Testing and getting told the results / marks

[WipsGlitter]

DS is 6. I know the teacher did some 'tests' with the class recently - reading and maths. I have asked for the results of the tests (ie his results) but have been told that they do not give them to parents.

I am very uncomfortable with this. I know the teacher for next year will be told them and will use it to stream the children.

DS did get a report that was very good but this is niggling at me. Are they allowed to withhold the results?

At 6 there is no reason for you to need the results, it is not a true representation of her progress, it is a representation of how she performed in that test. She could have tired, fallen out with her friend, distracted by what was happening in the playground. The truer indication of her progress would be her teacher assessment, which would gave been communicated to you in her report. If you want to know specifics about her progress, I would have a meeting with her teacher and ask how she is doing in particular aspects of her learning and how you can support her where necessary. Tests are only part of the picture.

I think they do them quite often during the year to be honest. DD1 has mentioned maths tests pretty much every half term to test the topics they have done in that time and general stuff. I am not sure literacy wise, perhaps less likely to be in a test - could it be the phonics test?

I quite like to know things like how well they are doing but I am assuming stuff will come home at the end of term and she tends to tell me if she gets told how she has done in something. It isn't really important in the grand scheme of things though unless things aren't going well (although if a child consistently gets full marks then perhaps the work isn't quite hard enough?)

I would expect groups for the autumn to be based on a mix of things, the tests can give an indication, they can also show up if one particular topic is causing the child problems so they know that needs revising before moving on, but classwork will also be part of it I would hope as a test is only one way of assessing things. sometimes a nervous child will end up in a lower group than a test might indicate because it would be better for their confidence or whatever.

having said that I can't see why they can't tell you if you ask. why is it secret?

WipsGlitter:

First off your rights depend on what type of school your child is at.

If it is a private school - as you are paying for everything - you're entitled to pursue this information.

If you are at a maintained school your rights are set out here: ico.org.uk/for_the_public/topic_specific_guides/schools/pupils_info

Now I think the thing to realise -as both TeBe and NoNicknames have suggested - is that schools are testing (fairly regularly these days) because they are rewarded on these results at KS1/ KS2 and Senior Management Teams (SMTs) often want to review cohorts and determine/ plan for next term/ school year.

They both are correct in saying that no one test will reliably reflect how you're child is doing and just to warn you now KS1 SATs results are all teacher assessed - so during Y2 (during most of that year) the teacher will be continuously assessing the child. They will sit the formal KS1 SATs papers (NC L1/ L2) and may be ask to sit a NC L3 paper (sometimes separately which can throw a child - DD2 was asked to go to the deputy Head's office and burst into tears because she thought she was in trouble and it took them close to an hour to calm her down - simply because they didn't bother to explain what was going on. But our school is chaotic and I suspect atypical).

You can pursue it - and are within your rights - but what I would do is write to the HT and explain that you are curious to know how your child is doing and would like her performance explained to you against NC Levels.

For information regarding notional progress through NC Levels see MN pages on this: www.mumsnet.com/learning/assessment/progress-through-national-curriculum-levels - scroll down and see tables at the bottom - this is notional progress for typical child at the end of each year.

However - be warned - the government has dropped NC Levels and as yet it is a free for all about what will be replacing them. Helpfully this means that schools can devise their own systems. As a parent I would be pushing (at every opportunity) your school to explain what the new system will be and to provide substantive feedback on performance in end of year reports and at parent/ teacher meetings earlier in the year.

OFSTED will still require schools to signal to pupils what their targets are - so as a parent you are within your rights to understand what targets the school is setting for your child (useful to discuss at first parent/ teacher meeting if before Christmas).

This is all a dog's breakfast and I suspect is part of the piecemeal break-up of centralised control of education - thereby distancing government (national/ political) from fault. A beautiful vacuum of information is being beautifully created where schools are autonomous units that can mark to their own criteria and where national testing comes so late in the cycle that parents are more than likely to be unpleasantly surprised by poor outcomes having been told for years that their child was doing very well - golden unicorn level no less - and other meaningless unclear jibberish by the school.

It's salvageable at KS1/ KS2 testing - but I suspect this is going to be disastrous at GCSE/ A-Level.

So my advice dear MNers - is keep pushing/ keep demanding information/ and don't settle for vague they're doing fine - insist on seeing how they're doing on quizzes/ tests/ exams - especially if no homework is coming home.

I don't think a system where parents blithely trust schools (some of whom are basically now profit making academies) to be doing their job is working - just judging by the lovely Trojan Horse/ hoax fiasco that has recently played out here in Birmingham.

How can there be "no reason" for me to know how my child has got on??!! How can there be no reason for me not to know. I just don't like the idea of judgements being applied to my child - re streaming them for the next class for example - and for me not to know what those judgements were based on.

I'm not in England so our system is a bit different. But thanks for the advice, very useful.

In my experience this is how things were right throughout primary school. The only information I was provided with were her levels at parents evening and in the school report. Which for me was enough, I trusted the teacher's expertise regarding any streaming (which only consisted of a different coloured table for English and Maths) which changed constantly throughout the year. Secondary school is a different ball game, DD tells me her marks and the school provide levels every term.

Are you in Wales - we have standardised reading/maths test that start in year 2. The schools don't give out individual results, but you will get the results as a standardised score for your child relating to all children in Wales.

DD1 is at secondary and DD2 is y5 at primary.

