Talk to me about level 6 in KS2 SATS, especially if you are a KS3 teacher!

[Notnowcato]

My daughter's class is clearly being assessed to see who should be attempting the level 6 SATS exams at the end of the year. Amongst other things, the children are being asked if they would 'like' to try them. Should I encourage DD to try?

I am not a great believe in testing primary school children, at all. There again, one can't fight against the great SATS! And I can see that it is in the school's interest to use the level 6 test for children who were high level 3 at the end of KS1 so they can 'exceed' their two levels of progress in KS2 (am I getting this right?).

But what's in it for the children, beyond extra work when I think they should still be playing, stress and the chance to fail? When DD goes to secondary school will they care at all whether she got a 5A or a 6? What are people's thoughts/experiences?

Thank you for any words of wisdom.

Hi Notnowcato

I'm just a Mum but this is how I see the whole SATs thing

In theory - SATs is a means of assuring the government (who pay for children's education through taxing the whole population) that those people paid to teach children are getting them to a good standard. In principle this makes sense and so far I can't think of any other more-efficient means of assessing this as cheaply.

For your DC -

Again, I can only speak about it in terms of what I'm hearing/ understand from friends with older children, but the higher you score on KS2 SATs the more likely it is you will be placed in Top set(s) at senior school and be 'ear marked' for performing well at GCSE.

I don't mean to say this is the case always, but around here it's rather a self-fulfilling prophesy. If you score NC L5/6 at KS2 SATs, you enter top set at your senior school. Sometimes they don't stream into sets right away, but again fairly soon after arriving at senior school you will be re-assessed and again the higher you score the more likely it is you'll be placed in top set.

The types of tests you are entered for, the scope of what you are taught and asked to do, etc... therefore all depend on sitting a standardised test.

So 'going for L6' in Y6 is as much about preparing you to work at a higher level and the demands of a more rigorous test as it is about 'showing off' or 'making the school look good'.

Personally schools are going to optionally test your child anyway, regardless of what you think, so there's little point avoiding a L6. See it as a compliment she was asked to even try it out. If she does well enough that the school encourages her to sit it for real - again see it as a compliment. If she sits it but doesn't succeed on the day - Well she's probably still a high level 5 and that's worth celebrating. If she does attain L6 - trust me you'll be really proud of her. That's something like the top 5% in the nation in maths or top 1% or 2% in English. Absolutely fantastic.

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In terms of what it means for the next school -

The score on the KS2 SATs is used to predict outcomes at GCSE - so the higher your child scores the more pressure her senior school will be under to do great things with her. And that's no bad thing either.

HTH

PastSellByDate: that's a really useful, unjaundiced view of the whole process. I don't think our local secondary sets at all in Yr 7, but I suppose whether she was high level 5 or level 6 they might still be expecting her to do well at GCSE, so as you say no bad thing. And I take the point about preparing to work at a higher level, which I think she might actually enjoy.

Good question. Long before now I wanted DD to do L6 work , but now she is in Y6 doing it I have mixed feelings. The problem is that a lot of this is in addition to all the regular classwork, so there's twice as much unrelenting homework, lunch-breaks missed because of L6 SPaG lessons or whatever. Both parents work, we don't "get her back" until 5:30pm at the earliest and she now has no free time during weekday evenings. Then there's roughly a still a day of homework left to fit in every weekend.

YMMV, but the respective maths HoDs I pinned down at the two secondary schools I went to the other month didn't convince me they'd pay much attention to L6. One of those schools has a quite good national ranking (not the one where DD will get a place, we were just curious to see if we could spot any significant differences).

I have no clue whether summer-born DD's will pass L6 Reading, so failure there doesn't bother me plus I doubt it will trouble DD either because she's not the type and she understands the deal with that one. L6 SPaG is similar ::meh:: territory. Failing L6 Maths would hurt her, but if that happens she will have really screwed up and it should.

Pros: DD is learning some new things (I'm surprised she held out this long, but finally L5 or lower maths is officially "boring"). Secondary are supposed to show X amount of progress from that end-KS2 result, but getting that kind of middling of progress from a bright child doesn't look like much of a challenge so I think that aspect is largely worthless.

Cons: Subject to how the school intends to arrange this, it could use up a lot of childhood. I think some of that should go now, but it's a bit too much here.

Bottom line: They go to school to learn and learning is better than idling, but I'd ask the school what impact it might have on their time.

Yep - I think it is about predicting performance in future.

I think progress is meant to slow down a bit in KS3 so coming in L5 for example at KS2 - you would be expected to get at least a L6 but maybe aiming for a 7. As I understand it end KS3 NC L5/6 is expected.

Unfortunately with the dropping of NC Levels nationally - I rather fear we're in for all sorts of fun and games as a parent trying to work out how our children are doing in whatever system schools adopt.