To think it won't help me or ds to know he's in the bottom 10% of children

[Minifingers]

when he leaves primary? Or my oldest ds to know he's probably in the top 10%?

This is what the government is suggesting - that children are ranked into 10 ability bands when they leave primary.

I know how able or otherwise my children are - I read their school reports, I look at their SATS results, I talk to their teachers.

What will ranking them in this way do other than give them an overwhelming sense of failure or complacency?

Kids change hugely as they grow - some early starters fade by their mid teens, others are late developers and the opposite happens.

The risk with this is it locks in expectations early, and will bias against late developers and over-support early developers even when they fade (like the 11+ does)

I assume Kim means that a child getting a L 4 at Y6 should be expected to get an "average" pass of C at GCSE if they progress at a steady rate, - but, as a secondary teacher I would offer the following possible answers:

1. Things happen in the child's home life that affects their performance
2. Things happen to children when they go through puberty and deal with adolescence that may affect their performance
3. Bigger classes with more possibility for distraction, books or topics chosen in English not enjoyed by the particular student, for example, or lots of coursework when 100% exam may have been better for that student
4. People reach a "ceiling" in certain subjects where they just cannot conceptually go any further (for me, it was a B at GCSE maths - no way, despite having an MA in history, that I will ever do better in maths than that).

These are just some ideas. We work all the time with projections based on past performance and have targets to hit based on them (some schools would link performance related pay to this) but there are so many factors that contribute to a child's progress, or lack of, that you cannot draw a straight line graph from one point of measurement to the next and stand back, expecting it just to happen. As to the OP, perhaps the data might identify some interesting geographic or demographic information, but in terms of benefit to the individual, I'm not sure more external tests will be of much help, though I don't think there is anything wrong per se with wanting to know where your child is at. I now work at a private school and the parents often want to know where their child is ranked in the class . We don't rank them, but if pushed, I will say which third of the class they are in.

I agree.

If I had my way our schools would be being moved to mirror what they do in Finland, the best education system in the world, not driving us further away.

Children in Finland don't start formal education until they're seven and he we are debating whether we should be giving bloody 4 year old tests.

i would love to government to say they are cutting class sizes and employing more maths teachers at primary.

mucking around with individual scoring doesn't really help anyone does it, apart from put more pressure on primary school teachers.

And what are they measuring - bet it won't be empathy, or patience, or sticking power, or manual dexterity - all human attributes that count a lot to how well you succeed in life

yy throcken, so very true.

My dd would almost certainly be in the top percentile academically, but I know this already and there is no real benefit in anyone measuring it. Also people are kidding themselves if they think it will help schools to teach children at the right level. For example, there will still be huge variation within the top 10% and within the bottom 10%. And in any case, performance isn't always constant.

God, this would have just been the icing on the cake last year... what a fucking PRICK that man is: this is just completely pandering to people who want to know in the hope that their own child is number 1! I've never understood what on earth the relevance of the old-style 'Position in form: 17th' was meant to be. If you're top, or bottom, you probably have a fair idea anyway, and why on earth would you care whether you were 15th or 16th?

"i would love to government to say they are cutting class sizes and employing more maths teachers at primary."

This will never happen with our current government. In fact I have been told there are serious discussions under way about getting rid of TA's (because of a lack of evidence that having TA's leads to overall improvement of learning), and of primary class sizes in many urban areas routinely rising to 34. Both my youngest dc's are currently in classes with over 30 children. My youngest has a diagnosis of ASD but no statement and no allocated support. He would sink like a stone without the help of the TA.

"So how will this actually help children, parents or teachers?"

It will reveal that the children of the rich who have tutors and are taught in classes of 16 at private schools disproportionately occupy the top 'ability' band. And then the government can use this as a stick to complain that bright children at state schools learning in classes of 34 are being failed by their teachers.

I've heard of private and grammar schools doing this in the past, its never done them any harm. Its a competitive world out there and if you're in the bottom 10% then frankly you're in trouble.