DD1 secondary school provides us loads of information about progress, test results and the teachers are very approachable. Primary school is a very different matter. In our experience it has been a case of waving goodbye to them in the morning and not having a clue as to what is going on. Both DD are doing well and I'm not really worried about it but if I had concerns I would not be do laid back about it all. My friend was concerned about her DC's progress. The school were reluctant to provide her with the information she was after do in the end she wrote to the head and asked for a copy of her daughter's school record which the school have to provide but they may ask for cost of photocopies.

One issue that springs to mind is that the test result on its own might not tell you much, unless you know how hard the test was? For example, 90% sounds a good mark. But if that was testing level 2, it would mean something very different to if they were testing level 3 work.

More likely, if the tests are being used for streaming, then they are only informative when compared to other children's results. And those results are private to those children and cannot be shared with you.

I know they can't share other children's results, but the could give a class average.

At the end of his first year he got a good report, however I now realise he had also been tested by that teacher, not done well and was placed in the lowest stream this year. It was a shock for me to find this out in a very roundabout way, and I would have preferred to have been told that he'd not done that well. Other children who had done well were given their marks but I didn't really question why we hadn't got ours but now I think the teacher didn't want to upset or alarm us, but it was worse to find out at the first parent-teacher meeting that he was in the lowest set!

I can see the school's reasoning for not telling you.

Firstly, the score in itself tells you pretty little. To give an example, dd1 in year 8 has just got two of her maths papers back. As far as she was aware they were equal difficulty, the teachers hadn't said anything else.
However the spread of marks for paper one was 25%-77%, (but the majority were below 50%)and in paper two 83%-100%.

If you were told they'd got 83% you might think in paper two they were doing brilliantly. If you were told 49% in paper one you might be concerned.

Secondly. They tell you, you mention to your friend, who mentions it to others. They go and ask too.
When sets come out next year, Friend A goes rushing in because their dc has been put in a lower set than friend B's despite having a higher mark.
There could be several reasons for that: B was ill, A is lacking confidence and is better working lower, A got more right, but was clearly having lucky guesses, B had a bad day etc.

There will be other things that come into play when they're making the judgement calls for streaming, mark on one test will just be one thing.

In our primary we more or less know what level the paper is.

DD knew she did a L4 paper and that a few days later she and a few others were taken in to another room to do the L5 paper. We just don't get told had the result.

I'm not really interested in the results of other children in her class. If one really wants a comparison there are always the national performance tables.

Vanilla:

Not completely sure I get your comparison point - we found as parents (and it wasn't just us) that the school would respond to our request to understand how our child compared against national expectations.

Initially results were presented as performing below/ at/ above expected level

gradually through lobbying on multiple levels

we achieved information on what NC Level our child was working toward and descriptors of what work at the level would be.

It's not ideal - but it's at least much better than nothing whatsoever.

National performance tables (if you mean end KS2 results) aren't terribly helpful for several reasons:

it's the entire Y6 cohort

It's published for general consumption in December of the following school year for Y6 (KS2 SATs) and is not published for KS1.

It's not your child - or if it is it's too late in the game.

As a rule of thumb schools that do well typically fully and proudly publish their results: e.g. www.nyewood-jun.w-sussex.sch.uk/ks2-sats-results.html - first to come up searching google.

Often these schools will also indicate KS1 SATs results: www.exwickheights.devon.sch.uk/#/ks1-sats-results/4542108923

Schools that don't often tend to have poorer results they'd rather gloss over.

Well tbh I would be cross if some parents had been told the test results but I wasn't.

DS is now in yr4 & he is told what NC Level he is on but not necessarily each individual test/assessment score.

DD is in yr1 & I have been told the results of one test/assessment that she did earlier in the year which tbh on its own is pretty meaningless anyway.

If the teacher won't tell you the results, I would be asking for a chat with them about how to support him at home.

Which year group is your six year old in; year 1 or year 2? If it is year 2 you will get the results of the teacher assessed levels in the next few weeks. Tests are a small strand that helps the teachers make their judgment. Teacher assessment is all we are expected to report, not test grades.

A fictional 6 year old child in my class scored 3/10 in end of term maths test what does that tell you?

Wips, I feekl a much more constructive way of addressing your concern, given that it is about streaming not the test per se, would simply be to ask the teacher 'how is DC doing, is it likely that they will remain in their current set / stream next year, and [optional] is there anything that you would like us to do with him over the summer to help you to help him make progress'.

That could then lead to a discussion around the whole gamut of reasons for allocating a set / stream, rather than getting a 'number', which as mrz points out, may tell you nothing on its own.

I know. It's a moot point - term ends tomorrow! Will know to keep a closer eye on things next year.

They will be streamed using the Teacher assessment level-not the test level.

As rollonthesummer says. We did the SATs tests back in February. I won't even be mentioning the children's scores to the Y3 teachers. I used them to support my mid-year assessments based on their day-to-day work, and then the papers were filed away.

I must admit, I find it strange that teachers don't share results or levels. DS's school has always done this. They talk about their current level, where they are doing well and what their I individual learning targets are. DS has a conversation with his teacher and they agree his learning targets together.

I know from year to year how he is progressing and his teacher shares which 'set or group' he is in.

It's all very open, with some good discussions at parents evening. Imwould not be happy with it being done any other way. (It's a state school, not private).

I'm continually assessing every child in my class how often do you want me to share? Daily? weekly? more often? or half termly as now?