Are teachers that report a child working at 3c as a 2a in the end of KS1 assessments "breaking the law"?

[diamondage]

By breaking the law I mean failing to meet their statutory obligations.

Please read this link, which clearly states that a child assessed as 3c must be reported as achieving a level 3.

However it has recently been reported on a number of threads that some teachers report a 3c as a 2a, including a current thread where mrz refers to teachers doing exactly this.

Teachers, is the linked to document correct in its assertions?

Other than reducing KS2 pressure to achieve level 5, or ignorance, why else would teachers artificially lower levels like this?

A few years ago, when I was working with this age group, we encountered a difficulty with the LA's data system - in that any child recorded as a 3 was automatically given a 3b (even if the school knew that they were a 3c). So as the next teacher, for them to make progress from their 'starting point', if a child was actually a 3c at the end of Year 2, I first had to make up the 'imaginary' sublevel - between where we as a school knew they were and where the official data on the school reported them to be - and THEN make the required progress for the year.
As it was a school that ended at Y4, there wasn't a lot of time to 'make up' this missing sublevel before providing 'exit' data for the middle school. It was a genuine tension to report as a 3 [which looked good in the Y2 datam, which as a school without a Y6 was what we were judged on] or to report as a 2a [which provided a less impossible task for the 2 years before the transfer to middle school].

In general we had to be VERY clear that a child was working within Level 3 all the time to give a 3 - if a child just crept into Level 3, or got a 3 in tests but not always day to day in class, we gave the 2A.

It is a glitch that will go away as levels disappear, but the 'we do not give sublevels for level 3' vs 'we measure progress by sublevels so we assign an arbitrary 3b to anyone reported as a 3' was a bit silly.

Speaking as a Year 6 teacher, this 'glitch' is a complete nightmare.

If a child scrapes a level 3 in Year 2, then they are recorded as a 3B. It is impossible to level a Year 2 child as 3C.

This means that for that child, a Year 6 score of 5B would only be 'expected' progress and, in order to show that we have made a difference, they must reach 5A (on last year's thresholds, that is a score of 96% or above).

If a Year 2 child is not performing consistently at 3B, then they need to be levelled at 2A.

Is the levels reported in a child's school report the same as is reported to the LEA?

I only ask because DS (now yr4) was reported (to me in his report as 3Cs).

Teachers are malipulating the data to make key stage 2 look good. I believe the goverment are moving back to externally assessed papers. However teachers will simply not enter a boarderline level 3 child for level 3 papers.

We report 3C as a level 3 to parents and the LEA.

No reallytired the government aren't moving back to externally marked papers ...they've announced 7 new test all to be marked internally

We expect children to be achieving 40-50% of the level criteria for a 3C

ReallyTired,

The point is that teachers don't get an option to state a 3c correctly - so either way could be seen as a manipulation!

If reported as a 3, will be recorded as a 3B: an overstatement by 1 sublevel.

If reported as a 2a, wioll be recorded as a 2a: an understatement by 1 sublevel.

If the powers that be recognised that a 3c cannot be recorded accurately, and took this into account when measuring progress, then there wouldn't be a problem: so e.g. a 5b or 5a could both be viewed as 'good progress' during Ks2 for a child recorded as a 3. However, despite the obviousness of the problem, it is completely ignored when analysing progress (so schools are punished for only making a 5b). It is obvious from many posts on here how parents feel about schools that 'require improvment' - given the difference between that and 'good' can come down to an obvious data glitch, schiools are in something of a cleft stick!

So schools know that a pupil is at 3c. They want to report them as 3c. They don't want to manipulate BUT are faced between an overstatement that may push their school into Requires Improvment, or an understatement that is equally untrue, what should they do? It uis ludicrous, and could easily be remedied - but isn't.

mrz: Ditto - we regard 40-50% as a c, pretty much all as a b, and all securely + elements of the level above as an a.

(elements being 25-40%, as 40%+ would make us consider a c for the level above)

Ds1 has been recorded as a 3c in some subjects. Is it different by area?

It may be that school is reporting 3c to you, but has to enter it as 3 on the cross-school data system which gets translated into a 3b (all schools will have an in-school way of tracking data, but there is an 'official' data collecting one as well). I don't know whether it is universal - I thought so, but am quite willing to be tiold otherwise!

(Also, obviously, it only applies to end KS1 - in any other year, the data is internal only, so all cs, bs and as are available)

Why does this bother you so much? It makes no difference to the child, whatsoever.

Thanks t2k.

Our infant and junior schools are linked so I'm sure the sublevels will be passed on informally at least!

