Year 6 levels downgraded due to moderator review

[Cadmum22]

Hi,

My daughter is in year 6. Her attainment levels throughout primary school year on year for reading and writing have been ‘exceeding expected levels’.

She passed the kent test with a score of 360. Maths 112 English 126 Reasoning 122.

Her year end 5 CAT scores were Verbal 116 Quantative 118 Non verbal 132.

i do not yet have her SATS scores.

i received a call from her teacher today to say that they had used her writing work as a sample for moderators and they have downgraded her from ‘exceeding expected levels’ to ‘attained national average’. He said they appealed the decision as they could not believe it but the appeal was overruled and that’s that she will be downgraded. He was unsure if her secondary school will be informed.

My question is does this mean that everyone in the class will be downgraded the same for writing or just my daughter? It seems incredibly unfair that seven years of attainment is completely wiped away. Surely seven sets of teachers can not be wrong? She will be very upset once the report comes out.

if anyone can shed some light on this for me
I would very much appreciate it.
Thank you.

she’s going to grammar?

this is just her end of year school report?

no biggie

Hi, Yes she has a grammar place and I realise they really may not be interested in these scores. It just seems unfair and very odd.

It's just a set of tests for 10 and 11 year old children. It's not a qualification like GCSEs or A levels that will count towards her future. This result will not be on her CV.

I agree, no biggie for me but sadly it will be for her when she sees the report. She’s taken pride in her school work.

Don't show her the report?

Yes I realise that!

My question is will everyone be downgraded because of the moderation or just her? She didn’t chose to send her work.

Why will she be upset to hear that she's doing well, but not better than everyone else, if you're not worried?

explain that irrelevant
she has much bigger stuff to look forward to… summer holidays and new school

and then take her out for lunch and be very relaxed about it all

Why would she see the report? It’s for parents

Unfortunately they give the report to the children at the end of the school day tomorrow.

My question really is why has this happened.
why would she be downgraded like that and will it just be her or all writing work for the current year 6. Seems unfair to just be her.

it’s a hand written report? they hand out the torre to the children?! literally first i’ve ever heard of this

It won’t be everyone (as there’s only 3 levels - below, at or exceeding - and they can just downgrade all the exceeding ones to below) and it may or may not be just her, you’ll never know.

the purpose of the moderation is to check teachers are applying the mark scheme correctly. It seems that in your daughter’s case they weren’t. If she was the only one the moderators disagreed with then that’s probably it. If they disagreed on a large number of the sample they may then have looked at lots more and downgraded loads.

it honestly will have no impact on your daughter long term.

Teachers give it to the children at the end of the school day.

op it really is starting to sound like you very much are bothered

it really isn’t a big deal

focus on her starting secondary school and all that lies ahead

It won’t be everyone but I would imagine that she’s unlikely to be the only one affected unless it’s a tiny school. Without knowing whether the moderators were happy with the rest of the sample it’s impossible to know how many children are likely to be affected. It might be a couple or it could be a much larger number.

Thank you. That was very helpful.

You really do just need to be breezy.

‘That’s strange, Mrs Smith told me you were a superstar. Shall we have an ice cream?’

Children are expressly told not to open their reports, reports are addressed to the parents. If she wants to see it rather than go wild with her chums on the last day of primary school then you'll have to explain what happened and that her teachers still think she's a GDS.

I would think that if she is downgraded then a significant chunk of the year will be downgraded as someone was marking them too leniently/ wrongly.

Why wouldn’t she be upset to see her attainment suddenly down 2 levels? If it wasn’t an issue why did the school phone to tell
me? She’ll be upset

It’s a typed report in an envelope and yes it’s given to the children at the end of the school day, always has been

Thank you

Moderation is to check the teacher’s judgements. Moderators look at examples of the child’s work from the year to find the evidence they need. If evidence isn’t there then there are opportunities to show additional pieces of work to try to meet the standards. If the moderators agreed with the rest of the teacher’s judgements then they may not have looked further but if there were several children’s work they didn’t agree with the level the teacher thought it was they may have relooked at the whole class / year group. It is possible that your child is performing well against her peers in that but not quite so strongly against the National frameworks. Or it could be that the diet of writing she’s been given at school just hasn’t given her opportunities to show enough skills. You can ask the teacher what exactly caused the downgrade ie which bits of the standard were weaker.

however for her future mental health especially at grammar you need to stop fixating on external results. Try instead to focus on effort and whether she is happy she’s done her best. It’s really important you model this to her. We always take our dc out to celebrate the day before exam results etc because we value the work they have put in more than the actual results - that’s the bit that needs celebrating.

The moderator is from the local education authority. They will have looked at a sample of children's work at working towards, age related expectations and greater depth(exceeding).

The moderator has for whatever reason decided her work is not at greater depth. She may not be the only one and whilst KS2 moderation only involves a sample of children from year 6, I believe they can ask for further samples.

The moderator has basically said that the teacher assessments for the class are not accurate, or at least in your daughter's case. That doesn't mean others will be downgraded, but they may have been. You won't get to find out.

I wouldn't worry. The SATs results and CAT scores are different to teacher assessment which is based on several pieces of writing of different genres over the last 6 months ish.

In all honesty, if she was greater depth at KS1, then she will have been expected to be greater depth at the end of KS2. Which is hard to achiever. Teachers sometimes "stretch" their judgements a little to meet targets.

I say this as an ex primary teacher and moderator.

The secondary school will not care, because it is teacher assessment and therefore someone's opinion. I guarantee they will re baseline at the start of year 7 regardless.

Here are the standards in case you want to look at them. To be greater depth all of the expected criteria need to be met too.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/637ba0b0e90e072854bcab87/2018-19_teacher_assessment_frameworks_at_the_end_of_key_stage_2.pdf