and yr 4 for Dd. We are in Kent, I haven't hard of anyone tutoring in KS1

Are you a teacher by any chance ?

It could be that she didn't meet every expected standard on the assessment criteria for writing and therefore couldn't be marked as expected. Teachers can't just say they know they are or that they meet most criteria; they need evidence of every standard met to give child expected. Tests are different as obviously they can score highly based on a selection of set questions. I'm not in any way questioning the intelligence of your child but she may have missed some pieces of evidence. Worth asking teacher which evidence so you can perhaps pass this info onto tutor to work on or practise at home? Trust me, this tick box writing assessment approach is horrible for teachers too!

Also Kent.

Sorry didn’t mean tutoring in ks1 but had booked the tutors for the future already!

Loads have their books full already?!

Year 2 SATS are not just based on the tests, which are now optional for schools.
They take into account the work done in school and teachers should be able to provide evidence from books, etc to reasoning for the judgement awarded, such as if they were moderated.

The tests, now informal and optional, form just one part of the judgement.

Look she is bright. A teacher in year 1 didn’t believe she’d read all the famous five books and decided to quiz her. Lo and behold she answered everything right.

I know the difference between being bright and being able to reel things off by rote.

I also have a child with significant disabilities who attends a specialist school in reception so I’m not just trying to brag about her.

That's the point I've tried to make. DSs teacher felt he should be grading higher and he was capable of it, but she couldn't evidence it. That's the crucial thing now, not the score on a test that no longer is a legal requirement.

All this stuff about children not counting for data is a load of rubbish. Schools are primarily judged on their numbers meeting expected and GD in SATS, not progress, so would be completely shooting themselves in the foot to ignore any child capable of passing.

Ok fair enough - I suppose we just need to know what to focus on at home.

The only comment on the writing was that she needs to be more consistent with her comma usage which i thought wouldn’t mark her right the way down to the bottom?

Perhaps I should reply correcting the teachers spelling as she wrote “commer” !!!!

I've worked with a few teachers who had clear favourites or didn't seem to really like one particular child, there's plenty of pupil bias goes on in schools and it's not just a racial issue. I found with the same some years with my son with ASD.

Fortunately your dd doesn't have long left with this teacher, but don't you get a parents evening after reports to discuss them? If not then there's no harm in asking what dd is struggling with to have WTS+ so you know what to work on - I really wouldn't worry about it too much though.

You said dd is very bright and was reading chapter books at a young age and reciting planets. You also said you had another disabled child - they're not autistic are they? Just wondering if your dd might be too as hyperlexia is often part of ASD.

• write simple, coherent narratives about personal experiences and those of others (real or fictional)
• write about real events, recording these simply and clearly
• demarcate most sentences in their writing with capital letters and full stops, and use question marks correctly when required
• use present and past tense mostly correctly and consistently
• use co-ordination (such as or/and/but) and some subordination (such as when/if/that/because) to join clauses
• segment spoken words into phonemes and represent these by graphemes, spelling many of these words correctly and making phonically plausible attempts at others
• spell many common exception words*
• form capital letters and digits of the correct size, orientation and relationship to one another and to lower-case letters
• use spacing between words that reflects the size of the letters

These are the requirements for expected. Does she do all of these with accuracy and consistency?

Just to add (although this is probably no comfort to you now OP, as it sounds like your DD has not had a great year with her teacher 😪) I can almost guarantee that your child has been marked/graded accurately by her teacher, as ALL teachers are judged (very thoroughly and harshly!) by the results they achieve with their cohort! So even if a teacher and child have a ‘rocky’ relationship (which makes me sad 😔) she/he will be absolutely trying their damnedest to achieve the best scores possible! If there were even half a chance that the teacher could have given EXP in writing, they would have scoured the books for evidence! I do mean this…we are constantly monitored and judged by our results (it’s relentless!)

I can also guarantee that all of the WT writers in Y2 (and Y6) will have had their books thoroughly assessed either by the schools assessment coordinator/SLT or writing lead (which I am at my school) to try and find evidence of EXP.

This is good and the sort of thing I need to hear. This will be useful to pass to a tutor I guess and do some practice at home!

Sorry to hear it’s all so stressful for teachers

I would think yes but I’m not 100 % sure although in the teacher comment section she only mentioned consistency with commas so surely she should have added some of this.

Re spellings she gets them all right every week on the test sheets she brings home.