Are children only assessed on what they have been taught in school?

[summerplease]

I know teachers need to show evidence of a particular level but the dc have been told when ticking off targets that they can only tick them if it's something they've been taught in school.

So for example mine has a really good understanding of negative numbers but they haven't done them in school so they didn't tick that one off. There were quite a few like that and so I feel the levels are not representative but as I say I can see that they need evidence.

They need evidence of having seen them doing each skill.
So being told by a parent wouldn't be enough. They would need the child to be doing them there and then in class, and not just a one off case generally either, but consistently.

Our school policy is we need to see evidence of a particular skill on 3 seperate occasions before we can highlight it off the assessment.

Hth

If using negative numbers is not something that has been covered yet then they will have not done work involving them, so how can the teacher know that they know how to use them?
Just because you have taught your children elements of the curriculum that are normally covered at a later stage does not mean they are consistently working at a higher level than the teacher has assessed them at.

I'm guessing that if someone had recently been a primary school teacher and (and or just) knew the curriculum off the back of her hand and decided to co-educate her child two years ahead thoroughly covering every aspect and the child was comfortably able to demonstrate all areas of the curriculum and answer random questions on demand, then the mum would be well within her rights to ask for the child to be assessed properly.

But it isn't the case that they are not being assessed properly is it?

They are assessed continually throughout their school days, and assessed on the things the teacher sees the child doing independently on several occasions, consistently. A teacher cannot just take the work of a parent that a child can do something. They also cannot just set some one off thing up for a child to demonstrate his/her ability. It has to be occurring regularly in front of the teacher.

Can you imagine what it would be like if every child in the class wanted their individual child assessed on one or two extra curriculum bits, all different, every year? It just wouldn't be practical.

summerplease - Is your child's overall level a big difference to what it should be in your opinion? Other than this one aspect, what else is affected? Have you spoken with the class teacher about the mismatch in the level given compared to your expectations?

No, that would not be practical. But if the child was substantially ahead in all areas of the maths curriculum then the child would have a right to be assessed on what she knows not what the teacher thinks she knows.

Maybe it depends what age the children are. I don't know how differentiated work/assessment really happens at older ages as DS1 is fairly average ability in maths.
But DS2/3 are good at maths. DS3 for example who is still only in nursery (attached to a school) his teachers noticed he could add up/take away when he joined them, and extended their assessment of him to work out what level he was at. At parents evening they were saying how they made sure that they were including adding and subtracting of numbers up to 20 in their everyday language so that he was being stretched above and beyond the counting they were doing in class. The other day he was showing me how to work out the difference between two times on clocks, which I have never shown him (I didn't even know he could tell the time), so presumably it is a school extension. When DS2 came out of the nursery and year 1 they didn't just tick the box but added extra info e.g. if it said I can count to 10, they ticked the box and crossed out 10 and wrote 50 (or whatever). So they certainly 'can' assess outside the norm, but don't know how common it is.

In any decent school that type of child would be receiving a differentiated curriculum in the areas they excel and so would be assessed accordingly anyway - ime anyway.

If it is only in one or two aspects of the whole numeracy curriculum however it becomes far less practical to be assessing for one off bits and pieces based on the parent's word. I would assume a child who was capable of work far ahead in a numeracy, as an example, area they would often show some signs of this in class - ime children are often keen to demonstrate what they know, especially if it is something new, and things like negative numbers would be easy to hear about in general calculation type lessons.

Ticking off targets is to assessment what lilac is to purple. It is a form of assessment not assessment itself.

A maths test covering all areas, challenges looking at how they approach work they havent covered, discussing with children what they know, partner work etc etc. All these things would reveal things a child has been taught at home and to what extent. In your scenario learnandsay, almost all teachers would notice that the child knows more than they are taught.

Children dont keep these things to themselves. Thats one of the lovely things about a new topic or a new class in September; seeing what they know.

In the OPs scenario however, the child is most likely ticking of key targets for their age/progress related expectations. These kinds of things are carefully monitored and need clear evidence. The teacher probably thought 'hmm, wont tick it off for now but mental note that little Johnny is interested in negative numbers'

LittleMissGreen Yes, that is common from my experience too, so long as demonstrated consistently within school.

My DS' teacher noticed him extending himself during a particularly boring for him maths lesson in a way she hadn't thought of. After talking to him about what he was doing she then realised that he was capable of a lot more than any of the teachers had previously thought and he's had a fantastic year of being stretched sideways in maths.

How old is your child OP?

Dc is in year 3.

The negative numbers thing is one example. I am very sure they can do this and other things that they have not covered at school consistently and well for reasons I won't go into.

When I look at the targets they are very easy.

They have done optional sats so that would show up if dc was performing at a significantly higher level than their targets surely.

p.s. teacher isn't very good on most accounts so I wouldn't be confident she would have noticed dc can do more, and I imagine dc isn't the only one either.

My DS is in year 3 as well. His optional SATs has shown him at a very high level, but again that was because his teacher recognises what he can do so gave him a higher maths paper to do.

