Assessment in KS1

[mrsmortis]

I'm a bit confused by something my Y1 DDs teacher said at parents evening last night.

She said my DD's reading age was 7 years 8 months which is as high as they can test for in KS1, her implication was that it was probably higher but that they haven't tested for it. Her writing age was measured as 7 years 7 months. Given that she is still in her first term of Y1, how are they going to measure and assess her progress if she's already reached the boundary for the tests? How does it get reported to us as parents?

It's not that the school are bad, in fact her teacher is brilliant and is working hard to stretch her. I just have this niggling fear, brought about by my own experience of school, that she is going to get bored and loose her love of learning.

Just be glad that she has a good teacher. All my UK teacher friends say that the current emphasis on assessment and progression is ruining teaching, so don't worry about that.

Based on my experience with my children - neither of whom has ever really been stretched at school - is that the modern, post-internet world is very different to the one we knew when we were growing up. Nowadays it is so easy to learn stuff outside of school - my DD in particular has taught herself all sorts of useful stuff on the internet (how to type, draw, play guitar, write better stories ... as well as facts of course ... her geography teacher told me last night that DD had given her chapter and verse on Ebola transmission ... I have odd children).

I'd be interested in how the teacher assessed to give a "writing age"? I can understand that some reading tests give an "age" score, but I wonder where the criteria came from to come to that 7 years and 7 months writing score.

Misigiri - you're not the only one whose children have strange obsessions. My DD has just given me a lecture on why we can see the moon as it doesn't shine in it's own right. And had extrapolated that to the moons of Jupiter. Most of which she can name. (Can anyone recommend a website where we can look at moonrises on Jupiter? Simulations would be fine)

My first three children all ended up with level 3s at ks1, which for me was all the proof I needed that the system was a farse.

They all had vastly different levels of ability
but the school would not rate or assess beyond l3 in ks1 - they admitted it in the end. Ds1 and dd1 spent year 3 bored oit of their skulls as they were already level 4 in reality and whilst the teacher wad able to demonstrate progress on paper, they did not progress at all. I pulled them out at the beg of year 4 as this trend was set to continue!

Dd1 struggled quiteva bit after all that time coasting whilst ds1 sprung up to level 5 really quickly and his whole personality changed back to normal from frantic..

Be very careful what they tell you..

PS when we moved them, we found that every single level they had been given was quite a way out. My DD1 was L5 in maths whilst she had been marked a 4c - this had something to do with the paper she was given going only up to L4c and the school refusing to test her to the next - also in class wasn't given the extension work, so could not assess her in class.

English, she had made no progress since Year 2, so they had marked her a 4b but we knew she was still only a 3b, and so she was.

My DS1 was marked L3a for English and when he moved he was assessed as a 5c. In maths he had been marked as a 4c but he was a 4a. A complete shambles in a school supposed to be "OUTSTANDING".

All this just to say be very cautious.

Would agree with sovery tbh as DS (now yr5) got a 2C at the end of yr1 which is what DD (now yr2) also got & DS is sooo much stronger than her in maths, it is just his thing.

DD (now in yr2) has previously done badly in SATS style papers in literacy & reading (she moaned they were boring) and wasn't allowed to sit a L3 paper in yr1 but has just done one in yr2 and blown the teacher away (reading) with what she can do. The school's initial assessment of her was a 2B at end of yr1 & now she is a 3A (go figure??) btw this assessment isn't just on one assessment but ongoing work but I have had to push/nudge them as otherwise they would just be looking at improvement on her end of yr1 score.

I am not sure what assessment your kid's school use but DD was assessed at. 12 yrs 01 months at beginning of yr1 which suggests schools can assess higher (reading) unless it is only an infant school compared to an infant/junior (combined) school??

Given that by the end of KS1 there will be some children whose actual age will be nearly 7 years 11 months (ie those born in September) it seems unlikely that the highest they could assess reading age would be 7 years 7 months.