How does the SATS mark for English relate to Reading and Writing

[choccyp1g]

DS' school gives us SAT levelled marks at the end of each year, always for the three areas of Maths, Reading and Writing. However, looking at the published figures online, it only shows Maths and English.

Does anyone know how the English mark is calculated, is it just an average of the two literacy marks, or do they have to get to the level in both areas?

It's the average. If you got a 5 in reading and a 3 in writing, you'd get a 4 in English.

Not quite! It's the total of the two MARKS for both areas, rather than the 2 levels,
here are the levels for 2011
Reading N 0-10 Writing N 0-11 Overall N 0-19 2 20-22
3 11-17 3 12-22 3 23-40
4 18-33 4 23-35 4 41-69
5 34-50 5 36-50 5 70-100

so if you scored 50 marks in reading ( level 5) but only 22 in writing (level3) you would achieve a total of 72 overall ( level 5)!

That didn't come out very well! The rows shows the grade boundaries for reading, writing and then overall respectively ( Overall has a level 2 whereas reading and writing don't, just N or level 3)

FF Sake! It's Christmas!! Give it a break.

A teacher isn't just for Christmas, it's for life

Brilliant Snowball

I'm just grumpy as two separate parents have asked me to set extra work for the holidays - poor kids.

SnowBall - thanks. That table explains it properly.

SNB - Some people find this interesting.

It's not just about whether or not a school is good. It's also about understanding how the world works, and how the English schooling system works. Putting to good use all that statistics you learned in school.

Statistically it matters heaps whether the grade is the average or the minimum.

Being uninformed doesn't help anyone.

SNB - Can't you just tell the parents 'no'?

Or just tell them to go to mathletics / maths whizz / ixl / bbc

Or to write a story about their time at Christmas.

But seriously - tell the parent's no.

I try to emphasise how hard the children have been working and that they need a good rest in order to come back ready and raring to go in the spring term (which will be hard work for my Year 6s). Now you've got me talking about school (grrrrrrrrr!!!!) be aware that the threshold figures in the table above change from year to year so, for example 70 would get you a level 5 in 2011 but this may have had to be 72 in a previous year so would get a high level 4.

Don't worry, I'm on here when I should be doing some planning! But 5 hours in school today means my classroom is nearly sorted for next term, so Mumsnet is light relief-even if the questions are school related!!

Not only do my Year 6's need a rest, I do too!

A friend's DC scored a 5 overall for English last year, but child's mum told me that although X probably was a 5 for reading there was "No way on God's earth that X would have got a 5 for writing!" But the level given was a 5 overall. .

However, DH tells me that the writing score is the most important and only the kids with a 5 for this would be in his schools' top set. So there you go.

No - you can def. get a 5 overall even if you didn't get a 5 in the writing part - it just means got a high score in the reading paper.

So how would your school, Saturdaynightbeaver, initially set someone like my friend's DC?. Just curious.

The overall level is allocated by the DfE Iamnotminterested so they would report the child as a level 5 in English. Many schools complete their own internal assessments to determine where children are set.

DS got a low writing 25 (1 point into level 4c) high reading 44 (level5b) but overall was still a level 4 because the total was 69 which was 1 point below a level 5. If he had got one more point on either the reading or writing he would have got an overall level 5.

"However, DH tells me that the writing score is the most important and only the kids with a 5 for this would be in his schools' top set. So there you go."

Even though DS got a very low level 4c he was put into the 2nd set (out of 7) for english. His teacher said that he was in the right class because his comprehension skills were so good.

I have different groups for writing and for reading so someone who writes very well but has poor comprehension skills would be in a higher group for writing than for guided reading. The two skills, although obviously linked, develop at different rates in different children.

It's not just about setting: any teacher worth their salt will know each child's needs and will personalise the learning to address the needs of each individual child - this is AFL (Assessment for Learning). Very difficult to plan and deliver, but totally possible, hence why I am sitting at my desk until Christmas Eve working (with a little Mumsnet for light relief with my cuppa).

I agree, groupings are only the beginning of differentiation ( and some teachers don't group at all). It's knowing each child's individual requirements that is important, rather than the "level" they are at.

Not getting much of that holiday I promised myself snowball

Can any of the teachers explain why most children work at a higher level for reading than for writing? (Or is that just my perception?)
I appreciate that most people (adults as well) can read and understand far more complex texts than they can write...but surely the "levelling" takes account of this and expect MORE from the reading tests...or doesn't it?

I have a feeling that at DS school, there is a tendency to over-rate the good readers, (which DS is) and overlook the fact that their writing is not really on a par with their reading ability. DS has always been in "top groups" for both reading and writing, but seeing the written work of some of the other children on the walls, it is FAR better than he produces.

I work with year 6 choccyp1g and it is, indeed, exactly the opposite. Reading is much weaker in general than writing. I think that is probably because end of KS2 reading SATs require children to use skills of inference and deduction at a high level and are not just straightforward comprehension questions. It's also a real struggle to get them reading regularly too.

Interesting Saturdaynightsprout..the reading scores all seem to be higher at DS' school. (I saw loads of detailed statistics in a governors meeting).

DS reads "teenage" books, and was levelled at 5b for reading at the end of year5, whereas his writing was 4b. (based on opitonal tests and teachers assessment); the average difference was about 1.5 to 2 sublevels.

I've never seen reading weaker than writing in our school - we have struggled, comparatively speaking, to bring writing up to reading. This year we got 100% level 4 and above in writing, with 44% level 5s, which is the best ever, but our reading was slightly down with only 50% levels 5s. I don't think the cohort was better at writing - I think the different level hresholds were to blame this year, and were manipulated to show that reading could be a problem, which matches the government's cause. Cynical, moi?

I think writing traditionally lags behind reading in most schools because, although writing is strongly linked to reading, it is much harder. And seems to come a little later than writing in acquired skills.

thresholds