Year 4 SATs results - advice please

[Nell51]

I'd really appreciate your advice on our daughter's SATs results just received. She is incoming to the end of year 4.

At the end of year 3 her results were:

Numeracy 3c
Writing 3b
Reading 4c

She has just received the following results for year 4:

Numeracy 3b
Writing 3a (high)
Reading 4c (high)

The teacher has written high next to the grade.

My (basic) understanding (from googling) is that a child should should progress 2 sub levels so if I'm interpreting this correctly then she hasn't.

I feel very disappointed particularly as the reading score looks like it has hardly changed.

Am I interpreting this right? I'm going to speak to the teacher but wondered what your views are first and if there is anything in particular I should be asking.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

I absolutely agree with mrz in that learning is not linear. Some kids make little progress one year, and masses the following - I've seen it happen many times, and I'm only a parent. I bet teachers see that all the time.

Hence 'bigger picture' matters so much...I would talk to the teacher rather than go on levels alone, and get her take on it, before worrying OP.

Perhaps you would like to point your head and the Ofsted inspector to the ARA, BBB

"Teachers can use the tasks and tests to inform their assessment judgements at any time during the year, but children are not to be tested more than once during the year in each subject or attainment target.

Teachers must not use the tests and tasks contents to prepare children for the assessments. This could lead to inaccurate results that do not represent the children?s unaided abilities, which would not be useful when informing teacher assessment judgements."

I think what BBB is talking about is the preparation allowed for KS1 writing tasks (which doesn't differ that much from normal work in the classroom). For instance, in the guidance for the tasks, you can work collaboratively on the Amazing Pebble story up to the point of the character's transformation, after which it has to be the child's individual work.

In optional SATs, children aren't supposed to have any input whatsoever, which IMO was always a big ask for Y3.

Some schools still only report the results of tests in KS2. If they do this, then there is generally a drop in writing from Y2 to Y3 as, indeed, the test conditions are different.

Most schools (mine included) teacher assess in Y3, using exactly the same assessment criteria as used in Y2, so that year on year results are comparable.

Support
? Children should not have had the writing type taught or modelled for
them within the previous week, although they will have been taught
it as part of the KS1 literacy strategy. They should not have a written
model in front of them as they work (for example, in their books or
as part of a display).
? The story must be based upon a simple imaginative activity that is
familiar to the children. Eg if they are unfamiliar with the word
?pebble? use the word ?stone?. Choose a setting that your children will
be able to relate to eg, the woods, the beach, a path along the
moors etc. First hand experience of this could be accompanied by
photos taken on your trip. Any support that will act as a memory
jogger is allowed; children are not being assessed on remembering
the event/ activity, but on how to craft their writing of the detail of it.
These photos must not include specific vocab that would be
required of the task, eg descriptions, sequential connectives (when
we were walking; at first when I saw?). Read books to the children
that have a similar theme to the structure of something being found
and this being the catalyst for change.
? Children must write their own ideas independently. There should be
no copying, scribing or dictating.
? Children must not share their ideas for the content of their own
writing. Careful prompting can remind the children but ideas cannot
be phrased for them.

That's a bit more help than being 8 years old, sat in a classroom in 'exam conditions' and randomly being told to write about a statue coming alive in a park!

The discussion of the setting is so important, as it gives the children something tangible to base their ideas on. We introduced the woods as our setting, because all the children go to FS. That immediately sparked in each individual child, ideas of birds/fairies/elves - things they're all familiar with. I know, if we hadn't provided that anchor, we would have got some real bilge about transformers, robots, pebbles on Mars, pebbles in their drives... and other random stone stories

I would bet that many schools are still using the first method of assessment in Year 3 and basing their results on the test,

So it's more help to randomly tell a 7 year old to write about an amazing pebble that causes a change?

Intelligent schools will use teacher assessment - since it was introduced in 2005 as the main source of assessment in 2005.

Even Y6 assessment is now teacher assessment. Wakey wakey!

No, mrz.

I'm saying that KS1 writing tasks allow a certain amount of support (as you have quoted) if teachers are following the guidelines.
Also, as Feenie says, KS1 teacher assessment also gives a realistic, moderated level.
(In theory, anyway.)

The children move into Y3.
I bet many schools assess solely by optional SATs at the end of the year (getting children to write a story about a statue in a park, with no support whatsoever).
Some schools don't use TA at all in Y3.

Our school does optional sats that are sent away for marking. The amount of help BBB is talking about would certainly inflate marks and would do nobody any favours.

I'm not sure how you see the above as support the children are told they are in a forest/on a beech and they find a pebble then asked to independently write about what happens next

In your example the children know they are in a park and a statue comes to life ...

It's the anchor of knowing where they are starting from. That's really important. It helps them focus. We know that the children are very aware of what goes on in the woods, and will have sensible ideas about what they might transform into.

It we left them to it, they'd be setting the stories in random and completely unfamiliar places, (deserts and jungles) that they couldn't write about because they'd never been there.

