Year 6 SATS preparation

[Redrubber]

DS has come home with some Maths to do over the Easter holidays- "No More Than 10 Minutes a Day" written in big letters on the front of the folder. For complicated reasons connected to the secondary school he's going to he needs to get the highest SATS scores he can- can anyone recommend a website with practice for kids already a level 5 but who need keeping on track and reminding about punctuation and things? Can't believe i'm doing this......!

I'm a teacher and obviously a bad parent because I didn't help my children with any of their revision or homework beyond hearing them read ... I feel suitably ashamed when I read the lengths MN parents go to [ashamed]

No, you make me feel better. Although ashamed that I kept ignoring my son's teacher saying his weakest area in maths is shape. I thought, 'How can it be? Shape is so easy; he can do long division and algebra and ratio and percentages, fractions and data handling; shape is so easy'. Then I looked through his exercise books/practice papers and found: yes, he really is weak on shape - maybe he slept through year 1?!!
So I resolve to do some shape work at the very least and not put any other pressure on him at all! (Am pleased his independent senior school won't set on SATS results but do CATS/Midyis style testing but also mixed ability for most subjects).

My daughter had a total brainstorm in her writing test and wrote utter gibberish despite being an able writer normally ...

No writing test this year - Teacher Assessment - yay! Ds will more likely get his deserved grade. Downside: teacher did tell me it would be 'maths, maths, maths til May then writing, writing, writing til July' (so none of the usual post-Sats fun stuff). Think it was slightly tongue in cheek...it is really a good school and they treat year 6s really well with special treats (Cathedral day out; HT/CT/yr 6 evening out; preparing their own Leavers' Assembly etc etc). Hope they don't lose any of that this year due to the new assessment arrangements...

mrz ooh, had your daughter just read 'My Name Is Mina'? Read that with my son a while back and he loved her so much (and is so desperate to be homeschooled) that I thought, 'Please don't deliberately write rubbish in your sats so I'll sweep you up and homeschool you, like Mina's Mum!'

With maths there is no substitute for practice. Practice till it is second nature. With English practice from past questions. There are creative writing cards and the like which help focus on the key areas. But don?t let anyone kid you that practice doesn?t get results in any subject.

Find out if it matters to the child. If it does, practice. If it doesn't, don't. My ds will be going to a high school where they set from day one based on SATs, so it's important that he gets level 5s (sounds like the op's the same) but he is working at a secure level 5 now. I have no reason to think he's not going to get them, ao why should I make him practice any more?

Target grades right up to A level are based on KS2 SATs. Or, for my subject, KS2 teacher assessment. Bonkers, but there you go...

They are only a measure of the school in the way that GCSEs are used to measure the school.

My DS is not doing any extra practice mind you. His curriculum is skewed enough owing to the SATs. I don't intend to limit him at home in the same way.

It is a little bit bonkers isn't it, especially in non-core subjects? Not sure that being 'good' at art or geography or something at KS2 level can predict later success in quite the same way as for English and Maths. We've just had 'attainment' grades so far for non-core (1 - very above average, 2- above average etc) - do you get n/c levels passed to secondary for non-core, madonna? (or are you science?)

I am Science.

And I have to get my students to make three levels of progress against TA levels which are frequently rather dubious.

We do a baseline assessment on our year 7s when they start, and blimey, some of them would have had to have regressed a lot over the summer for their KS2 levels to be valid.

:o
I know, my son is 'level 5' cos he 'knows' a lot of science facts, not sure he knows a lot of science!

No it isn't belgianbun there is a level 6 paper this year and teacher assessment has no upper limit.

I generally agree with mrz - I think that there should be no special preparation - the test day should be a surprise for all and it just is taken in everyone's stride in Term III of Y6. It should be a snap shot and panic should only occur if the majority are under-performing - it shouldn't be an issue if one or two didn't do as well as expected. (And surely shouldn't there also be one or two who do better than expected anyway - all things being equal?)