Do you know how they did on the SATs paper? I know there's a child in DS' class who is very good at mental maths but struggles with word problems. This child then didn't get a very high score on the L3 paper so wasn't given any additional tests

The thing is lots of bright children are capable of being able to do more than they are taught in class, particularly in maths. Some parents choose to tutor their children to get them ahead, others are happy to leave it to the school. Schools will differentiate according to ability but only within the topic currently being worked on, they won't give work on topics that haven't been introduced to the whole class just because a child knows it.
The optional SATs papers will not include material that any year group is not expected to have covered.

Does it really matter in the grand scheme of things, I wonder? DD can tell the time to 5 minute intervals. I don't think her preschool has noticed. Do I care? No. When they do telling the time at school, I'm sure it'll be picked up.

galena, with respect your ds is in nursery and it's a little different.
Dc wants to be taught new stuff and it isn't happening and that disappoints him. So yes in my view it does matter.

I agree with summerplease. Galena would you still think that way if, when your DD is in y1, they are doing o'clock and half past (as is normal in y1) while your DD could do clocks to 5 minute intervals 2 years previously?

but only within the topic currently being worked on
Yes but a Year 3 child may be a high L4 therefore working on things the class haven't done. Therefore this:
they won't give work on topics that haven't been introduced to the whole class just because a child knows it.
is untrue. Any good teacher should be doing this. In fact whole class teaching is becoming less and less popular.

I do wonder, however, whether your dc has shown them he can do things like this? DD would be very vocal about the fact she could do o'clock and half past, so the teacher would have no choice but to go on. I would think your dc has had chances to, for example, create more number patterns/calculations, etc. Surely this would be his chance to show his negative number knowledge? But maybe he hasn't.

See, I feel in maths that it is important to stretch sideways, not just to accelerate through the programmes of study. Thinking around problems, not just ticking off another topic...

One of the reasons I decided to home educate was that dd wanted to learn something new in maths.

We went into school a lot of times over the years to be told dd was not ahead and though mostly near the top was average in the group for some topics.

I asked for her to do SATS tests, but was told it was teacher assessment only. She did not do more advanced maths in school, so there was no proof she could do it.

Just after starting home ed she got a silver in the UKMT at the age of 9.

Wellthen, a teacher will teach, for example, fractions and differentiate it to maybe four different levels, as Galena said stretching sideways. IF the child is genuinely gifted (as opposed to accelerated through extra tutoring) then the teacher should still be able to provide challenging work for them within that topic. A high level 4 child in year 3 will not know everything there is to know about fractions.

So you agree with me then? If the teacher is teaching within fractions then there will be parts of that the rest of the class havent done:
L1: Know what a half is
L2: Find a half and quarter of shapes or groups of shapes.
L3: Find fractions of shapes and groups of shapes.
L4: Find fractions of a number.

It is unlikely that a year 3 class, as a whole, have looked at fractions of a number but the L4 child may need this. These are just guesses btw, I cant remember the actual I can statements for fractions. (Not that sad)

We dont really teach 'topics', we teach learning objectives. The children should be working on the learning objective most appropriate for them. However yes, to help with resourcing and whole class teaching, the objectives will all be related.

I'm not sure what you mean by "so they didn't tick that one off"

Hi summerplease:

I wouldn't worry about what the school is ticking off or not in terms of observing 3 separate secure attempts at whatever target (adding a negative number to a positive number, making a word an adverb or adjective by changing the ending, using WOW words, etc....). To be honest our school claims to be doing this and every parent/ teacher meeting for the last 2 years (once a term) the list is in fact a photocopied blank list and nothing is put to paper. We've even been told for DD1 that at the start of the school year any existing observations from previous school year are 'rolled back' - so they start observing 3 achievements of activity from scratch again.

I have found the whole they're not noticing where my kids are at (and we have both extremes: DD1 hugely behind and DD2 way ahead). That the solution is to just blithely ignore the school - there is real freedom in just viewing school as day care. You basically can never be disappointed.

Now I presume if your school hasn't taught negative numbers yet - then your DS must be learning about these things in some other way - on-line games, on-line tutorials, actual tutorials, workbooks, etc.... So you are doing more at home.

I think you have to play the long game. At first the school may not pick up on it - or like our school you may be scolded as a parent for "doing too much at home". But if your targets seem reasonable and achievable to you (be they ensuring your child can add, subtract, multiply & divide or read books for chronological age by end of KS2, etc... - and these are our targets, well ahead of our school's goals) then my feeling is just do your own thing and ignore the school.

At the end of the day the KS2 SATs (which are independently moderated) will be a determiner (for streaming on entry to senior school) and from what many are posting here in Y7 most schools re-test pupils anyway, to establish where they're at by their own standards.

Finally, if you're preparing for the 11+ - in our area at least - the school feels absolutely no obligation to support or assist a child in that endeavor. That being the case, you do simply have to be tough about this and proceed as you think best - because this is certainly an area where school to home communication/ support is non-existent.

HTH