The fact they've walked through the woods, have pictures of the woods... it makes such a difference.

I did the Y3 optional SATs in the 'exam' conditions a few years ago and children couldn't think where to start, as they'd never seen a statue standing in the middle of a lake in a park. They'd only ever been to parks with swings and slides. There writing was much worse than their writing over the year, and we had to report the SATs level as data.

So in Y3 they can't work out they are starting from the park ?

They find it difficult to focus their ideas. If they'd had an opportunity to look at pictures of parks with lakes and statues (that many 8 year olds will never have seen), then they would know what they were talking about. They'd know what a statue in a lake looked like - what it's made of, its shape, etc. They also need to have a knowledge of what's in a country park to provide a source of excitement after the statue comes to life.

It's an unfamiliar situation - very difficult to write about off the top of your head.

Perhaps good preparation would be a visit to the park during Y3

Why would you have to report the optional y3 sats level as data? We use them to inform teacher assessment and look for gaps. We override the test scores whenever they don't match class performance.

But the optional writing task should only be used to form a part of thorough teacher assessment anyway - as any Ofsted inspector would say, if a school tried to use differing assessment tasks as an excuse for their children not making progress in Y3.

Babies, exactly!

There are enough threads on MN saying that test scores are being used as reported levels at the end of Y2 (feenie/mrz - you are always responding to them) to assume that some schools also use data from optional SATs, not TA in KS2.

Anyway, I was just surmising what might have caused the difference in y2/3 levels.

I'll hop off now.

I'm not sure - I see a lot of threads where parents assume the level is a SAT level, whereas it is probably just a TA. Lots of parents see levels = tests.

I've also seen more than my fair share of teachers saying that Y2 tests are optional but that doesn't mean it is true ipdaquietly.

I haven't got a copy of the actual administrators handbook at home but it does make it clear that the work is unsupported.
If there is a difference I would say it was more down to "time"

Hi Nell51:

I won't delve into the mysteries that are NC Levels as reported to parents. At some point somewhere mrz and others have said that NC Levels are going to be abandoned soon anyway and replaced with some as yet unspecified form of marking which is meant to be clearer. Hopefully someone can provide a link for more info?

What I will say is that intuitively moving from infants to juniors is a big change. The class situation is more formal and the work load increases and can be more demanding. As a result, there can be a feeling that progress has slowed or a child has plateaued. This can be called 'the transition dip' and Mumsnet has info about it here: www.mumsnet.com/learning/assessment/transition-dip.

Regardless of whether this 'dip' in performance in Y3 is real or not - it is a regularly observed phenomenon. My personal feeling is your DD's NC Levels are good scores toward the end of Y3 and don't forget that a summer of lots of reading, interesting outings, fun activities, watching wildlife, cooking, etc... can also help progress learning as well.

Please don't write off your DDs chances in future based on these scores (or your aspiration for her to go to a grammar school - it's still worth striving for and the extra work will also help, regardless of exam success).

DD1 had appalling scores up to end of Y3 and has progressed beyond all recognition in the last two school years (mainly because I have consciously put in huge amounts of time with her since late Y2) to close the gap between herself and peers at her school and at other schools.

If you see and area of weakness and you feel you can help (and are interested to do so) - then why not try. Now sometimes DCs enjoy this time with Mum or Dad and sometimes they don't (or Mum and Dad doesn't). I have found it odd - because certainly my parents never had to help me in this way or this much - but DD1 was hugely struggling and I couldn't bear to just stand by and do nothing.

My feeling Nell51 is your DD isn't struggling. I don't think you should be complacent - but she's genuinely not struggling. Perhaps the useful conversation to have (if you have an end of year parent teacher meeting) is to ask what she should be working on over the summer. I find asking a teacher if he/ she can think of anything we should be working on at home sometimes is the most useful bit of our parent/ teacher meetings. In our school at least, they rarely get asked that so don't tend to have a rehearsed answer ready.

HTH

At some point somewhere mrz and others have said that NC Levels are going to be abandoned soon anyway and replaced with some as yet unspecified form of marking which is meant to be clearer. Hopefully someone can provide a link for more info?

That would necessitate some kind of forward planning by the DfE and Mr Gove - other changes have been rushed in at the very last minute, so I wouldn't hold your breath

Re the transition dip webpage - it's a load of garbage perpetuated by schools who are defending their Y3's lack of progress, which had some truth pre-2005 but not since assessment was changed.

Pearson are a company who sell educational products, not a font of all educational knowledge (as evidenced by this page).

media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/l/secretary%20of%20state%20letter%20to%20tim%20oates%20regarding%20the%20national%20curriculum%20review%2011%20june%202012.pdf

At the bottom of page 3 Mr Gove states his intention but doesn't hint at what will replace levels.

Seems like he wants to replace it with nothing. And require all pupils to be at the same level like the good little robots they usually are.
I wonder if he has ever met any children?