So here we are- KS2 SATS Week...

[ampere]

Feeling more nervous than DS2!

He's 'borderline', particularly in Literacy. He'll be so happy if he gets a 4 (as will I!) so off he went just now with me offering my last minute bon mots ('Read carefully! Most of the answers are in the text! If it doesn't make sense, you've not read it properly' etc).

Well, Paper A seemed a pretty average paper as far as difficulty goes. Usual mix of level 3, 4 and 5 questions. Pie charts, ordering a mix of fractions, decimals and percentages, some money questions etc. Nasty one about how many marbles 3 children had given some facts about how many more each child had than another and the total number of marbles. The 'say why you think this' question was pretty straight forward. A perimeter question involving shapes made up of a group of regular shapes and some symmetry. A 2 figure x 3 figure multiplication. A 3 figure by 1 figure division. 2D shape recognition. A rotation. Working out the height of a person given relative facts about the heights of 2 other people. I don't think that's giving away anything to any who might take the paper later in the week due to absence.

My charge did fairly well, he gets 25% extra time, which he needed, as he processes very slowly, but he's actually quite competent at maths. Glad it's not the turn of my DC this year, DS2 did his last year and DS3's turn next year, otherwise I'd be tempted to interrogate them, which would do precisely no good.

The mental maths was also OK, but had a couple of questions we hadn't covered in the lower maths set, one to do with angles. Not as easy as the one for practise we did last week, though.

My daughter was quite happy with the literacy tests but I'll be interested to hear what she has to say about maths today.

It's such a pity they put so much pressure on them and potentially put them off learning at such an early age. Learning is meant to be fun and they don't need tests at this early age. Why can't the teachers just say "Here are the workbooks so you can see what level the children in my class are at" and not put them through this?

littlelegsmum. You do seem to be having a hard time of it . Thankfully it's a new start in September, here's hoping Secondary will be a more positive time for your dd. Were you happy with your allocated school?

Indigo - he has been just scraping 3c for the past four years but only with support. In mental maths mocks he only answers about 4. The school were planning to talk him through the test give him a reader but I have pursuaded them it would be more appropriate for him to have a prompter. I have also reported them to the LEA and the Testing and Quality Agency who took it all so seriously that I am feeling rather anxious about the school pick-up!!!

Floggingmolly . . We did get the allocated place but haven't had our meeting yet with senco to make sure they can give necessary support. Got to wait for full report to come through.

Well, the verdict here was that maths A was easier than practice papers, but mental was harder.

Assuming the same maths paper, and assuming DS remembers correctly, he was tripped up by:

In a class, 18 are girls, a quarter are boys.

How many kids are there in the class altogether?

D'oh.

God, we are depending on maths to instil some confidence as, judging by the spellings, which DS would have failed in, I am beginning to think there's no chance of him even passing English.

Well, the verdict here was that maths A was easier than practice papers, but mental was harder.

Ampere, DD couldn't answer that question either. It is basically a ratio question and she just cannot get her head around ratio. I went through a really similar question to that with her this morning before school, because I knew it was her weak area, but she still couldn't get it in the test.

Ds1 has just come out of school completely fed up because his teacher has cancelled the SATs party on Friday because of the bad behaviour of some of the class. It makes me so mad! Ds works hard and behaves well, like many others in his class ( though it is a very difficult year group). Why should they be penalised for the behaviour of others, especially after a week like this?

He said the papers were Ok, though he couldnt answer two on Paper A - one was the marbles question.

DS just named five children who had a 'reader' on the maths A paper!! There are only 16 children in Year 6. None have a reader in class. Thank God there is evidence of malpractice - I was starting to feel more than a little paranoid! Lets see what happens.

This is yet more evidence of some teachers using SEN provision (access arrangements) to cheat and make the school look good at exam time instead of meeting childrens' needs all the time.

Were they one to one readers and were they in a separate room?

Ampere - DS has just told me he couldn't do that one either. And he's borderline Level 5 for maths! ( Mind you, Ive no idea how you do it )

DS said he got confused by that question too Ampere but he said after he had read it a few times he managed to work it out.

He is most worried about the question about bird food, and estimating the number of sunflower seeds - he cant really remember but he doesnt do estimating very well.

Ampere. it is a ratio question, but will DS have realised that?
Hopefully he will realise that the marbles one was a trial and error - our Y6 teacher couldn't work it out till I explained that! (TBF, we are a specialist behaviour provision, but....)

And Ampere, the spellings only account for a small perentage of the marks - so hopefully it will not bring DS's final mark down too much!

DS is getting a bit fed up with me asking questions, so I will have to try and keep my gob shut when he gets in!

Please someone explain the ratio question to me! Am not feeling so bad after reading a post on the TES forum which said that their Head Teacher couldnt do it!

Well, if a quarter are boys, then 3 quarters are girls. We know there are 18 girls, so to find 1 quarter, we divide by 3 (there are 3 quarters girls...) which is 6. SO there are 6 boys and 18 girls which is a small class of 24!

Of course! D'oh indeed. But I can absolutely see why DS didnt get it - like me, he got stuck on thinking ' a quarter of what?'

Well, there's no way on Gods earth that DD will have got that ratio question right. Thats 2 marks down then

Yes, I imagine DS will have been thinking the same, despite having done several of these for homework!

feenie they were one to one (ie 5 readers) but all the children were in the hall not separate rooms

This typifies the type of "cheating" that goes on. Plus readers may, even inadvertently use intonation or whatever to get a point across.

I am not suggesting that children who legitimately need support and have it all year round shouldn't get it in the SATs, but it seems unlikely that 5 out of 16 will be in that situation. My bf said it happened in her DC's 100% L4+ school too.

CAn we carry on this thread next week for the level 6 papers?

And does anyone know what info goes to the secondary schools for September? And whether independent schools get sent anything or not?

They get the teacher assessments before the actual sats results come in. Depending on their level of confidence in their feeder schools,based on past experience, they use these for preliminary setting. My dd did non verbal reasoning in Y6 on behalf of the secondary as well, but that may have been an atypical year for various reasons. I'm not sure if they always do this.

Not followed the rest of this thread, but DD told me today that there are six children out of 28 who had readers.
I wouldn't accuse any of them to be cheating.