KS2 teachers: criteria for sitting a level 6 paper?

[Iamnotminterested]

Given that there will be such little time between the standard 3-5 SATs and the optional level 6's for marking, would a child be chosen to sit a level 6 paper based on their continual TA though the year?

What use is it to the child moving up to high school with a barely scraped level? - but secondary school ignore the SATs score anyway, so the only reason it matters is to ofsted the parents the league tables.

A lot of kids do worse on the test then they do on their TA. Some will do better. Why is doing better than your TA worse than doing worse than your TA?

If you can pass a L6 maths paper, why aren't you a L6?

I can't recall any of our children achieving lower levels in the test than in the TA ... but my head says we mark much harder than SAT markers

Not all high schools, Indigo - one near me sets in Maths using SAT results.

A lot of kids do worse on the test then they do on their TA. Some will do better. Why is doing better than your TA worse than doing worse than your TA?

Not in my school, Indigo, and certainly not in Maths or reading. Teacher assessment should be thorough, rigorous and accurate! I would look to teacher assessment procedures if they weren't - and so would Oftsed.

If you scrape a level 6, all it shows is that you may be ready to work on level 6 concepts on a day to day basis until you have secure understanding and become a secure level 6.

Why aren't these objectives being taught in your ds's Y6 anyway? Seems the wrong way round, really - to scrape a test first then teach stuff later

Oftsed?

Long week!

When my ds starts at high school in September he will be streamed on day 1 according to his SATS scores. And he will stay in those streams til Christmas. So they are Important for some.

He has been a TA solid 5 in reading and writing for about 18 months now, but I would be surprised if he could get a level 6. Nor would I particularly want him to- loads of time for that.

Are you sure he's streamed on SATs not teacher assessment? The schools receive the SATs results so late, they normall use TA instead.

they're really not going to like me at the next GB meeting, are they.

all the schools round here get higher TA than SATs

to be fair, DS ought to be a L6 in maths. He scored 90% in the test
in Sep - and the reason he dropped the 10% was bcause he walked out of the mental maths paper because he found it too stressful.

One of his IEP targets this year (which he has achieved) has been to stay in class for mental maths tests

Still don't see how you could possibly identify which kids would be likely to get a L6 a year in advance. Over a year we'll probably have 10 Y6 kids come and go for starters.

Level 6 has to taught in order to achieve it, as there are a number of areas not covered otherwise. It is not for the more able in the group it is for those who are gifted. A teacher will not contemplate level 6 unless a child is regularly working at 5b+. I know schools are all different but I do hate how some people on this forum assume that teachers just teach to level 4, don't they realise IWW are more worried about value added which we are judged on! Sorry, I hope that helps ps please don't give your children the level 6 maths paper unless they have been covering it as is going to hit their confidence and really isn't necessary.

Grrr IWW! Phone! Meant it's the value added

No I meant we! TGIF! ;-)

But parents aren't deciding whether or not kids are doing L6 - the teachers are!

If we're meant to trust their professionalism for everything else, surely we should trust it for this as well.

Not if they're using the test just to see if they could scrape something. That's not good teaching - nothing to do with teaching, in fact.

I do agree that your ds should be taught level 6 objectives by the sound of it, Indigobell.

I'm following this thread with interest. I never even knew there was such a thing as a level 6 paper, and I'm sure there are some kids in our Y6 that could qualify. I'm not saying I think they need testing in this , but there is a lot of school left after Sats and I wish they would teach to this instead of wasting time. At our school there are a lot of disruptive 11 yr olds in the summer.

I'm following this thread with interest. I never even knew there was such a thing as a level 6 paper, and I'm sure there are some kids in our Y6 that could qualify. I'm not saying I think they need testing in this , but there is a lot of school left after Sats and I wish they would teach to this instead of wasting time. At our school there are a lot of disruptive 11 yr olds in the summer.

Ah well, DS is a very independent learner.

His Y5 teacher told me that he didn't actually teach him anything last year

But it was so funny to see the look on the face of the NQT standing next to him when he said that :)

'independent learner' were the exact words his teacher said.

(Obviously he is not at all typical. He does have Aspergers...)

He certainly knows more history and science than me any of the teachers.

