Sats levels

[Janacek]

OK this may be a hot potato.

DS moved from a gr 1 ofsted school state primary at the end of yr 3. His SATs levels were as follows:
Reading 4c
Writing 3a
Maths 4c
We were pleased with these however, he is fairly bright but I would say "just above average"
Yr 4 we moved him to an academic private school where he flourished and we were delighted to see a big improvement in all areas. So after a very productive year his report from the private school was:
Reading 3a
Writing 3a
Maths 3b

How can this be? Are SATs levels different in private sector? Is there such a discrepancy between schools?

Well if he is 'just above average', the second school's levels sound more accurate.

I would assume that the private school are giving themselves plenty of scope to take credit for improving his scores themselves. From their point of view it looks better if they take an average child and turn him into an above average child.

But I am an old cynic.

Good point but I think the Private Schools SATs levels are correct. I think the ambitious sat levels reporting DS's academic prowess are
greatly exaggerated...

The point however is ,that the child is the same Are schools really marking that differently?

The state primary would gain nothing from inflating his levels in Y3 in fact they would be shooting themselves in the foot if he then didn't reach the expected levels in Y6 (in externally marked tests).

True. Well, this private school must have tougher criteria.

They can't really have tougher criteria to be honest. A 4c in one school should be a 4c in any school. The levels do sound very high for end if year 3 though.

I too think the private school's results are probably correct as they use standardised testing, typically marked by GL. Whereas state schools make it up as they go along often just use teacher assessment.

DSs levels leapt into the stratosphere upon moving to a private school at the end of KS1 (I had thought he was under-performing), the state school had been suppressing his levels for value add purposes, undoubtedly he would have made expected outstanding progress in KS2, and the school would have done a fantastic job in bringing on my DS. Of course, the private school did try to take some of the glory but even they knew they could not get away with it. When I told the headmaster what levels DS had been on, he looked at me tongue-in-cheek and said 'oh perhaps he has made a lot of progress here', no I said 'I think it was a work of fiction', he laughed and said 'I think it was.' Just to give some idea: reading 5 sub-levels in 6 months, writing 5 sub-levels over a year and maths 3 sub-levels in 6 months.

What I cannot understand in your case, is how the state school would have thought they could get away with it. Most of the testing in yr 6 is externally marked and unless they were going to fraudulently alter the scriptskeep their fingers crossed, your child was going to make no progress in yr 6, so Ofsted would have spotted that.

In my case, I also have a set of school reports that do not match the levels contained in the official school records, although I have had great difficulty unsurprisingly in getting hold of the records to try and work out exactly what went on.

I think the children undoubtedly suffer in situations like these and I think the biggest single change Ofsted/Gove could make would be to stamp this sort of thing out.

The more you look around the more widespread you realise this sort of thing is. It is fraud.

Just be satisfied he's flourishing & made lots of progress, no?

What are you hoping people will say? State schools are rubbish and inflate levels? Private schools have higher standards?

The discrepancy isn't that huge and your ds may have dipped while he settled into his new school.

I too think the private school's results are probably correct as they use standardised testing, typically marked by GL. Whereas state schools make it up as they go along often just use teacher assessment. ... who do you think sets the criteria used by teachers to teacher assess ... hint it isn't a commercial company ... I could use 2 different GL products and obtain 2 different results!

I am not hoping people will say anything. I have my own views based on my own feelings of this situation. My own opinion is in this case teachers are under pressure and have inflated the levels. DS certainly didn't backslide. I now take SAT levels with a large pinch of salt.

"I too think the private school's results are probably correct as they use standardised testing, typically marked by GL. Whereas state schools make it up as they go along often just use teacher assessment."

I take it you mean 'teacher assessment' meaning the continuous assessment of pupils' work, day by day, week by week and month by month?

So a private school 'result' marked by 'GL' would be more accurate?

DS went to a private school which vastly inflated his levels. Just saying.

