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.

This is the exact reason why parents and students shouldn't receive their results for SATS.
They perhaps xould be given a school cohort result at most.
Eg at Primary School A were pleased to announce the SATS results are as follows;
30% exceeding
60% meeting
10% below.

All the stress, hassle, weight of expectation etc for small children removed!

Not really. They can't have like 80+% exceeding, can they? It means the test was too easy.

This is brilliant learning for both of you. If you want to raise a happy, resilient child who's self worth isn't based on her attainment, then you totally play this down, tell her it's irrelevant and excitedly look forward to the next chapter of her life.

That’s interesting because they were his exact words. I’m totally confused now as to why, as you say, they took so long to tell me and also why he would tell me that. I’ll contact the school for clarification. Thanks so much for your help.

Ahh thank you. I was under the impression they were also moderated at the end of year 2 but that may be my mistake.

The arrangements for Y2 assessments have changed in recent years and I am not entirely up to date with exactly what the arrangements were for your child’s year (especially as 4 years ago was summer 2020 - Covid year). You can search ‘DfE Key Stage 1 assessment writing’ if you want to look at the current arrangements.

No, not for something as small as that but it could be something that informs a much larger pattern of errors/areas of weakness.

For example, a repetitive over-reliance on the same small stock of vocabulary could indicate that the writer does not have the breadth of language to prove that they are selecting the vocabulary that a particular piece of writing requires and are not considering clarity, cohesion or the target audience. Moderators have to decide whether those errors are actually minor (and can be ignored) or whether they form part of a larger weakness.

Tell her not to worry; that the moderator just saw a small selection of her work and her teachers still think she's exceeding.

She's passed the Kent test and that's what's really important.

Absolutely you’re right. The school have told her for years she exceptional at writing, has a talent etc, they have told me the same. She didn’t ask for that kind of praise it was offered.
Sadly the school made her writing attainment part of her self worth.

Not my original comment, but the level of moderation scrutiny certainly can be "ridiculous." Not only are they checking for what is there but for what isn't. We had a child with beautiful joined handwriting with evidence of literally thousands of fully joined words over his Y6 books across all subjects. The moderator picked up two unjoined four letter words as evidence he didn't consistently join (and as such wasn't at expected standard). A couple of missed full stops can send an expected child not just down to Working Towards but Pre-Key Stage ie Y2 level. Undoubtedly, some moderators are more pedantic than others. Of course not everyone can be at GD but there needs to be an awareness that the texts are written by children not robots and over a year's work, there might well be a genuine error or slip made which doesn't negate the quality of the rest of their work.

I think it is worth saying that many very able and ‘readable’ young writers do not tick the ‘greater depth’ boxes. In fact the most creative writers can be very difficult to grade.

So it is possible to be an excellent creative writer but yet not achieve GDS on the DfE’s criteria - they are independent variables to some extent.

If the moderators of the sample think that everyone has been given marks which are too high then everyone will go down

Its very hard to get exceeding for writing.
Dd got met despite exceedibg for everything else. So has the reading skills and exceptional SPAG.
Only 1 child in both classes exceeded for writing despite many getting exceeding for most other things.
Frankly its too hard and so unreasonaboe if that then affects their gcse grade prediction.
They didnt do the writing until after the sats had been taken.

Really op its not bad your dc has gotten into grammar school. And all this despite missong half of y2 and possibly 8 weeks of y3.

Sorry for the slight derail, but is the writing KS2 genuinely used for GCSE target setting at secondary school? Given that writing just has three bands rather than scores, how would that track?

I thought it was just reading and maths that were used by FFT and similar systems, but I'm not an insider! Would a teacher be able to confirm?

It sounds like it can be utterly brutal.

Honestly I must stress this is more about a child that has been given the same level for seven years consistently. The actual level is irrelevant, It’s the fact that the day before she leaves it’s goes down by two.

I don't understand how it's gone down by two? Greater Depth to Expected is down one level. Apologies if I've misunderstood.

Tell her that her teacher who knows her disagreed and she nailed the 11 plus , so they think she's fab. Sadly, some box ticker moderator, didn't and this won't be the last time she meets unfairness face to face. Be happy, move on, its summer yayyyyyyy

They didn't sit SATs in Y2 because schools closed in March and Y2 didn't go back till September.

As a yr 6 teacher and moderator, it sounds to me like he's messed up somewhere.
In the tested subjects like maths, in my school the report might say 'expected' even if the sat score was 'below' as our main message to parents was teacher assessment (they'd receive sats results separately), but with writing, the assessment level is only teacher assessed anyway EXCEPT in a case like this where moderation has prompted a change. It sounds like he's had to change the report to reflect the new level as a last minute thing after realising it didn't match to what he's originally put/told you. Possibly the school knew they wouldn't be successful in the appeal (the moderator would have good proof to bring it down) and he's not being honest about not being able to appeal. Now he's trying to justify/explain the last minute change.

From greater depth down to at expected level is one level, not two.

also this cohort did not take SATs in year 2, so every previous grade was teacher assessed.

our class teacher explained this to us as parents evening, dd is a talented writer but that it is particularly difficult to get a moderated GD grade in writing and she was not one of the ones who would get it - the school don’t tend to overgrade because then they are more likely to be moderated downwards. Chill out - your dd hasn’t gone backwards she’s just marginally fallen below a very high standard at one specific thing. It has nothing to do with her self worth.

It is upsetting, potentially, but it might be a great opportunity to help her through this kind of disappointment that will happen again in her life. In some ways it's better now than when she's really internalised her worth as exam results and can't cope. If they are likely to talk about it together at school (even though they're not supposed to) I would talk to her about it in the morning so she doesn't have to seem shocked in front of her friends, but not in a super serious way, more a puzzled and 'how silly of them' way. I don't know much about SATs moderation but I do know it's v rare to get exceeding and the school was silly to effectively promise she'd got that. However as you know it is not a marker of her worth as a human being! Perhaps you could talk about the other ways in which she's exceeding expectations, like as a lovely sister or a pancake flipper or whatever.

Good luck!

I should say rare to get exceeding for writing.

Yes they give 5 levels

significantly below average
below national expectations
matches national expectations
slightly above national expectations
exceeding national expectations

she was always given exceeding and I’m told
moved to matches national average

Yes in fact I didn’t think we’re were
going to be told SATS results but her teacher said today they will be sent home with reports.