"I've heard of private and grammar schools doing this in the past, its never done them any harm. Its a competitive world out there and if you're in the bottom 10% then frankly you're in trouble."

What a fucking stupid comment.

My ds will probably be in the bottom 10% at school because he struggles with literacy - he has ASD and it interferes with his learning. However, he is amazingly competent in many other things NOT tested by the national curriculum and I have no doubt that he'll end up in gainful employment because he's a USEFUL and ABLE child. Far more useful and able than many children who do well academically but are as much use as a chocolate tea-pot when it actually comes to doing anything which would earn them a living.

They are scrapping levels so you won't know what level your child is at. This is presumably to replace them.

My children are in private school and we routinely get rankings in either sets or year groups. I dont really see it as a big deal, I have never made a point of sharing it, but believe me, they all are quite clear where they stack up in class, as they all share and discuss their marks anyway.
FWIW The school doesnt do SATS, so wont contribute to league tables.

The only time it has been useful was for my dyslexic DS1 who is top 10% for maths and science and right at the bottom for english. It very clearly shows that he has a problem and supports his application for extra time (which is about to be removed by the exam board, as he is now considered to be doing too well to need it - but thats a whole different thread)

But I am not sure how or why this should raise standards.

Minifingers I echo what you say, ds 18 has ASD and left with 8 A to C GCSEs but is in fact unemployable. He's currently at an independent specialist school being taught all the skills that will hopefully mean that he will gain some independence in life but he's hating it because he's gone through school being taught that exam passes are the only thing of value and a guarantee of success. It would have been far more beneficial had he been taken off the national curriculum and given a programme of work, life and social skills instead.

Your child will not know unless you tell him though.
I disagree. By the time he was in Yr 6 my DS had a very clear idea of where he stood in relation to the other children. His self-esteem plumeted when the children were put in upper and lower sets in Yr 6 and he was in the lower set (and surprise surprise, the better qualified teacher was given the upper sets).
He didn't think 'Oh, I'm not doing so well, I'll work harder' he thought 'Oh, so I'm thick then.'

The criticism of levels is that parents didn't understand what they meant. This should be clearer.

If we want our children to suceed then we need to encourage them to develop a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset. A child in the bottom 10% (and worst still their teachers and parents) may believe that bottom band children cannot achieve.

My children's school is in dire straights and the SATs results are utterly awful. 10% of my son's class got less than a level 3 in reading and only 60% got more than a level 4. These children ARE NOT stupid, but they have had shitty teaching. (Headteacher and deputy have been sacked resigned and LEA have taken over the school.)

I want a system that measures PROGRESS rather than ranking. Our school has not given national curriculum sub levels for year 6 SATs (even though I am sure they exist). My son has got level 5s in the grammar test, maths and reading, but I have no idea if he has made progress from the end of year 5. I feel that the present system has merit and schools should be legally obliged to report teacher assessed national curriculum sub levels.

Parents can then call the school to account if little tommy has made zero progress in year 4, rather than little tommy being unable to read in year 6.

It's basically bringing back the 11+ without bringing back grammar schools.

I'm all for productive streaming as it can be beneficial, however, it's only beneficial in the context of your peer group at the school you attend. It doesn't make sense having a national comparison!

Anecdotal evidence is annoying I know, but I must mention that someone I know very well who went to Cambridge, has a Master's AND a PhD and has not held down a job for more than a few months.

She is now nearly 40 and has not worked for over 10 years now, despite being an engineer.

Why? She has the most appalling people skills of anyone I've ever met.

And then there's this lunacy www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jul/17/five-year-olds-tests-clegg
Just what's needed - kids branded as 'failures' right at the start of their school careers...

Schools have done base line tests on nursery and reception kids for years. Its not about branding children as failures, its making sure that children who need it get refered to speech and language therapy or audiology.

Unless you have a baseline assessement it is next to impossible to measure progress.