BackforGood,

Tbh, it shouldn't, but it does.

Because progress is such a bg issue wrt Ofsted, a child who, for example, is reported as a 3 but is a bare 3c not a secure 3b, is then under scrutiny for the whole of KS2. If they make slower progress than they 'need' to make, they might find themselves at the receiving end of special groups, booster classes etc, especially towards Y6.

It's vile, and the best schools hold out against it, but in many schools it doesn happen. For a child who was e.g. just a 3c in reading, writing AND maths, there can be a lot of 'now just come out of Art to do a bit of extra Maths' that adds up to a big change in their educational diet in upper KS2.

Equally, again in less good schools with poor differentiation, a child who 'doesn't get a 3' may find themselves put into sets or groups that don't allow them to accelerate their progress to reach the good level 5s they could achieve. It is much rarer than the 'booster group' culture, but it does exist.

I think the issue probably comes from the 'two levels progress' across KS2 as well as some systems only recording 3c as 3b.

Unless it's changed, I think the 'official' progress measure for 2 levels KS2 only uses the number of the level. So a child at 2c who scores at the top end of level 4 at the end of KS2 and the child that gets 2a and just scrapes a 4 are both marked as making the same amount of progress. They obviously haven't.

The children that are in danger of not making 2 levels progress are usually those at the bottom of any level. It's part of the reason why level 2 is required to be reported with sub-levels. It allows schools and LAs to track those children who got the expected level 2 at KS1 but are in danger of not getting level 4 at KS2. It happens with low level 3s as well. Children at the bottom of a level make slightly less than expected progress but drop a whole level, meanwhile children making the same or in some cases less progress look OK.

It's a hazard of an education system driven by data. As long as the teachers know what children can do, what they can't do, what their next steps are and how to get them there, I'm not sure it makes much difference to the children whether its recorded as a 2a or a 3.

It makes a difference to the children if they are spending every lunchtime doing extra maths in order to beast them from 5B to 5A to show 'better than expected progress' for the Year 6 teachers' performance related pay...

Raiseonline measures whole level progress ( ie two whole levels so a 1A to 3c is just as good as a 1c to 3A!!) and points progress, (where 12 points progress is a minimum and 14 is good)
So for whole levels progress, a child who achieves a 3 of any kind has to reach a 5. So it doesn't matter whether a LA converts a 3 into a 3b because it also converts a 5 into a 5b!
But for points progress, a child who is a 3B is expected to be AT LEAST a 5B in year 6 and more likely a 5A-for good progress. This means that a child who is actually a 3c, but who is recorded by the LA as a 3B, has to move from 3c to 5A to make good progress, which is 16 points progress and bl**dy hard to achieve! ( In my current year group, one third have made 12 points progress, one third have made 14 points progress and one third above 14 points)

No, sorry, I wasn't clear Tw2K, and Kingscote.
I know why it's important for the school not to report someone as being higher than they are - I understand the ludicrous OFSTED measures, what I meant was, with a parent hat on, it shouldn't matter if a child is reported as working at a 2a or a 3c.

It does make a difference to the child. We fell foul of this this year. DS was a 3C at the end of Y2 in Literacy so it was, in effect, recorded as a 3B. By Feb parents' eve, he was a 3B+ so had actually made 3 sub levels of progress, yet on paper only 1. Hence he was put in a Focus Group for his 'lack of progress' in Literacy - OFSTED were insisting on it as we are currently in Special Measures and this was another stick to beat us with! Very disheartening for a child who has worked hard and progressed well.

As a parent I'm completely baffled why a child reaching a level 3C in Y2 can't just be reported as such?

Will this be all relevant now that these levels are being scrapped anyway (just as I'd got my head around the current levels).

I'm going to find DS report interesting (due next week) as he changed schools in March and his old school stated at last parents evening that he'd be heading towards a level 3 by the end of Y2. I somehow don't expect his current school to show this, if teacher assessments play a large part AND this 3C/2A levelling, depends on each school I suppose. Will soon find out and I'll report back on this thread.

i thought children getting 3s were online for 6s in year 6?
if not, what do those getting 6 actually get in ks1?

That's what I thought San.

Basically there are no sub levels (c,b,a) in the National Curriculum and the requirement is for schools to report level 3 at the end of KS1/2 so the government software won't recognise 3c it doesn't stop the school awarding 3C to the child.

It just all comes down to 'value added' for the schools results and not the dc achievement doesn't it? Is that just me being cynical? Is it just all about how good a school looks with its progress!