KS2 sats - quick question

[inkyfingers]

Got DS's results today. Told he got level 5s. His teacher was pleased, she had assessed him earlier this year 5b for maths (can't remember the others). So far so good. But today she read off a printout of the test results and said it was a solid 5, but said that the results sheet did not give a break-down of a,b,c. TBH I'm not over-bothered about results as such, but this is the first year I've had a KS2 result without the grade boundaries. Is this the case, or is she wanting to avoid parents or pupils getting competitive/fussy about it? The school can then tell all the year 6s and parents that everyone got a level 4 or 5 - well done and avoid the detail. Hope I'm a cynical old MNetter

i think it is just a level. As in 4 or 5. I cannot remember though, may dig around and see what my dc result said.

Year 6 Sats are only assessed as whole levels, i.e. no abc as the results go to the local authority and DfE. Sub-levels have no official standing, they were simply created after NC levels to break down the large range each level covers, and to also show progress year on year. So no the school isn't holding back anything!

just checked dd and yes whole numbers.

The teacher assessment, which is reported alongside, has always had grade boundaries. But never the test results.

Teacher Assessments may be broken down into sub-levels, but the "official" tests just give a 3, 4 or 5.

Thank you! I am getting v.cynical - just as well he's my last child there!!

Snap!

Please Miss, Clam is copying me!

Don't, like, wreck my image, clam!

I'm glad you cleared this one up. I wondered where the ab and c had got to as well. DD did well in her SATS, but I was amazed to learn that she did exceptionally well in maths, which was always her weakest subject.

Any a/b/cs from the KS2 SATs have been added on by the school themselves - usually just to see where they're at in terms of sub-levels progress - the tests themselves only return the "full" levels.

Quite often someone will look at the thresholds and split it into upper/middle/lower themselves for a/b/cs but it's not done as part of the tests process itself.

(Now I do find myself wishing the TES forum would get that concept since there've been at least 5 threads on "what are the sublevels" in the last 24 hours - gah!)

I don't expect to see Ds2's results until Friday as Y6 are on their residential this week. I expect they'll be ok though.

Goodness knows when we will get ours. I think they wait until reports are out. dd is hopping up and down with a mixture of excitement and a bit of fear and I'm never very good at waiting for anything.

It is worth bearing in mind that the thresholds were published only yesterday so although the schools would have had a good idea of what level everyone was at from the marks, they could not be certain of the level achieved. There will be some children who missed a level by only a mark or two.
There also seems to be a lot of debate about the harshness of the marking of the Writing paper, and I gather that schools have applied for some remarking of scripts.

The schools will work out the a,b'c's from the mark thresholds internally and grade 5c, 5b, 5a etc, you may or may not be made aware of this via school reports - bascially what emptyshell says above.

basically - sorry

As diabolo says teachers will work out rough sub level boundaries for themselves but these will vary from school to school so have no official standing.