PiE/PiM vs CAT scores vs Key Stage Levels

[Shirleycantbe]

I am really confused about the apparent variation in my DDs performance on all of these measures.

She is just finishing Year 2 and I got her report today.

CAT scores earlier in the year (Xmas term) were are above the 75th percentile, verbal reasoning was 92nd percentile.

She has been internally assessed by the school as level 3C for Maths and 3B for English.

Her standardised scores for PiE and PiM however are 104 and 114 respectively.

Does this suggest the school are being overly generous with their assessment of her levels AND that she is not fulfilling the potential indicated by the CAT scores?

Or am I misunderstanding the way all these tests relate?

Please help me understand before I go to the teacher to discuss!

I could never work out the Progress in English/Maths standardised scores as we were given marks out of 45. However I also
noticed that levels criteria seemed much softer therefore higher, esp in English.

Marking my place as I would also like to understand this better!!

I think you are taking the scores very seriously, assuming absolute accuracy, when all types of assessment have inherent inaccuracies.

Levels 3B/3C at end of year 2 are a bit above average (average is 2A) and the PiE and PiM scores are also above average. The PiM is roughly in line with 3C while the PiE is indeed below 3B. But remember that PiE and PiM are based on short tests so a child getting a couple of questions wrong lowers the score by a sub level or two. (While a child accidentally guessing the right answers can inflate the score by a sublevel or two.)

CAT is also not very reliable at this age for the same reasons, plus VR can be inflated by a child being mature and exposed to lots of books etc. But anyhow the CAT scores look roughly in line with level 3s. I don't think people would take terribly seriously the difference between sublevels at this age, nor insist that a 90th percentile CAT score of a six year old must be correlated with a 90th percentile NC level.

BTW PiM of 114 translates to 80th percentile, nationally, while PiE of 104 translates to 60th percentile. So the PiM is in line with the maths CAT score while the PiE is a little low. If there are specific subtests which lowered the PiE score, the teacher may tell you this but I would think it more likely she would tell you not to take the scores too seriously at this age.