Level 6 maths son starting to get fed up

[MaryKatherine]

Hi,

My 11 year old boy is due to sit his level 3-5 maths and level 6 maths next week (Thursday). He has always been very good at maths...very quick to work things out. There are 4 others in the class also due to sit level 6. They have worked though past papers and a secondary maths teacher (on maternity but helps out with the year 6's) does intervention work with them once a week.

Since January he has been getting a massive amount of homework to do from his own teacher and the intervention teacher. They do a level 6 paper every week and mark it (teacher marked). I go over it (as I like maths and want him to do well) and show him how to do any questions he got wrong (in a gentle, non-pushy way). I try not to over burden him and will only spend 10-15 minutes every other day trying to refresh his memory. Some of the questions are hard though and certainly not what I had to do when I was his age!

For the past week he is becoming increasingly tired and fed up with it all. I know it is almost the end and all the children have worked hard (and the poor teachers). Any ideas how I can encourage him during the last week before SATS? We are taking him abroad for a nice holiday at 1/2 term.

Unless the Greens get in, I suppose, since they want SATs, league tables and Ofsted banned.

Rabbitstew the level6 SPAG test includes a piece of extended writing which is obviously marked for grammar, spelling and punctuation .

Ah. I guess he'll have to do some writing, too, then! I was under the impression getting a level 6 in "writing" was something different, though.

New SATs. Which include old level 6 material, but in the same (not separate) tests.

But presumably relatively little old L6 material so in principle it will be a lot less reliable than the separate paper for testing L6-ness and be another incentive for perfectionism.

I liked the separate L6 paper for having lots of questions which clearly does a better job of sampling their knowledge/skills and also leaves room for 10/11 year old children to make a few perfectly human silly mistakes.

I'd almost rather he got a level 5, friends who's kids got 6 have had no end of problems with unrealistic targets in high school.

DD is in Y7 and that is definitely a burning issue, although it might not be the one you expect. The targets are high because of her shiny end-KS2 SATS, but the school have no credible differentiation in some of their Y7 mixed-ability classes and she simply isn't being taught the curriculum she needs to learn to meet those targets.

Worse we've been expected to go to box-ticking parents' wotsits and seriously discuss what SHE can do improve and meet her targets. If we get any more of that before the end of the year I think my new improved retort will be: "Well I suppose she could become a child prostitute and then use her immoral earnings to pay for a tutor to teach her that level N stuff. But you lot still won't assess level N though, will you?".

Some secondary schools and obviously this one, simply haven't adjusted to accommodate some children arriving with L6s in Y7.

A few subjects are better than others in this respect. Maths doesn't have these target problems, but it is the only subject they set in Y7 and they largely picked up from where primary left off. Which was a nice surprise because I expected maths to teach a lot of L6-stuff all over again.

DD2 is doing the level 6s, I've let her do homework and anything she wants to, and if she comes to me then I'll help. I wouldn't push him. It doesn't matter anyway, which is what I keep saying to her. It will make zero difference to anything.

There are separate levels for level 6 writing and level 6 SPAG.

Agree with Feenie -there are separate levels for writing and SPAG. DD has nine tests next week, including level 6 tests for maths (2 papers), Reading and SPAG. She has gone from a child who loves school at the start of Year 6 to saying she hates school, is bored and demotivated by it and fed up of all the revision.

Her school has handled it very badly imo - extra English and maths revision for months, past papers home, an Easter school (!) in maths (dd didn't go). She's 11 FFS. A child.

I get the school is under pressure, but they should be handling it, not passing on the pressure to the children.

DD's maths teacher told the class he would be disappointed if they didn't all get level 6 in maths.

25 of them are sitting level 6 in English: SPAG, reading and writing. In a test paper the other week, 1 passed writing, 5 passed SPAG and 2 passed reading. What's the point? Setting most of them up to fail!

DD has enjoyed being pushed in English, but hated all the constant revision of basic stuff like commas, but has found the level 6 - and 7 - maths stuff a bit much. I can't remember the last time she came home and was excited about something she'd learned at school. She was asked to do First University this summer and declined because she's so turned off learning. Fabulous.

My ds2 is doing the level 6 paper, apparently without any input from the teachers

My dd is midway through AS maths and has been helping him- she said it's far beyond what they were taught in year 6 and she is actually quite annoyed that teachers are sending home papers on things they have not learnt yet.

Luckily she loves maths and so does ds2 so they are working together but still, it seems bizarre

PiqueABoo as there won't be any levels next year you can't compare or talk about relative reliability, the tests will have a different focus.

Oh yes I can ;b

The curriculum hasn't changed that much and the purpose of the test is still to test a child's competence with that curriculum. It doesn't matter what labels you pin to the most difficult stuff, the simple fact is that it is tested with 60 minutes worth of questions now and it clearly won't be tested to anything like that extent in 2016.

Unless some genius exam design geek wanders by with a very convincing case, I will continue to believe that a handful of ever so clever new-improved questions will not be as good and that my DD was lucky to get to play with the L6 tests.

Dd had a bit of a meltdown tonight too - doing SPaG and Maths. Turns out she hasn't even seen a L6 SPaG paper at school and hasn't done much maths either. Only in a Friday after school club since Christmas! Am torn between mum and teacher self. I can't believe how stressed they are being made. Older sibs went to same school without all this nonsense. Thank goodness she said no to Reading paper! Have A levels going on here and dd1 at a distance with finals for Law degree. Happy days!

"Setting most of them up to fail!^

But think of the resilience! Posh girls school HTs seem to never stop talking about how clever they are getting all their clever children to fail stuff so they will be better at succeeding. Or something.

We're in the same boat. I haven't even taken the revision books out of his bag for the last two weeks. The pressure they are putting them under is ridiculous.
15 did the mock test and only 2 got it. How awful must those 13 feel! They haven't covered all the work for it.

And don't get me started on 'mock' exams.

I'm more stressed about it than my ds is... and only from reading this. Ds's school seems convinced that the problem with its SATs results last year was that quite a few of the children got very stressed and tearful about it, so this year they've gone out of their way to make the whole thing as low key as possible and to emphasise to the children that the tests are to assess the quality of the teaching, not to judge the children themselves. It seems to have worked, stress-wise. It will be interesting to see whether lower stress does mean better results!

Wow. My DD at a school that is locally called a 'hot house'. She's not L6 but I know some that are and the school has got about 25% L6 the last few years.

This term they've divided the children into groups to target weak area's. One piece of maths homework a week. Small intervention groups taken out for 30 minutes once a week. First two terms it was all normal stuff - no mention of SATS.

They've given them mock papers during class time then sit down and discuss where to improve with each child.

Rest of the time they are doing history, extra playtime, RE, extra art. During SATs week they do the tests, and go out to play. End of.

I'm amazed at the amount of work children are being asked to do to get L6.

DS2 is 7. He's been in tears virtually every night for weeks about his sodding SATS (as have half his class). He's been getting homework 3 or 4 times a week and insists on doing it -more stress.

I thought we'd at least get to Y6 without this sort of pressure

It will be interesting to see whether lower stress does mean better results!

Well they're not all born equal and some will have more ermm.. mental acuity than others, so year-on-year comparisons might not prove much. There are also lots of potential sources of stress besides the school e.g. parent(s), other children and of course the child's very own nature. However it does sound like some schools are run by idiots.

For L6 maths at DD's school last year they were quite careful about who they picked and from xmas they had one maths L6 lesson with an HLTA in place of a normal class Numeracy lesson. There was also one piece of ~30 minutes L6 maths homework per week in place of the regular maths homework.

I didn't detect any significant pressure and everything from the school seemed reasonably jolly and relaxed. I understand that bunch all passed the L6 maths, but a couple only just. It's obviously difficult/controversial sorting children into L6 or not-L6 candidates, but this implies they did a reasonable job.

::whispers:: The L6 maths SAT is designed to test a mix more difficult L5 and normal L6 material i.e. you can get a fair indication of potential for this test from performance with L5 curriculum and perhaps also factor in performance in English comprehension because some of the L6 maths questions are that wordier type.

Hi,

I have backed off as, like you say, he will burn out. I don't want him to be turned off maths in the future as he has always enjoyed it and found it easy.
The teacher has given them a little bit of homework this week but it is fairly easy (probability stuff). I do worry that the school have high hopes for the children doing level 6.
Does anyone know how they are scored? DS thinks they add the 3-5 paper and 6 paper together and the mark comes from this?
We are taking him out for some fresh air over the weekend and just hope the week goes over quickly. Roll on Thursday teatime when SATS will be over...then I have my year 2 daughter with her SATS the week after (not done anything with her though)!

BarbarianMum,

Our daughter is 6 (summer born year 2 child) and her class teacher has made no big deal of their SATS. They have had no homework at all for SATS. No mention of them either until a letter came home, of advance warning, in her bag yesterday. It is definitely the year 6's who feel the pressure in our school.

Glad they didn't do this when I was a kid! Hoping the allow them to 'chill out' a lot after SATS week and before July. A nice day trip for the whole class would be nice :-)

MaryKatherine that's how it was here 2 years ago. When ds1 did his Y2 SATS neither he or we were really aware it was happening. There has been a change in policy .

Does anyone know how they are scored?

To get an L6 you must achieve:

1. An L5 in the L3-L5 papers.

2. The pass mark (or higher) in the L6 papers.

That's it. There is no adding them together.

Year 2 tests should be no big deal ... The results aren't reported they are purely to inform teacher assessment ...now next year things change!

I am so pleased that ds's school last year didn't put anyone in for level 6 (leafy m/c outstanding junior school). They found the kids were too stressed the yer before.

ds got a 5a in maths, went into top set at secondary and is now working at a 7b in yr 7. It hasn't made any difference to him not doing the level 6.

MaryKatherine:

I've kind of found with all standardised testing, that in general it is far better to have gradually accrued the full spectrum on knowledge than cram at the last minute.

Look, it sounds like he's doing a lot at school and the school clearly are pretty wound up about getting some to that prized Level 6 (most likely because it reflects well on their performance figures) - but do absorb that come senior school - yes of course they'll take into account his KS2 SATs results and that will be the indicator from which his performance will be measured throughout secondary - but they'll also test him all over again themselves and repeatedly.

This kind of constant practice papers thing was definitely what DD1 went through and it is a hard slog. Worse yet post SATs in Y6 it was just party time/ marking time - with nothing serious happening - just lots of field trips, class play, leaving party, 'business project', photography project etc...

I get that many parents want their children to do well on the test - especially in areas where they set based on KS2/ internal school (?CAT) testing (often done during the 'moving up' day/ first weeks of Y7 in a very relaxed way) - but in general it should be review just now.

So if you don't want to follow ChristinaRosetti's advice (give him a break, after all the test is next week anyway) - then my advice would be to encourage him to play maths video games on-line - to practice skills in a less obviously I'm doing problems for SATs way.

BBC bitesize KS2: www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/maths/ is a great place to start. It will help him review the full range of curriculum he needs to have mastered without necessarily feeling much like work. Just encourage him to play something different from the last time and he'll work his way through.

HTH

Just as an aside if anyone from OFSTED is out there - I think you really do need to start monitoring what is going on in Y6. I tried to raise this with Nicky Morgan here on MN at some point because DD1 spent most of Jan - May Y6 with curriculum reduced to just English/ Maths - largely practice SATs papers and only PE or school assemblies as a break a few times a week. It just strikes me that too many schools are not adequately pacing work in YK - Y5 - so Y6 becomes this mad dash to get pupils to NC L4+ - and in this area at least get as many to L5 as possible. It makes it a very odd year for the children - and really turns them off school. It's not necessary if a school is doing their job by their pupils and, from my perspective, rather smacks of poor preparation/ planning of curriculum content/ pace of work on the part of the school.

Advice like BBC Bitesize is irrelevant now- the test is next Thursday! Lots of relaxing, treats and early nights is called for now.

Even though I abhor the suspension of the curriculum in some crappy schools, I very much doubt that Nicky Morgan gives a monkey's.