Maybe he responds better to teacher assessments than to a written test? I know loads of children who do far worse than expected on written tests due to panicking, lack of confidence, misreading questions etc.

It's really disappointing when you know how capable a child is, but the test doesn't reflect it. For that reason, teacher assessment is a far stronger tool, however it is often up to personal interpretation of the marking policy.

Janacek giving an inflated level in Y3 would be an extremely foolish policy to follow as the school would face repercusions if he failed to make 2 levels progress by the end of Y6 (which is externally marked - outside the school's control)
Independent schools don't have to follow the NC /use levels and receive no support in their application/judgements.

"he flourished and we were delighted to see a big improvement in all areas"

Could you be a bit more specific here? Did he move up a number of reading book bands? Do the schools use the same scheme? Did he make positive contributions during guided reading? Does the new school do guided reading? Was he shy to speak up? Teachers can only assess on what they see/hear.

I'm inclined to think that lecce has it right (Fri 08-Nov-13 20:20:22) but your statement about seeing a big improvement doesn't support lecce's point. Is it possible that the improvements have been in other areas?

As mrz says, no right-thinking school would over-inflate levels. It is more likely that the new school is just giving a nod to the NC levels rather than rigorously engaging with the very thorough process of assigning them.

Why don't you go in and ask them how they got to the scores he has?
I meet with my DD's (private school) teachers each year they tell me the SATs scores and how they were arrived at. Whether they think there are any inaccuracies in the scores for example DD's reading age they feel gets a little inflated as they think she is quite good at guessing in the vocab tests. Equally they feel her science is underestimated as they don't feel the tests they use have the scope to assess her type of knowledge ( not many 9 year olds can indentify all the abdominal and pelvic organs tell you their function and how to surgically remove them, but then I'm a vet).

You would then have a feel for the accuracy of the scores.

Grammar, comprehension, spelling, all show obvious improvement. Reading is guided every day .maths shows the biggest improvement and he is getting around 75% in school tests. In short, Looking through his books and getting results of school tests ( none sats) we are delighted with his progress. Yes in science he can identify all major organs and skeleton. it is an excellent education and we are lucky as we are not well off and DS s there on a music scholarship. I have asked his present teacher and they are adamant the levels are correct ( and I agree). Interestingly we used to go to Explore Learning and their SATS levels were different again!

When I moved DS from state to private in y3, I was interested to see SATs results exactly the same.( in his case worryingly low, around 1c/2a).

I don't think schools can gain much by fiddling them?

He did do an amazing 4 sub levels jump 2 yrs later and is now average ( hurrah). But as both schools had him on 1c by end yr 3, it cannot have been artificially lowered to make the new school look good. I mean, I knew he could not even write a whole sentence!

Teachers often inflate levels at the end of their time with pupils (end of academic year) so that they can 'demonstrate' that progress has been made in their class and under their tuition. For this reason, I've seen levels 'dropping' from the end of one summer term to the end of the first Christmas term in the same blummin' school! (I write as old Head of English / SENCO).
Knowing what I know about the subjectivity and 'creative process' that is 'a school report', I take my own children's with TWO pinches of salt. This is particularly true of English marks (including reading and writing). Less clear cut and very confusing for less experienced / bothered teachers to mark with accuracy.

There isn't any sort of 'scientific' test that will accurately distinguish between a 3a and a 4c. Sublevels are made up. Levels are designed to measure progress across a whole key stage so anyone who thinks they can fine tune them to this level of detail with any consistent accuracy is lying.

How did it compare with others in his class? If there were more pupils in his years with similar levels, than I would say it is highly likely these were not realist. Same with new school, if only a small percentage have done better, than it is likely to be more accurate.

I would be pleased that he is improving and think no more about it OP. Too many variables as others have said.

If the new school is relying on tests to allocate levels (they aren't SAT levels btw) then the difference between 4C and 3A is one mark ...