Question for parents of children who've sat and passed L6 reading.

[Iamnotminterested]

Can you remember what kind of level they were at at the beginning/end of year 5 and beginning of year 6?

Thanks.

Dd was a 5a at the start of yr 6

Hi Iamnotinterested:

My DD1 is currently Y6 and meant to be working to 5b for Literacy and 5a for maths right now (they don't give reading level at our school) and we were recently told at our parent/ teacher meeting by the teacher that he is intending on putting her forward for L6 SATs in May.

So I guess the feeling is that they can raise her 1-2 sub-levels during the year.

HTH

Unless they are changing it again next year- this year you couldn't get a level 6 reading. You could only get a level 6 in 'literacy' for which you had to take a reading, writing and SPAG all at level 6. You could not just take 1 element of the level 6 stuff.

Thanks for replies.

sneezy86 - are you sure? Isn't writing internally assessed? I thought you could be entered for reading and spaghetti independently of the other?

Spaghetti ?? Ha auto-correct!

DD was level 5a at the end of Y5 in Maths, English and Spaghetti and took level 6's.

Unless they are changing it again next year- this year you couldn't get a level 6 reading. You could only get a level 6 in 'literacy' for which you had to take a reading, writing and SPAG all at level 6. You could not just take 1 element of the level 6 stuff.

No, none of that is true, I'm afraid, sneezy - you have been woefully misinformed there.

Positive- I teach year 6 and put 4 children in for it this year. The whole class had their writing level submitted by me but the ones that took the level 6 had to complete writing tasks at level 6 too. One task was a persuasive writing task and the other I can't even remember. I just remember thinking it was harsh that if a child was really good at reading but not as amazing at writing and SPAG they couldn't just get a 6 in their 6 it had to be a combination of all 3.

Like I said though, it may well all change again this year as the government are still experimenting with the SPAG to get it right.

Sneezy, that's rubbish. I had three children who attained level 6 in reading this year - they did not sit the level 6 SPAG or writing.

And there was no 'Literacy' (in previous years in has been called 'English') at all this year in the tests - only in teacher assessment.

That is, the only whole English level this year (for the very first time, and because the formula was such a mess last year) was in teacher assessment - there was no test whole level given.

There was a writing element in the level 6 SPAG test, as a means of showing how the children could apply the grammar skills they were showing in the rest of the test. But this would still only ( if achieved) give a level 6 in SPAG. Level 6 in reading and writing were, as Feenie has said, assessed separately.

Have a look at the national tables here 0-1% of children nationally are getting L6 reading. As opposed to a much higher rate of L6 in Maths.

IMO it's political and not much of a reflection of a child's ability.

a nice way of breaking it down. Nationally 566 boys passed the L6 reading paper, as opposed to 21,334 on the L6 maths.

Interesting boundaries

Actually. It's less than 0'5% - when reported it comes out as 0.

I did a few sums when they released the data:

Reading: 0.4%
Maths: 6.5%
SPaG: 1.6%

The 'why' for Reading is discussed in this:

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/190995/DFE-RR279.pdf

thank you pique, I hadn't seen that!

We put in 12 for Maths L6 and 11 got it.

We put in 12 for Reading and none of them got it.

We put in 12 for SPAG and 1 got it.

To be honest, if you consider that L6 is the average expectation for a 13 year old, it is very unusual to find a 10/11 year old writing or responding to texts at that level. It requires a maturity that generally comes with...er... maturity!

In my experience, that sort of accelerated attainment for Maths seems to occur more often. For example, I have 2 boys in my Year 6 class who will take the GCSE this summer. Neither of them can cut straight, though, and the boy currently scoring 2A in his Maths can!

I thought the rate of progress was pretty similar to kids who get 4b; so to get 6b in May of y6 you'd expect to see 5a work at end of y5?

Thanks for the replies folks. I know she's working within a level 5 but I'm not sure how far, guess I'll find out at parents' evening.

KingscoteStaff, " I have 2 boys in my Year 6 class who will take the GCSE this summer"

How/where did they get errm.. exposed to the curriculum: School, tutors, parents, d-i-y?

A couple of years ago I convinced myself that DD could comfortably do GCSE before leaving primary, but more maths would mean less [other good stuff inc. lots of childhood] and I didn't like the trade-off.

To answer the original question, DD1 was at 5a for reading and writing at the end of year 5. She sat the level 6 reading test and missed it by one mark. (She reckons she would have passed if the passage had been about anything other than football .)

Kingscote, nearly identical for us.

PiqueABoo - They are cousins and the dad of one/uncle of the other is a professor at Imperial!

I spend quite a lot of time on nrich finding investigations for them (and trying to understand the explanations...)

My ds got level 6 in reading and 5 in grammar , punctuation and spelling. They were assessed separately. Sorry no idea what he was in year 5 our school only give out levels in year 2 and 6.