To give DD school (and the SATs agency) some basic statistical literacy?

[drspouse]

DD has her SATs report with her end of term report.
She got 89 in her English grammar and 93/94 in her other English and in Maths.
This has been reported as "not reached standards" or similar by school.
As a PhD in a subject requiring statistics I know that 85 would be one standard deviation below the mean (100) and that scores of between 85 and 115 are statistically indistinguishable from 100.
Put another way, if you have to have 100 to "reach standard" they are assuming that half the children automatically won't reach the required standard.
AIBU to explain this to you and to school and my fellow parents?
DD was in a group of 2 struggling with maths at the bottom of the class for several years and I'm really proud not just that she's progressed but also that she's now in the middle of the national scores.
This is a ridiculous way to "explain" to parents (unless their explanation is wrong and it's not a normal distribution with a median of 100?)

Sorry should have tagged the poster. That to was to MollyButton who said not passing could provide more support at Secondary- not necessarily true.

Don't overthink the SATs OP. They're to hold the school accountable rather than anything else.

You don't need all this intricate detail to see that your DD may benefit from some extra support in Y7, which has already been arranged. Far better that she gets support she ends up not needing than she's overlooked and struggles.

Most secondary schools only place a very light weight on SATs or primary school reports and usually assess the kids as they find them when they arrive. Whilst in my experience it's true that kids who get high SATs go on to achieve well at GCSE, the reverse is not necessarily a given. Many children are later starters and find themselves in Y8 or 9.

There is no need for all this nitpicking over disappointing SATs results. Move on, leave them behind and forge ahead with secondary school.

I think you're approaching this in a slightly odd way by expecting a CI for your child's individual score.

This is an exam. Exams don't give a confidence interval of the result. They give you a score out of a total. These are scaled to allow meaningful data comparison between years but beyond some very minor adjustments to allow for minor variations in the difficulty of the test, to ensure the 100 and 110 scaled scores hit in the right spot, your child's score means nothing more than "this is the score your child got in this particular test."

Where a CI is useful is in what the score means. And you get that to a certain extent in the population- and school-level progress and prediction scores that draw upon SATS, and secondary schools may initially draw upon those population level predictors to set initial targets and place in initial sets.

But these tests themselves don't purport to give any broader meaning on the individual level than to tell you how your child performed in a test on a particular day.

If you want to know exactly what percentile she's in for this cohort rather than using previous years as a proxy, you'll have to wait until they publish the statistics later in the year where each score gives you the exact percentile of children it relates to for that year. But it's been pretty stable over the years so il
not sure why you're averse to using previous years as a proxy.

Projecting, much?!

Projecting what ?

it was a cruel comment to make. The child in question has been adopted by OP who’s first language is not English and with Additional SEND needs not projecting at all just reminding you that not everyone is the same.

They are standardised scores. In the tests we Ss range from 69 or below to 130 or above.

It wouldn’t be a mumsnet thread without one poster accusing another of “projecting” or “are you ok” or “do you find this triggering”

@drspouse

You can scale to raw scores here

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/key-stage-2-tests-2024-scaled-scores/2024-key-stage-2-scaled-score-conversion-tables

Then the test stats are in Appendix A tab 17 onwards.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-test-development-handbook

From the appendix: Standard Error of Measurement in raw scores of 4.5ish in maths and 3ish in the other two.

For the scaled scores the SEM will be smaller, maybe half, because of the compression.

The 95% c.i. will be 1.96 times the SEM you calculate in the step above. (Technically that assumes the SEM distribution is normal, but other govt commentary uses it, or rather uses 2x, in illustration, so that seems reasonable).

Wasn’t it the Government that said that all children should achieve the average score of 100, which they were then told they couldn’t as it was an average!

But 100 is the minimum scaled score for a child to achieve age related expectation. Anyone who got between 80 and 99 didn’t reach that standard

And I’m not disputing that. But objectively, they are not difficult tests. I’d save the anger and fervour and disputing how the scores are calculated for a fight worth having in their shoes. And that’s if you even consider them valid/important in the first place. Mine did well in them, if you believe in the metrics used. However, they’ve meant nothing later on in their school careers. Nothing at all!

That’s not how you said it is it ?

It is explicitly government policy to raise standards so that the proportion meeting expected standards increases.

(The reference you're making is Michael Gove in about 2013 where he said entirely stupid and mathematically illiterate things to the Education Select Committee about how all schools should be able to achieve a "Good" rating while also saying that one of the prerequisites of that rating could be to perform above average.)

So if we were comparing in other exams like GCSE

4 is a pass but a low pass then you have 5 pass 6 7 8 etc

then you obviously have 2 3

so I’m assuming like 100 would be in that sense “4 “
and 107 “ 6 “

4 is a pass but not the average score nationally.

O0, all these tests have shown is that AT THE MOMENT, she is below the expected standard for end of Yr6.

It doesn't say how hard she works or what she is capable of in the future. Its in her second language, she's had more obstacles than the vast majority. She's also got a parent that seems very able to advocate for her and to help her.

Ignore what other 11yos can do and concentrate on her needs and what support she needs.

This. You are lashing out because your daughter's inability to reach 'expected' has touched a raw nerve because you are not confident in your own abilities. And your condescending arrogant post which was supposed to show everyone how much smarter than the sats system you are has shown the diametric opposite.

Yes that's pretty much it but without any set boundaries except "expected standard" (100) and "exceeding the expected standard" (110) (or whatever the wording is.)

Your daughter is a rock star and I hope she has lots of lovely things ahead of her this summer.

Awhh thank you
I try to never to compare her because she has been on her own journey we just focus on what is what at the time. We were very happy with her SATS results although I will say her high need VS her academic ability did cause a lot of work for the LA to find her a school 😂😂

IF you do drop the head an email Op

Please please screen shot what you send and please update!! You won’t

You're mithering over something that makes no difference to her in real life. It doesn't matter what the confidence interval is, her scores are low, so it's time to support her.

Do they really not set for Maths? I'd want to know how they were going to manage her in a mixed ability group and how experienced the maths staff are with teaching mixed ability. I'd be very concerned she will become invisible.

Not all schools set depends she may be going to a Sen school on an independent school.

my daughter has 7 kids in year her class in September ( year 7 ) mixed ability is fine in small classes.

OP hasn't said where she's going. The majority of students will go to mainstream so it's reasonable to assume that she will be in a relatively large MA class.

Hopefully she's going to a smaller provision to get the support she needs.

This thread is the PERFECT example of why teaching is so hard when you have to interact with know-it-all parents 😅

Must be pretty entertaining though

especially as the op mixed up mean and median in her explanation!

Tricky when you can't say out loud what you're thinking in your head but I have been known to send home 'age-appropriate' information to correct any misunderstandings. Parents don't often appreciate being given a y2 explanation though when they started the conversation with "well I went to UNIVERSITY and...".

It has also stated up front that she will have support in place for September has additional needs joined with no sets etc