KS1 SATS marking

[mungogerry]

I know that KS1 "attainment" grades are awarded for the year, on a whole year of teacher assesment, and rightly so.

However, since my dd came home and told me she sat the level 3 papers (SATS are very low key at our school and no-one tends to know or fuss about who is sitting what) it has prompted me to wonder how the "marking" of papers level is achieved for children who sit the level 3 papers. I am wondering this as I am not sure how well she will have performed, she is still 6 until August, and I have looked through some SATS papers and there seems to be quite a difference in the difficulty levels of the questions, especially in maths. So I am wondering if she would have answered 28/30 on the level 2, but only got 5/30 on the level 3. How does this work out as a score?

Am I making any sense?

Not worried, just curious about how the marking works. I know she happy and is doing very well academically also.

As far as I recall (it's a while since I taught Y2), the L3 paper has alot of L2 questions, so she should be able to 'score' highly enough to get the L2 grade.

If the whole style of the paper throws her off and she fluffs it (sorry for the language, but I think that's your concern?), then the teacher will be able to use her judgement and will use the level she got on the L2 paper, along with her own assessment, and disregard the 'fluffed' L3 paper.

It sounds as if she is 'borderline' 2a/3 and the teacher is just using the L3 paper to check her own assessment. Your DD might end up with a L3 even if she can't cope with the paper, based on other evidence.

Things changed in maths a few years ago regarding SATs papers. There used to be one paper that could level 2C to level 3. Now there are separate papers for level 2 and level 3 and the teacher decides which one the child "sits".
FYI:
For reading comprehension there has always been different level 2 and level 3 papers. The style does vary between the two. Level 2 has reading and questions all in one booklet and the level 3 has two reading booklets and a separate booklet with the questions in, and I find that can throw some children if they haven't met it before. Both reading and maths have teachers marks schemes identifying what we can and can't give points for.
In writing there are two writing tasks - a long task and a short task, each with set marking criteria (boy am I sick of scanning writing looking for "simple time adverbials" or suitable "extension of noun phrases" at the moment). Each of these tasks have a certain number of points, which you add to the spelling test points and handwriting points to get a final score and level.
My major grump is after all that you look at your teacher assessments throughout the year and the evidence you've gathered and often find the children are not the same as the tests. We report the teacher assessments so my hours of test marking was a bit of a waste of time.
Sorry, rant over. As you can guess I'm up to my eyes in marking writing tasks.

Things changed in maths a few years ago regarding SATs papers. There used to be one paper that could level 2C to level 3.

Blimey Abigail, how many years are you going back?! That's not been the case for over ten years!

On the level 3 test anything below 17 is classed as L3 not achieved. Having said that if a child has already done the level 2 test they shouldn't be given the level 3.

Can I ask a questions whilst you are about mrz? Dd is in y2 and we've been told since end of reception she will get L3 in Y2 and Y2 teacher has told us each parents evening (they have these each half term since school got satisfactory and a bit slated by ofsted) she is working at L3 including maths.

They have obviously get sats very low key but dd told me yesterday she had to do a maths test and she really struggled with answering the questions and left a lot unanswered. I assume this was L3 maths test as she said only a few did this test.

Does this mean anything? Has she been incorrectly assessed in maths if she has struggled so much with an actual L3 paper? Or could it be that this particularly test was difficult and not a reflection of her ability?

I am not fussed what she gets as a level but shoudl I be concerned that she has been assessed at working at a level which she isnt actually able to work at?

Or am I overthinking it?

Thank you all.

mrs - no she has not done the level 2 tests only the level 3's.

*mrz sorry

Mungogerry you need to chill. Yes you are overthinking. Teachers should be assessing her through year, SAT's not supposed to be all about the child, more how school is doing

It's an assessment the same as at any other point in primary school - of course it's about the child, it's about what they can do, can't do and what they need to be taught next!

coccyx - it was rainbowinthesky who asked if they were over thinking.

If so then I think you have misunderstood my question. If dd has been teacher assessed at working at level 3 for maths why could she not answer most of the questions on a L3 paper?

Abigail - the test results shouldn't be very different to the assessments made. If they are, something is going wrong.

Indeed - tests very, very rarely tell me anything I don't already know.

Rainbow - it's possible that it was a reading comprehension issue and yr dd was embarrassed to ask the teacher to read the question (or thought she understood). We have to read lots of the questions (this is allowed,following guidelines!) even though our children are quote good at reading.

On the other hand, the teacher's assessment may be too high.

She did ask me what "multiply" means and when I told her it meant times by she said ahh that's what it was asking.

Mind you rainbow, L3 children do need to have a wider mathematical vocabulary, so a teacher could only read the word 'multiply' - you aren't allowed to use the word 'times' in its place.