I offered suggestions to Redrubber because she quite clearly said doing well on the KS2 SATs was important for the next school (for reasons she couldn't explain) - and I think in that case (presuming that a small improvement results in significant benefits) that may require additional support.

What I find very interesting is that nobody trusts the KS2 SATs - the press always doubt them, the next school usually re-tests (and TheFallenMadonna post isn't atypical) and this whole new L6 KS2 SAt papers dimension means some parents are now pressing for their DCs to achieve these heady heights, which from what I understood would be exceptional achievement. Anecdotal stories around here suggest that in terms of going to our nearest local secondary schools if you are in the top set you will be stretched and have homework and targets, but the lower sets just 'go through the motions'. This is a reality parents fear and in many cases probably truly face.

As someone who does a lot extra with my children I just want to stress this is because DD1 (Y4) couldn't read an analogue clock and wouldn't be able to if I hand't spent the time teaching her. DD1 (Y2) could barely add/ subtract up to 2 digits and if I hadn't intervened she'd probably still be floundering as many of her peers so clearly are still. DD2 was struggling with sounding out multi-syllable words and skipping words when reading out loud. We just kept battling on at home, after school moved her down a group and gave her books she read before for the rest of the school year.

So although I take the point mrz in a school with good teachers (as you clearly are) and well planned/ thought out lessons that progress and reinforce learning, then yes there really is no reason for a parent to intervene. But that isn't everywhere. If OFSTED rates our school GOOD and I'm having to do all this - please understand this isn't moaning, pushy PITA Mums posting here - this is desperately concerned, worried and floundering parents trying to do what little they can to rectify the abomination their child's education (in either state or private sector) can be at times.

Remember level 5-6 is the expected level for most 14 year olds

www.education.gov.uk/performancetables/ks3_04/k3.shtml

Levels of achievement

The National Curriculum sets standards of achievement in each subject for pupils aged 5 to 14. For most subjects, these standards range from Levels 1 to 8. Pupils progress up the levels as they get older and learn more:

most 7 year olds are expected to achieve Level 2
most 11 year olds are expected to achieve Level 4
most 14 year olds are expected to achieve Levels 5 or 6

The ARA says

Teachers should consider the level descriptions of the attainment targets immediately above and below the level awarded to confirm this level is the closest match to the child?s performance.

but level descriptors for any level are open to interpretation (isn't APP level descriptors?) that's where moderation comes into it. I'm a very conservative (hard) marker so is our DH who assesses Y6 literacy.

You can't assess a child as level 6 if they aren't working at level 6 on a day to day basis so need to be teaching at that level.

"How are the high schools supposed to show progression?"

By starting where the children are and teaching them from that point, rather than going back to a 'lowest common denominator' and starting from there.

This year, a secondary Maths teacher has been coming in every fortnight to work with the most able mathematicians in DS's year. He has been genuinely surprised by what the children have covered (Y6 teacher is teaching them level 6 work and has done since the beginning of the year) and are capable of doing, and is bringing in work normally done in Years 8 and 9. I therefore have hope that when DS goes to that secondary, there will be no assumption that his Level 6 is based on 'flawed primary assessment' and will start teaching him new things from Day 1.

We've also been working closely with secondary schools and they were honest enough to admit that they assumed KS2 levels were unreliable and were amazed to see the children being taught and working at those levels in class.

We've had exactly the same experience with 2 local secondaries.

I'm assuming nothing. I am assessing students from when they come into the school. I certainly don't make blanket reductions to levels and work from there. Given that I have to make sure they make 3 levels of progress, that would be pretty counterproductive.

DD1 came home last Friday with a load of stuff for maths and English - recommended she do 20 to 30 minutes every working day for both maths and English - that's up to an hour a day during her holidays, and she'll have about a month of drill time until the actual SATs.

She is a secure 5b for maths, 5a for English and has been asked to sit the L6 writing paper. We have chosen to recycle, life's just too short.