Difference in NC levels in state and private school.

[Dmummyd]

Hi all,

My 9yo DS started at a private school at the beginning of year 4 last September. The year 3 assessment from his state primary school was a level 4C in reading, writing and maths.

We recently got his assessment now and apart from maths which he had a 4c, the rest were a 3b.

My question now is in 3 parts;

1. Was the old (state) school's assessment wrong.

1. Has he gone back academically, not doing as well as he did before

1. Are the criteria for assessment in private school generally stricter?

Any opinion would be appreciated.

Thank you.

I'll answer 3 first ... if a private school is using the National Curriculum (many don't) then the criteria will be exactly the same.

1. Possibly
2. Possibly

and add that the new school's assessment could also be wrong.

There isn't anyway to know which of those options is the reason for the discrepancy I'm afraid

You may want to find out how the assessments were made- the state school would have used teacher assessment in the main( looking at all work the child produces) , maybe the private school has used testing so your son has not performed so well in a test situation?

Worth popping in for a chat whatever, i wouuld have thought.

I work in a middle school and we generally find that the primary feeder schools are over-generous in the NC Levels they tell us the children are at.

We re-assess on entry and a large majority are levelled below the primary mark. I would imagine the same sort of thing has happened here.

Thank you for your replies. I have a meeting with his teacher on Monday so I'll discuss it with her then.

Interesting as the schools we feed to say our pupils are "secure" at the levels we report

Mrz our primary feeders are having a few problems, one in special measures the other just starting to turn around and now satisfactory. We have had this problem with one in special measures for years, along with them reporting over-enthusiastic KS1 levels which makes our job to get 2 levels progress at end Y6 even harder - but that's a whole other thread.

Remember as well the natural dip that may happen when children move schools (such as primary to secondary).

Your DS's brain will be filled with lots of other concerns such as who is that TA, where are the toilets, what day do we PE, do I like Tim or Sam better etc etc so he may not be fully showing what he can do.

On top of that, as Mrz says all the other factors may come into play as well.

I hope he'll soon settle down if that's the case. It's a lot to get used to actually, now he's getting lots more homework, new friends, new teachers etc. At least, he's at the right levels for his class, it was just the drop that concerned me.

I'd rather know he's at a lower level if that's the real level, instead of thinking he's at a much higher level and not helping him where he needs it.

I'll have a chat with his teacher on Monday anyway, and see what she says.

My children's prep school doesn't do NC Levels.

However I have looked at/marked (at home) the SATs myself and would say that while it's dead easy to assess for maths, English is harder and easy to over/undermark.

Here's an old mark scheme:

www.11plus.co.uk/downloads/SATS-english/2003%20English%20mark%20scheme.pdf

Take a look at page 35 et seq and see how easy you would find it to assign a given script to the correct level.

Anecdotally, I could add that for at my children's prep school children are getting average marks of 80%, and for English only 50%, so the English marks do seem quite harsh.

My perspective on this is that you need to look at your son's new peer group and find out where he fits in within it. If they are all being marked harshly, and 3b is normal there then no need to worry. But if he is a long way behind, then you would want to discuss that with the teacher.

I agree writing is very subjective and marking is influenced by the markers personal preferences. A piece can have all the technical qualities but as a reader fail to impress.

It is generally accepted that children go back 6 months as a result of moving school for all the reasons mentioned. I'm a teacher and I see it all the time. However don't worry as he may also just have had an off day on the day of the test. My 13 year old went from 6b to 5a to 7c in less than a year in that order becuase I quote 'I was really tired' ( on the 5a day) The important thing is that he has settled in, has friends and then he should start to make good steady progress. Good luck.