Knowing more science than most primary school teachers is, sadly, not difficult.
However knowing more than your Mum is

This thread is interesting but has left me a bit unsettled.

It's clear my school are doing it 'wrong'. I strongly suspect so are many others.

But I'm not sure I care.

I don't even think its something I'd raise in a GB meeting, because there are so many more important things to discuss.

If the school gets some L6s it will make the school more attractive to some prospective parents.

If they don't, and neighbouring schools do, it will affect our cohort.

Our cohort is very mixed, and I'd like it to stay that way. It would not be good for anyone if our school became less desirable.

If my DS gets a L6 I'll be proud of him.

If he doesn't, I'll still believe he's a genius who doesn't do well under stress :)

I think, in his case, sitting a hard exam wont hurt him.

Maybe it's not good for the high school - but they play their own league table games. And their league tables are certainly not my responsibility.

Their top set do GCSE maths a year early, so that they have 3 years to do A level maths and further maths. The more knowledge he goes up with, the more likely he is to get an A*.

He joined this school end of Y4 on level 3. He's now a level 5. So he's made amazing progress in the last year. I'm very happy for the school and his teachers to get credit for that. They have done so much for him.

The only thing that I really care about is that he's ready to move up to high school. And he is. This is nothing short of a miracle. 2 years ago when we moved school it was in absolute desperation. At that stage I didnt think he'd ever be able to cope at high school.

Whether he gets a level 5 or 6 does not concern me. I see no reason not to let him sit one test. Especially since he's already done well in a mock version of it - and wasn't in anyway harmed by sitting that.

He really is clever. And it would be nice if his SATs reflected that. But, equally if school didn't think he should sit it I wouldn't mind.

I can see why you aren't concerned for your own ds, and I think you have the right mindset there, Indigobell. And as always you've thought it through very carefully.

As a governor, the school's inaccurate teacher assessment would be my most pressing concern - it feeds into so much.

And as a teacher in a school which follows assessment procedures, it's made me quite cross!

Yes, them inaccuratetly assessing DD, every year, has really annoyed me.

So, in general, as a governor I will be looking at the differences between TA and SATs, and also will continue to check that grades don't magically slide backwards over the summer holidays.

I'll continue to question them about that.

I know this term DDs TA has not been solely based on one test, so that is progress. :)

But I won't specifically raise anything about L6s, which is a very tiny fraction Of the grades.

If there is evidence that the teacher assessments are consistently wrong, then that is a matter for the head and the governing body. You really ought to take it up with them- there will be specific governors with a brief to look at assessment within the school, and if they haven't reported back about the discrepancies then they aren't doing their job properly.

Oops, that'll be you, IndigoBell. Sorry!

Ofsted took in every single child's Maths and Literacy books/folders during our last inspection , and checked to see if the teacher assessments matched the work. I am certain they won't have looked at all 420 in 2 days, but they said our teacher assessments were 'rigorous'. We do a lot of moderation, so they should be!

Ok, I've just looked at the league tables for my school and the 3 closest schools.

Our TA was virtually identical to the SAT results, as was 2 of the other schools.

The school we moved from, which I know is terrible, had wildly overinflated TA results. (and OFSTED ain't too happy with them either)

And I've looked at whole school stats in GB meetings loads of time. So I do know really that in general there are no problems with TA.

There has been problems with DDs results, but for various reasons that could easily be unique to her and not a general problem.

I think they've been caught by surprise by the L6 papers, and that I'm only a parent and therefore don't know the full story. I certainly don't know if DS is being taught L5 or L6 stuff in class - or indeed even how often he is in class :)

Though it's slightly off thread one of you mentioned setting by results. My ds is going to secondary school in Sept and has been working at L5 since y5, but in last assessment did badly in reading paper.'I thjnk it was an off day, rather than him having lost the plot, and have yet to see whether it has revised down the assessment of his new teacher. So do they use TA or Sats results to set them (initially) at secondary?
Ime it is harder to go up than down and I'd hate him to be in a lower set, as he needs challenge.

Depends on the school - some use SATs, some use TAs and some use CAT tests.

My sister teaches in a secondary school and she says they always set by TA not SATs - but obviously that's only one school.

If he's placed in a set in July then I'd say it's pretty likely to have been done on TA not SATs, because SATs come out so late.