2014 SATs Level 6 percentages

[PiqueABoo]

The DfE relased some 2014 SATs results data today which for the most part mysteriously shows significant improvements in the last set we'll see before the general election. I worked out some percentages for 2013 which looked like this:

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

I haven't taken as much care to remove this and that handful of children from the total eligible in 2014, but they look like this:

Reading: 0.15%
Maths: 8.9%
SPaG: 3.8%

I expected them all to go up but although there were more pupils the tiny number passing L6 Reading got significantly tinier (851 this year, 2178 last year).

So who reported the closest school - ie how do you know? And since you 'know', why haven't you acted as a whistelblower, rather than damning a whole set of tests on the basis of what seems on the evidence you have written here to be uninvestigated hearsay?

Sorry to confuse anyone - I am me and don't post under other names!
What I was directing people to was what a maladministration process was. I agree that unless the process has been followed and the school found to be in the wrong it is totally wrong to assume guilt by gossip.

PiqueABoo sorry but Im not privy to your wardrobe this morning or any other morning.

A handful of primary schools are found to be breaking the rules in tests - IMHO it simply isn't worth the risk of losing your job and all results made null and void, moderation is strict which is why these desperate people are caught but as IsItFridayYetPlease assuming guilt by gossip is wrong ... it could well be a parent with their own personal axe to grind spreading rumours.

Ah the mavens of Musnet.

I can answer the questions, but won't in this atmosphere because it will clearly just turn into some pointless, bickering arms-race. Say what you like about this stance.

OPique, the pioint is that you made a fairly serious accusation about the running of KS2 SATs

"clearly represents children being boosted to that floor standard (in some cases fiddled)"

I am with you, in the sense that I believe the culture of 'spending Y6 teaching to the test' is wrong - though I understand it as a protectiove mechanism to any type of 'high stakes' test in the current climate of blame and fear.

However the 'in some cases fiddled' is a serious accusation. Of course, there will be some cases of malpractice. There are at GCSE, and A-level, and university exams - they do not invalidate the whole process and there are high profile cases of detection and punishment. There are also cases at KS2, and you linked to an example where such malpractice was detected and punished. As any right-thinking person would disapprove of the malpractice, the only way to stamp it out is to report it as soon as possible, so that the very tiny perentage of events in which malpractice occurs shrinks further as detection becomes more and more inevitable and thus the risk not worth it. Nobody can simultaneously bemoan the 'fiddling' of a system and fail to act when evidence of such fiddling comes to light, surely?

I thought it was generally accepted by secondary schools that their new pupils' SAT levels were often 'inflated'. Teachers comfiest this on MN all the time I think.

I suppose that's why our ex pupils make a whole level progress in the first half term in Y7

mrz I am only going on what secondary teachers say on here you don't need to take it do personally.

Of course teachers take it "personally" when we are accused of "fiddling" and "over-inflating" levels. Wouldn't you?

Since I teach in KS1 it isn't personal TheWordFactory ... and just as you get Y3 teachers complaining that KS1 results are wrong or Y1 teachers complaining that EYFS profiles are rubbish you get Y7 teachers moaning about Y6 results ... they need to take it up with the external markers (many of whom are KS3 teachers).

The thing is, there are some schools that - partly because of the 'high stakes' nature of KS2 testing under some circumstances - do devote much of Y6 to 'teaching to the test'. And as I have said above, i don't think it is right - though whether 'teacing to the test' (rife at GCSE and A-level as well) is 'overinflation' is a question. It certainly isn't 'fiddling''.

Equally there are also some schools that teach very little after May's testing, which may well lead to a less-than-flying start to year 7 when added to a 6 week summer holiday. Under those circumstances, the grade the child achieved may jhave been absolutely valid in may, but their performancve on 1st september may not be identical - though many children will quicjkly 'bounce back' [a bounce which some secondaries, perhaps those who have less tight links with their feeder primaries, will claim is solely due to their teaching, while the drop is all to do with overinflation by primaries. other secondaries and primaries have better and more trusting relationships than that.]

