What sort of levels suggest selective school & super selective potential at Y3 end?

[Hamishbear]

Just that really. Roughly which levels would you expect a child to be at (end of Y3) to suggest i) selective and ii) super selective potential? Thanks

My DS is starting in a selective school in Sept. He is currently working at 3a/4c in Y3. The independent which he is joining went over his entrance tests with my dh - his weakest point according to his new school is creative writing which oddly his current primary consider him 'gifted' at. He had to complete a number of tests (5?) in all over a morning. As tiggy mentions he didn't find the questions difficult it was just a lot to do - quite a bit of which he hadn't done before or in a test environment.

Watching this with interest...

My DS is currently only in yr2 so we are way off knowing how well he will do in yr5/6 iyswim.

If they are going for a place in a selective school (grammar) is age taken taken into account?? DS is a late Aug birthday....

Depends of course where you are in the country.
In 'grammar school areas' - I believe such as Kent ??? - I've read on here that up to 25% get into grammar schools.
In my city, it's about 2%, so that's going to make a big difference.

simpson Don't think so.

I did not think they would either tbh.

I have only recently begun to think maybe grammar school is an option for DS so not really looked into it properly as I have plenty of time

In my county (Kent) I am pretty sure they do adjust for age, and expect they do in other areas.

TBH I think that at Yr3 the results can be very strongly skewed by amount of extra tuition.parental involvement as much as by core intellectual potential. If you wanted a reliable indicator you'd probably need to get an Ed Psych assessment (AFAIK they always test core IQ, and the one I had with my DS adjusted for socio-economic factors as well)

There is an adjustment in our old area but it's really negligible so only works if your child is borderline and has the same score as an older child.

Here in Wilts the 11+ results are adjusted for the month a child is born and 11+ can also be taken a year early (y5) and will be adjusted accordingly, but can only be sat once.

My DS1's primary school (in a super-selective area) doesn't advise the 11+ for boys who didn't get 5b all round by the end of Y4, and girls who didn't get 5b all round by the Feb half term of Y5 (more girls places available, so slightly lower pass marks may still get a place).

In Essex, the tests are not standardised for age.

In year three we were told that dd might have some learning problems and might have some sn. She left in year 6 with straight level 5's and is at a super selective grammar.

There's plenty of time.

Some schools base their test on the core NC subjects. I agree that if your child is above the national average then that will put them in a good place come 11+ time.

However, most schools seem to do VR and non VR. Here, what KS level you are shouldn't matter.

In anycase, the KS level has limited value as an indicator. DCs' school only taught them enough knowledge to achieve the national average. They only scored higher because we taught them at home.

So a high KS level may simply be an indicator of how academic your school is or how pushy you are as a parent.

a bit off topic: how does everyone know what "levels" their children are? My son attended an "academic" pre-prep and is now at a "competitive" prep school and I have never been told his "level". I have no idea whether he's a 3 or a 4 or any subset of the numbers. Are these SAT levels and, if so, are schools meant to discuss them with parents?

re getting into selective schools: our own experience was simply to observe how our son did on his homework (i.e. review it after he'd finish) and compare his work with the syllabus for the exam we wanted him to take. We just formed our own view of his "readiness" based on what we observed he could do relative to what we thought the schools required.

I was wanting to know that too posadas - can anyone equate them to something I understand - like Bond books?!

In north London at dd &ds school they standardize the test by age.

About National Curriculum Levels

I am not sure this is the way to go about it, as Y3 is not that indicative of anything much other than teaching and how involved the parents have been to that point. The only way you could really find out is to pay an Ed Psych £400 to establish IQ in a number of respects using a full battery of tests. But would it be worth it? Measuring babies does not make them grow ....

DS has a super selective place in September. At the end of year 3 he achieved a level 5.

I work in a 'normal' selective (top 25% by ability at 11+) and there you would expect to find dc who are maybe 60% level 5 at end of KS2 and 40% high level 4 (with the odd one or two who have excellent VR/NVR skills which have not translated into attainment so far - or have been heavily coached to pass the test - so who are actually at NC level 3). That would translate to a child being just above average at year 3 and continuing to make good progress.

This is a school where a) there is a pass/fail mark and then other eligibility criteria apply (eg, siblings/distance) so there is no advantage in passing at higher than the 'pass' mark, iyswim (except for cut-off point for last place on distance or similar) and b) only tests NVR/VR NOT English/Maths so is not testing how well your dc has been taught/has learnt 'curriculum' stuff so far.

For a superselective, obviously you would be looking at a higher level of attainment much earlier.

Fwiw, a moderately bright child who's prepared to work hard and enjoys lots of homework will probably suit the environment better than a bright but uninterested one.

You need to look more carefully at what kind of 'selective' you have available to you and how they select as well as thinking whether your dc is suited to that (usually) more pressured environment.

Oh and the 11+ results are adjusted for age but only by a tiny amount.

What's a selective and superselective school? Private I assume?

Simpson/ Iamnotinterested:

Age can be taken into account in some areas. In our major city the 11+ scores are tallied and a factor is used to make it a level playing field between Autumn & summer children.

Usually this is explained on the website for the schools under their discussion of what is involved with the 11+ test.

The Grammar's in our area say this: "Children will write their answers in the test booklets and most of the test questions will be multiple choice. The marks will be standardised to take account of differences in age and then added together."

So look for something like that.

Obviously each area is different - so this may not apply throughout England.

But very much agree with tiggytape - the pressure is to have the highest score possible because they offer places by overall scores.