Year 3 optional sats question

[caffeinated]

At dd's junior school they do the optional sats in year 3,4 and 5. Is there a limit to how well they can do? For instance if you got full marks on the year 3 papers what level would that be? Just curious because there must be a large deviation between the top and bottom of each year.

I wondered the very same, caffeinated, but about year 4. A bit of googling revealed that the maximum level for the optional year 4 sats is 4a. I know that doesn't answer your question though

Oh that's is useful though. Thank you. There must be children working beyond that though, do they sit year 5 papers?

I guess that depends on the school and their policy. They may want them to sit the one of the year group they are in for purposes of this assessment. In my classes I always gave the test for the appropriate level for the group I had at the time regardless of the year group. We worked very much to the 'stage not age' way of teaching.

I teach year 4. The usual range is 2-4.

However one of my pupils will be taking year 9 maths papers, covering L5-7. Others in my class are taking the KS1 versions of the literacy.

I differentiate my assessments just as much as I differentiate my teaching as I want every child to perform at their very best... no matter what that may be.

Is it usual for a child to be given more than one ?

last week my Ds sat all year three (L3) papers and all year four (L4) - he'd sat exactly the same papers, for both levels last year and could remember the questions - he was bored sensless and annoyed that no-one else in his year group (year 3) has to do double the papers.

They don't do optional Sats in our school (they carry out termly assessments which are Sats style papers, but without calling them Sats), but I would imagine they sit the test which is at their level?

I know our maths sets in year 4 range from level 2 to level 5. Guess year 3 was level 2 to level 4.

Rosemary I've got just 3 doing both the L1-2 and L3 versions of the KS1 Reading paper... but that was how those papers were set. There is a wide range in the year 4 papers (L2 to L4) so there should be no need for folks to sit more than one. My three are doing the KS1 versions as they are just about in L3 but would be demoralised by struggling with a paper that went to L4.

If I'm reading your post correctly, your yr3 son sat the year 4 papers last year as well as the yr 3s, when he was in yr2? I'd be asking next year's teacher what they will do to boost him (like my L6+ maths star!)

The Y3 & Y4 optional SAT papers are Level 2-4 depending on the score (so a bit pointless giving both) but they are just there to support ongoing teacher assessment and would not exclude a child being awarded a higher level.

And there's an overlap between the two Year 4 papers A and B (in maths) with a fair few of the questions repeated. Paper 4B levels higher than 4A.

We're doing our QCA maths tomorrow. There are two papers- levels 2-3 and levels 3-4.

If a child came out as a 4b, I'd give them an old SATs paper. Bear in mind, these tests are only meant to be there to help a teacher formulate their judgement although someone might want to reiterate this to my SLT

Juniper that's interesting, which paper would you give a child that got level 3 maths in ks1? The 2-3 or 3-4?

The higher one: 3-4

Thanks, yes he was given both the L3 and L4 papers in Year 2 (age 7) and again last week in Year three (age 8).

I didn't query it with school last year as he was happy and didn't mind that his classmates were aloud to go out for golden time after one paper - he just enjoyed doing the papers.

This year though he has got upset, asking us why he has to do the same papers again, why children who are not so bright are aloud off to play and he isn't, he has stress linked constipation by friday and was devastated not to get an achievers certificate Friday afternoon, home in tears saying " what more could I have done mum" ?

Schools seem to each have their own policy on optional Sats, our view as parents now is sod it, we're just going to have him off sick at home next year.

The 2-3 paper is 2b-3b and the 3-4 paper is 3b-4b. If a child came up as a 3c, then you'd given them the higher paper as otherwise they have a glass ceiling of only one level's progress.

In my experience, children who are 3c tend to get a better score on the 2-3 paper than the 3-4. They should be equal, but I think they get disheartened by how quickly it gets hard!

This is interesting, I wasn't aware that optional sats existed, although dd's school is pretty low key about stuff like that. But dd (Yr 3) has been telling me this evening that they were doing sats test yesterday and today, and all the classes do them this week. She said she was given Yr 4 tests, most of the class had Yr 3 and some did Yr 2 tests.

Thanks juniper that's really helpful.

That's interesting, juniper. I would have said the same so I just had a look at my current year 4 class's raw scores from their year 3 tests. Out of 12 children who took both papers, 9 stayed the same level, one went up 1/3 and two went down 1/3.
But I acknowledge that this is hardly a scientific study!