However, there are also secondary schools that 'assume' that all KS2 results are overinflated, so start their teaching and testing from a low point, thus putting an artificial 'cap' on what children can assume in Y7. For example, I know of a secondary school that 'assumed' all L6 maths results were invalid, so re-started teaching (and unit by unit testing) from low level 5, even for the highest set. Unsurprisingly, many of the children who came up as L6 statyed at that level or below for all of Y7, because their attainment was artificially depressed by unambitious teaching and tests with too low a ceiling. Another school assumed that the L6s were valid (because their Maths team had actually spent a fair bit of time in their feeder primaries, running 'fun maths challenge' session for Y6s) and started teaching for them with L6. Almost akll of their top set were L7s by the end of the year, and over half were Level 8s at the end of Y8.

spaniel no! I would only be able to speak for myself...

We work very closely with the secondary school the majority of our pupils transfer to. Their transition teacher works alongside the class teacher every afternoon in Y6 and our pupils also have the oportunity to attend in after school Maths & English lessons with the teachers who will be teaching them. So they have clear knowledge of the pupils before they formally start in September and get off to a flying start. By comparison the school my son attended assumed all levels were inflated and spent not one but two years repeating things he had mastered in primary.

That's really dispiriting MRS. Some of our secondaries are also sceptical, but they do their own tests (CAT tests, I think) when the children enter for setting purposes.

A school in Rotherham has Y6 children at the school for several weeks towards the end of the summer term after SATs which sounds like an excellent idea: they reckon it works really well and the reluctant primary schools apparently surrendered when they saw it working really well.

@teacherwith2kids

Well that fairly serious accusation is true i.e. some schools fiddle SATs including that closest school. The system seems to turn a bit of a blind eye e.g. there was that school with the very good results year-on-year that put them in the top few in the country and at some point they were held up by the bleeping press and politicians as as shining example to you all. No one went "Hmm.. this might be too good to be true"? Well someone apparently did eventually, but it took rather a long time.

I know it's a blame culture, but I think it's in teacher's interests to be a bit less hyper-sensitive and a bit more open to this kind of discussion because ultimately cheats make an doing an honest job harder, a bit like all that stuff with GCSE equivalents that made other schools who didn't 'game' so much look worse in the league tables.

What we don't know about is the prevalence, but like fiddling in any other sphere of life it will obviously be more than the relatively incompetent ones who get caught. What I don't know is if anyone took the trouble to read that US-story link I posted, but in that scenario it looks like there was quite a lot of fiddling and the article (pitched as a cautionary tale for England) is quite clear and to my mind credible, about why that happened.

The system definitely doesn't turn a blind eye. Schools are heavily moderated to ensure they don't "fiddle" as you put it. Any suspected misadministration results in the head being suspended while it is investigated and if guilty the head is sacked and all results void.

I can understand why some schools feel under pressure and I do know of an outstanding school whose results were achieved by stretching the rules to their own advantage.

But teachers are professionals and do care about the children they teach. They want every child to do the best they possibly can and they do take it personally when a child doesn't reach the government benchmark. It's the one who got away that teachers focus on, the one they beat themselves up over and ask what they could have done differently.

The US education system isn't comparable with that in England.

Either we live on different planets or your finger isn't on the pulse so to speak. We've imported lots and the latest is current very irritating fashion for going overboard on Dweckian mindsets.

Is your school leafy by any chance? Assuming you read that article I'm struggling to see how you can't see the commonality unless: a) You didn't read the article, b) Can't envisage some of the pressures in some schools because it's not like that in your vicinity.

Question: Normal primary and around half the class are level 2 (something) in one or more core subjects. What year group is it?

Have you attended a school in the US ? Or taught in a school in the US? ... If you had you would realise importing ideas doesn't mean you can compare the education systems they are very very different

No Pique my school is in an area of high social and economic depravation.
Yes I read the article
A class with half the children at level 2 could be any year group from Y 1 to Y6
In my school the staff would see that as failure in any year but Y1 and would be going the extra mile to support those in need.