School fiddling the NC level figures to show higher added value - teachers' opinions particularly pls.

[iamonmyipad]

I have name changed for this in case anyone recognises details...

I have long had suspicions that our school has kept EYFS and then KS1 levels/ scores lower to show higher added value in KS2. The school has had good level 4 sats but poor Contextual Value Added.

I have always felt my own dc's scores were very strangely low compared to what the teacher said they could do verbally. I also know several other, typically quite sensible parents who have been perplexed.

Anyway, now I have heard quite strong evidence that this does take place from a teacher who has admitted she was asked to lower SATs scores at the end of last year by the headmaster as he was concerned about his CVA. This seems so unfair on the children and also must affect planning for the year after if the new teacher takes it all at face value.
I don't believe it was a one-off or that the teacher was necessarily just being over-generous and the head was moderating fairly because this fits with my and other parents long held concerns that this goes on.

What can we do about this?

I don't think NC levels matter at all to the children. And Y3 teachers do their own assessments anyway - which will influence their future teaching more than KS1 results.

The only thing that deflation of results will do is affect the CVA part of league tables - which I'm sure matters a great deal to the school but not sure who else cares.

(my DS's KS1 results were not what I expected - some lower, some higher. There seemed little point in bringing it up as long as he was continuing to make good progress)

But surely it's fiddling the figures. It misleads parents considering the school. It pisses the KS1 teacher off as they then seem like they added less value that year themselves.
It's just not ethical. And it under-rates kids' achievements.

If you want to complain formally about the HT you need to complain to the board of governors :(

Then if you're not happy with their response you can complain to the LEA.

Obviously, the HT will know it's you complaining, and it won't do anything for your relationship with school.

I think you're going to have to leave it if you want to keep your kids in that school.

Personally I don't really think the SATS marks at either KS1 or 2 matter except it gives you a rough idea as to how your child is doing.

It's not going to effect the next year as they will assess them themselves and anyway they won't take the results as a closed book. If they regularly take year 3 then they'll know about it anyway.

I would also be concerned at the teacher telling you. Not sure what that was meant to achieve. If it did happen then it should be something they are taking up, not gossiping to parents about it.

If the teacher assessment comes out consistently lower for a high number of children over several years then the scores from the SATS tests then I would expect the school to be investigated. I think (could be wrong) that one of the reasons there is a test at Y2 level as well as teacher assessment is to stop this kind of manipulation of the results in order to bump up the CVA for the league tables.
I agree that this manipulation doesn't adversely effect the children themselves, they are working at the level they are regardless of what official score they are given what it does do though is make a mockery of school league tables (although my personal opinion is that the league tables are the work of the devil and even when not manipulated mislead parents who put far to much stock in them when it comes to choosing a school) and is a slap in the face to all the schools that get good results genuinely through hard work and good teaching.
I think it would be very hard to prove unless you had written statements from teachers saying they were asked to manipulate the figures and you could show discrepancys in the teacher assessments and SATs test results, my guess is that you are able to produce neither of these two things as if you could they would likely already be under investigation.

All useful information.

So the overall message seems to be that we shouldn't take too much notice?

The teacher has recently left the school and this was one of the issues. I have no idea whether they would give a written statement but it sounds like it wouldn't necessarily get taken seriously anyway and is not especially worth pursuing?

Low results in EYFS and KS1 can trigger an automatic Ofsted visit so it would be a dangerous road to take.

I can't honestly say whether it happens deliberately or not, but, in case you were not aware, the KS1 scores can be moderated by the LEA. If you are really concerned, it might be possible to check if this has happened at any point.

Some teachers just seem to be ridiculously cautious highlighting check lists.
DD2 got full preschool reports from a private nursery and her school nursery.
The private one was DD2 exactly. Her school nursery's was very conservative.
Clearly the private nursery wanted talk up it's results, but I don't think preschool depressed theirs she was just a very cautious through teacher. She took always to mean just that.

This is unpleasant practice and almost certainly not what teachers went into teaching to do.

However, given the current insanity around league tables/VA/SATS results it isn't surprising in the least.

Custard is spot-on. We're not talking about them making the KS1 results so bad Ofsted would come in, but taking a class with a good cohort of bright children who could get higher results and making them artificially lower. Also in year 1 teachers were not testing higher than a ceiling level even if a child could go beyond that.

Failing to achieve a certain percentage of level 3s at the end of Y2 would be considered low results CustardCake.
In addition as sub levels technically don't exist children need to be a "secure" level 3 before they can be assessed as such (which effectively means a child working at 3B+)

We are fairly consistent at my school, if a child is rated a 3b in Y2, that should mean their writing could consistently stand next to any other 3b writer in the school. So they should be writing at the average level expected by the end of Y4.
If you have few level 3 writers at the end of Y2, the majority of the cohort should be at a 2a.

Are you aware that Y2 levels are externally moderated and teachers/schools have to provide evidence for the levels they are awarding

as are EYFS profiles

Who, me?
Yes.
We moderate within school, within our local group of 11 primary schools and have external moderation too.
We worked hard on smoothing the differences that used to exist between what a KS1 teacher considered a 3 and what a KS2 teacher considered a 3.
It is now consistent.

Bring it up with head and chair of governors - schools shouldn't be massaging KS1 results.

However, though it's the KS1 and KS2 results that are talked about, children are (well, should be) constantly monitored to ensure that they are always progressing. If you start massaging results, you've got to keep up this fraud all the way throug. This seems a bit of a hassle.

On the otherhand, dishing out level 3s at the end of KS1 basically means that the child has to get level 5s at end of KS2.

So, if you child is given all levels 3s it is quite nice because you know that the school will ensure that they do well in year 6.

Yes I am mrz. I can see why that would help with checking a child wasn't given too high a level for a piece of work, but surely if a child was doing higher level work in numeracy or reading and it was just not tested above a certain level, that wouldn't show up.

The KS1 results have nothing to do with testing.
The teacher/school/moderator look at the work produced in normal lessons over the year and build up a picture of the child's level from everything they do not from a single one off piece for a test so under marking would be very obvious.

Ok not a test but say they just don't give them the opportunity to work at the next level. Say they can do level 2 numeracy securely in year 1 but the teacher doesn't assess above 1a?

If a child is working at a higher level on a daily basis it can't easily be hidden regardless of how the teacher assesses.

Surely it can if they aren't being challenged at school. So, say they could do three digit + three digit addition but were only ever given easier ones? One small example but surely that could happen?

I can see with writing it would be different though.