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?

Cloudsandtrees
who gives a flying &&&& about the Level 6 paper at KS2 SATs
most secondary schools don't : they retest etc etc
funnily enough rather like the method that kim147 made up that was actually put into place in all state schools around ten years ago
so that they could fill out the FischerFamilyTrust and RaiseOnline data sets

oh no, silly me, the Government assume there is no monitoring going on, and that the "value added" data is just pulled from thin air

I am GOBSMACKED by the number of people pontificating about what they would like to see
with NO IDEA how its done at present

Go and become a Governor and start to handle the data yourself. THEN feel free to tell teachers how they should do it.

"Tests and assessments are fine as long as the information gained is used effectively and is beneficial to the child."

So exactly how would finding out my ds was in the bottom 20% ability band be helpful? Given that I already know where and why he struggles from talking to his teacher and seeing the work she has marked at school?

Are you suggesting they need these national comparators for streaming at secondary school? They don't you know - they can use SATS results and reports from year 6, as well as their own testing done in year 7.

No one on this thread has made a single sensible suggestion as to how information from this proposed test will be used to help a child make progress at secondary.

newat, what areas of the country would those be? in any case, all the kinds of people you suggest should find out a bit more before they actually tell the rest of us how it is. Because it actually isn't.

Scotland. Different education system here.

And for the record - the question didn't refer to specific people, just 'people'. I suspect not all the people are telling others how it is.

Talkin, that's exactly it!

Secondary schools don't bother with SAT results, so why on earth is so much time in Y6 spent on preparing them for these tests instead of teaching them? The current system doesn't work IMO.

You are right that most sensible people won't give a flying fuck about level 6 SATs, but if a child is at that level yet cannot possibly be assessed as being at that level, then there is clearly something wrong with the current system.

If there was some kind of test that was done earlier in school and gave a more accurate reflection of a child's ability instead of a teachers, then we would have a chance to use that information while a child was still at primary school, where it might have the effect of ensuring children reach their potential when there is time to do something about it.

Ooh I sound such an awkward pedant! Ignore that last message, it really didn't come across as I intended.

"NC levels are close to useless though"

Why do you think that?

Mini, if you know a child's ability lies within the top 20%, yet their marks at school don't reflect their ability, then you would question that, because it could be down to a number of things. It might be because of crap teaching, it might be because of problems at home, it might be because of health issues, it might be because a child is unhappy at school for some reason.

Or if a child's ability has been shown to be high and two years later is much lower, then that would be questionable too.

You can't solve a problem if you don't know there is one.

Maybe it will have more benefit for higher ability children than lower ability children, but if we are going to have an education system where every child is enabled to fulfil their own potential, then that doesn't really matter. School has to have ways of identifying problems, and SATs don't do it. It doesn't matter to schools if children who are capable of a higher standard only get the expected standard, and that is wrong.

cloudsandtrees
If there was some kind of test that was done earlier in school and gave a more accurate reflection of a child's ability instead of a teachers, then we would have a chance to use that information while a child was still at primary school

what, like the QCA tests that loads of schools do at year 3, 4 and 5 that are fed back to FFT for value added data?

Teachers know absolutely SHEDLOADS about kids progress.
Any parent who says they do not is not asking the right questions.

Well that's another point, schools already do this stuff but it could be done earlier.

If lots of secondary schools do their own CAT and ignore SATs anyway, then why don't we have some kind of CAT earlier so that Y6 isn't wasted on getting the school good SATs results instead of pushing children to achieve their potential?

Maybe I'm making this whole thing too personal, but I feel that my children spent their time in Y6 getting their primary school good SATs instead of improving themselves. I'd rather they were tested to ensure that they are achieving what they are capable of instead of being left to get level 4 and the school being happy with that because it suits their position in the league table.

Any MN ers going to admit to their kids being in the middle 80% - all people have said is my kid would be top 10% or bottom 10%( due toi SN's) To me, just prove that it would mean diddly squat!

How is an uneducated parent supposed to know the right questions to ask?

Value added is a good thing, but I still think it focuses more on the schools achievement rather than an individual child's.

Cloudsandtrees
I feel that my children spent their time in Y6 getting their primary school good SATs instead of improving themselves
When SATs first came out, the whole point was to mark the school not the pupil
It was pushy parents who demanded league tables and personalised results
and then fine scale points
and then value added

Its a bit like a car : the more warning lights you have, the more things you worry about.

It would be better if lots and lots and lots of the "benchmarking" was removed and the teachers had time to teach and educate ("to lead out") the children to reach their own potential rather than being compared with random kids from elsewhere in the country when they are 10.

Sadly politicians cannot score points with that method.

I think secondary schools are probably right in thinking that SATs are artificially high.

I think that's where I'm coming from with this, because I know quite a few children in my dcs class got level 5s, which we are told 'represents achievement above the nationally expected standard for most 11 year olds'. (Copied that straight from ds's report!) But from looking at some of the work my child produces in English, if he is above the nationally expected level then that expected level really isn't very high. In fact it seems really quite low to me!

It would help me as a parent much more if I knew if he was capable of better and was just being lazy about putting in effort, or if he is doing the best that can be expected of him.

It is very wrong indeed to define humans by academic achievement alone.

Another thing that puzzles me is that people ar talking as if there's a special subject called SATs that children are pointlessly drilled in. I agree that there is too much concentration on SATs practice in year 6, but it is English and Maths they are doing, you know!

Secondary schools certainly do pay attention to year 6 SATS results. They do CATS as well, not instead.