can someone give me a logical explanation of how this might happen -SATS levels

[sausagesandwich34]

I know sats levels are more for the school's benefit so I'm not being precious but dd is bothered so I'm concerned

start of yr 6 the whole class did a sats paper, they will do 3 more before the actual sats so they are familiar with them -no problems so far

they did a practice paper before christmas, maths results were given out the following week

english results still haven't been formally given out so parents have been going in and asking

at the start of the year 8 children got level 5, various sub levels and these 8 were advised their child would be entered for the level 6 paper

the test they did before christmas, not a single child got a level 5 in english writing (well I haven't asked all 50 odd parents but certainly the 14 in the top group)

thats a drop of 3 sub levels for some of them

how is this possible?

Was it the writing paper or a reading paper? If the former and the levelling was done on the basis of one "test" piece of writing, then the level can go up and down-perhaps it was a text type the child didn't like or they were having a bad day or got the wrong end of the stick, a 101 different reasons. But it is unusual for a large group of children all to drop a whole level. Perhaps the teacher marked the papers harshly, perhaps it was based on the new GAPS test ( although we don't have grade boundaries for that yet so hard to level!)

it was the writing paper and I know they can have good and bad days, and not to take 1 piece of work to heart etc and if it was just DD I would have been happy with that and been able to reassure

the fact that they all dropped signifficantly is what is worrying

this piece and the one in september were marked by the same teacher, the levels in september were on average 1 sub level below their end of term reports which seemed reasonable

Agree it sounds likely that the September level was for reading & writing combined, but the December one for writing only. Or maybe they gave them the December test at the end of term when they were tired, over-excited about Christmas parties etc (and the teachers are cursing themselves for not having done it a week or 2 sooner - I've been there). Or maybe they gave the children less input before writing in December so they didn't answer the question properly (been there too). One of the things I always had to practise was how to read the question otherwise able writers produced lovely writing that didn't meet the brief. Or maybe the paper they were given was a genre the children were less used to so again the writing didn't tick enough of the boxes on the mark scheme. Or maybe the one they were given was my personal most hated - the dreaded trainer one - you have been given a new type of trainer to test out. Write a report to your local sports shop saying what you liked and didn't like about it.

And I'm not entirely surprised you got the Maths back before Christmas as it's straightforward to mark. Levelling writing properly is very time consuming, so the teachers may well have left it to do over Christmas and then been waiting for a chance to get together and moderate their marking before they hand the results out.

yes, understand the speed difference, not got an issue with that

problem is, dd is very critical of herself, considers herself rubbish at english (she really isn't) and this has resulted in 'see I told you I'm rubbish'

some of the parents are up in arms, I'm not, but I am seeking t understand and I can't see the teacher for another week (my work schedule, she is not avoiding a meeting or anything)

The problem here I think is one of communication between the school and parents and between school and pupils. The school have failed to understand that parents and pupils are worried about the KS2 tests and that this apparent drop will be talked about.
What the answer for the difference is impossible to know unless you have all the facts and see the papers. What should have happened is that the school needed to explain to the pupils what the grades meant and why there was a difference. Actually at the end of the day, it is the school's fault because if they truely have been moderated the same between the two papers, then it shows that the pupils were not as well prepared for some reason (which could easily be the onset of christmas),
If they had said to the pupils,look this was deliberately hard paper and it was just before christmas, so we expected the results to be not as good, then I would have thought most pupils and parents would have accepted that. The fact that the school have not said anything is the problem.
I would also have to say that whilst getting used to exams is a good thing, it seems that the parents and the pupils are actually getting too hung up about these tests, its usually the school not the parents!

Similar thing happened yesterday to me. DS came out and said that english teacher had told top group (including ds and 3 others who are on an accelerated learning route) that there was only 1 level 5 in the whole class based on the test before Christmas, which was writing a report about an endangered animal, she told them everybody else was a low level 4. I took this with a huge pinch of salt. Ds was a 5c in writing at the end of year 4, so theres no way he's a low level 4 now. As said above communication is the key, because in maths the teacher has already spoken to me that ds has slipped a sub level so shes done some extra work with him this week as it was down to not picking up the 'method' for that terms topic very well.

managed to get a phone call in with the teacher

the task involved writing a leaflet and the style of it made it increddibly hard to get a level 5 but if she had used a couple more connectives then she would have jumped up significantly

I'm still non the wiser?

The problem being that most children, if asked to write a leaflet will draw a few pretty illustrations, include a headline in felt tip pens, add a couple of captions, maybe a persuasive phrase if they can remember to include one, perhaps an exclamation mark ( or more likely at least half a dozen!) A leaflet doesn't call for advanced punctuation, colons, semi-colons, it's hard to fit in complex sentences, adverbial phrases may be few and far between, possibly some figurative language will be there if you're lucky but generally pretty basic sentence structures abound.
So no level 5's there then! However ask them to describe what they see through the open door of the ruined castle and their away!
I had a child with Asperger's a couple of years ago who was a fantastic descriptive writer, easily a good level 4. One part of the SATs paper asked him to nominate someone for an award, he sat there for 25 minutes trying to decide who he should write about as he found it impossible to express a preference for anyone, he came out with a level 3. SATs writing papers are notoriously unreliable!

they're away ( changed sentence half-way through, honest!)