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).

Our year 6 teachers said how hard this paper was. In previous years when papers have seemed harder (and subsequently marks lower nationally) the level boundaries have been markedly lower.

Level 4 is usually around 22 marks out of 40 but I remember the boundaries being as low as 18 for the same level on one particularly difficult paper a few years ago.

Fallenmadonna. I too haven't done anything extra at home. Dd struggles and has high levels of anxiety as it is!! Although I don't feel bad as this has been this way since at least Xmas!!

Brigit, the reading paper is out of 50, I think.

TheFallenMadonna.. My ds has only done his h/w at home and no extra...and none of us know what the italic question really means ..as taken out of context it could be anything ..espesialy when you are trying to get answers out of 10/11 year olds!!

Your extension maths is that level6...Ionly ask because my ds is meant to take it but did not know when/how it worked

Sorry you are right but the level boundaries are still usually 22 though for a 4.

It is the level 6 Maths. He is doing it next Tuesday. Two papers I think - morning and afternoon.

Feenie's link gives you all the info

Try that again

Just looked it up- last year must have been a hard one as the level 4 was 18/50

Thanks about level 6 info..unsur if it is an "official" one or another practice...Iwas told he was going to do it ..but not sure what it meant...does it mean anything apart from obvious pride to me /ds/and school ???

It means he could get a level 6 in Maths, rather than level 5 being the ceiling.

And, following on from my comments further down the thread, it means his secondary school Maths teachers will groan as they would have to make three levels of progress on that...!

Brigit, it was the horrible caving one. TBH, my DS who has ASD and a statement of SEN managed to scrape a level 4, due to the thresholds being so low, I think.

Hmm, three levels of progress? No such thing as a level 9...

Yes I remember- a real snooze fest...

To GCSE.

Oh so they use the level 6 mark for 2nd school..??/ humm

Oh, my DS1 is still only in Y9. GCSE grades are only loosely comparable to SATs levels, though, aren't they?

He did get a KS3 target based on his Y6 SATs, I suppose.

GCSE targets are set from KS2 levels. And not loosely.

How do the levels work, TFM? Is there a problem where if you come in with very high SATs results, there is a greater likelihood of you (or perhaps all of you as a high scoring group) not meeting your levels at GCSE because of the limit on GCSE levels?

What I mean (and sorry if I am explaining this badly), if you have high SATs results, and you should be getting a set of A results, it could be that you were capable of working above an A on a number of subjects, but no such grade exists. If you then get one B, you haven't reached your target because your other grades can't pull your average grade up because you can't be awarded higher than an A*.

By comparison, a student who should make enough progress to be expected to get a C grade average, could get a D in one subject but have their average pulled up by getting a B somewhere else. The student who gets mostly A* doesn't have that opportunity to do better than expected.

Maybe my explanation makes more sense if it about groups of students rather a single A student. The average results of all the students who are expected to get A versus the average results of all the students who are expected to get C grades.

Someone with a level 5 is expected to achieve a minimum of a B grade at GCSE. In Maths, English and Science, there is a subject level on which to base it. For other subjects, we use an average KS2 point score. I am dubious about the validity of KS2 Science levels, but at least I have one. Other subjects get targets based on assessments in subjects completed unrelated to their own.

My performance as a teacher is judged against my students' performance in my subject against their targets.

The school is judged against progress in English and Maths separately.

morecrackthanharlm

My extremely good at literacy DD2 says no one finished the reading test.

If neither she nor her best friend finished, I'm seriously questioning how good a paper it was.

A test for Y6s shouldn't be about speed and exam technique. They've nothing like the experience of judging time for that to be fair.

As for CATs they are pretty good unless you have a dyslexic DD who was bursting to go to the loo.
The numeracy one is very working memory heavy and very DD unfriendly even when she can concentrate.

She redeemed herself this time, thank goodness as the use them for option groups in Y9

startail. Most of them finished it here, I think only 2 in the class ran out of time. How do you define a "good" paper? (genuine question)