Can someone explain this to me - I think I must be missing something.

[roisin]

BBC article on L6 SATs

The article says "The 'brainbox' tests were sat by about one in nine Year 6 pupils in maths, and one in 11 in English this year, according to the Department for Education."

But next it states "Children sat the new tests in one in 12 schools in England."

If only 8% of schools are offering the tests, and I would assume those schools will only over the L6 tests to their top cohort (maybe 10%-40%, depending on the school); then how can the tests have been sat by one in nine pupils?

Primary schools come in a wide variety of sizes from the small village school that only admits a handful of pupils each year to the large city school which has 120 pupils per year.

Imagine there are 5 primary schools in an area. One is a large school with an admission number of 120. The other 4 are smaller schools with an admission number of 30. So there are a total of 240 pupils in each year in these 5 schools. If the large primary school tests all its pupils but the other schools don't test any of theirs, we will have tested 50% of the pupils despite the test only being used by 20% of the schools.

So all these figures tell us is that smaller primary schools were less likely to offer these tests.

I saw the article and was surprised at the low numbers. Round here all the schools bar two sat it-and one of those would have but they'd already arranged their residential trip over the week with the level 6 papers.

At dd1's school roughly a 1/3 of the year-that's 50 children sat it, although I think it was a touch of "anyone with any possible chance" because they don't know how it's going to go.

But most of the primaries round here are at least 2 form entry, so if larger schools tend to sit it, then the figures make sense.

It also is less likely that if you've only 30 children rather than 150 that any are up to it, as well as dd1's school benefits in that way by setting for maths across the year so the top set were already being stretched to about that level before it was announced that they were coming back in.

If you've only got one child who is capable (for example) is it worth having them taught on their own to get a level 6 (certainly in maths there are concepts that need to be introduced), or are you better using that teacher to tutor 3 children to get a 4c rather than a 3a? In the larger school there is more flexibility to do both, due to more teachers around and more similar standard pupils (as a generalisation)

In larger schools you are more likely to have setting for maths, so you are more likely to have a whole class working at Level 5, which makes it easier for you to teach them Level 6.........

A third of my children sat the Level 6 tests, both maths and English because a) they wanted to
b) they were working at a level that justified them taking it ( even though not all at level 6)
c) we had covered enough of the level 6 curriculum to enable them to attempt the paper with confidence.
I teach in a small rural primary school with no setting, we just teach the level the children are working at, I expect about 15% of my children to achieve level 6.

We put in 4 for the level 6's and AFAIK we were the only school in the area to offer it.

I have everything crossed!
We had our papers back yesterday, just hoping the level thresholds stay the same, I have a class this year who either definitely can ( hence the possible level 6's!) or definitely can't!!! At the moment I have around 30% below level 4, 30% level 4 and 30% level 5, but when every child is 6% it's very easy for figures to become meaningless ( and next year each child is 10%, even worse!!)

Each of ours count for 5% so similar to you there snow - I haven't been in school this week haven't heard if we have the papers back or not - have you had the level 6 ones back too weren't sure if we would because it looked like they'll be marked online.

No, apparently we don't get the L6 papers back, just the results!

Oh - will we get a mark as well or just a Level 6 achieved / not achieved ? I'm not sure that mine will have got it but it would help them to know that they 'nearly' did.

Surely the figures in the news report are meaningless until the percentage of children actually obtaining a level 6 are reported. 100% of children could (technically) have sat the paper, but they certainly wouldn't all have passed it.

I think I'm missing something too. As L6 exists isn't it fair to let all children who want to do it have a go?

My DC's school couldn't enter anyone for the L6 papers because they booked a residential trip for yr6 that week. The teacher said she thought she'd booked it for the following week and had got her dates muddled

All I can think of is Mark Twain 'There are three sorts of lies: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics'