Ks2 sats week 2015

[Catbat77]

I have a very nervous dd this morning, wanted to hear other parents thoughts or experiences this week!

Ah. DD is not forthcoming about anything at school!

My son reckoned that yesterday went 'surprisingly well'. Time will tell whether he is being over-confident or not. I've told him only a very small fraction achieve L6 reading, so he's happy just to have a go.

He's been put in for L6 across the board but we keep telling him it's really not important. I'd be surprised if he didn't get maths, but SPAG could go either way and obviously reading is really unlikely.

People are saying they are marked quickly. When would you expect results? Thanks

Miranda I read it in the Guardian education pages this morning. Apparently it new, and related to the marking being done online. I have absolutely no idea if it is true, but they are normally fairly reliable. I genuinely hope it is wrong.

DS told me yesterday who else was doing the level 6 exams when he was generally talking about the exam and which room they did it in etc.

DS also said they won't mark the level 6 exam, unless the child gets a 5 in the level 3-5 exam first. Maybe that's what the Guardian was confused about??

Results come through to the school who then have some time to appeal and ask for a re-mark. They get given to parents on the last week of term.

Marking has been done online for a while - papers are scanned in and then you mark online rather than marking actual paper copies. Am interested in what it says in the guardian now.

I went and looked in the guardian . It seems that ks2 SATS have been marked on the actual papers up until now. They are going to be scanned in and marked online from this year. The article seemed to be about some people who have been having issues with the software. It also said that they will be marking questions rather than the whole paper - although when I mark in this way (for a professional qualification) you mark the questions but that is everything iyswim.

I think some people are concerned as it is a new system but gcses and a levels have been this way for a while. My only concern would be children writing in pencil and not pressing hard enough for it to be read when it's been scanned in, rather than not everything being marked for any other reason.

I've just sat in a SPaG and reading test. I thought the SPaG was a good test, there one was question that wasn't very clear - but so much better than a writing test. It was pretty easy and straightforward - if the kids have been taught the subject matter with the right repetition and emphasis they shouldn't miss more than a few. The reading test wasn't very difficult, but some of the questions don't have clear meanings.

I don't understand why don't give every kid who gets a 5b or better the Level 6 paper. It's so subjective to let teachers pick and choose before they know how many will do it. The expectation that a teacher should know each student so perfectly well at any given point in time is unreasonable in my view.

I'm another one reading this thread in preparation for next year.

My DD is in Year 5 at the moment and they are well aware that it's all going on this week. She is already hitting some Level 5's and the school has recently become an academy off the back of a special measures Ofsted report so I suspect they will be fairly hardcore over the next few years, and especially with the ones more likely to bump their scores up .

I've been looking at this site this morning which seems to have lots of useful info about how it all works as well preparation stuff.

Thanks for the good luck wishes, I'll let you know how the SPaG one went later!

BTW, if you subscribe to The School Run, they will email you ever increasing stressy emails about how you have to do all this stuff to make sure your DC 'pass' so be careful before subscribing. I foolishly did it years ago and they won't leave me alone!!

I unticked that box and plan to cancel later today now I've downloaded what I was after .

My DD is sitting 3 L6 papers.
Yesterday, she found the 3-5 paper 'more challenging' than previous past,practice,papers, but said she had time to check her answers.
L6 was 'okay' , but she felt unhappy about being ' forced' to spend 10 minutes reading the texts when, normally, she reads and answers questions as she works her way through the paper.She 'ran out of time' on the last question and couldn't complete her reasoning.
I feel there is a vast leap from a high L5 to a L6 pass. The L6 paper is weighted toward inference and to gain marks the 'answers' must be written in a concise and'polished' manner.
That said, DD wanted to sit the paper and has said she doesn't expect to pass as "not many do".
No doubt, after this afternoon's Maths booster, she will give me the 'low down' on today's SPaGs.

Ds said the same about the L3-5 paper proggy He said his class all thought it was harder than ones they'd seen before.

He's been scoring really highly on the practice L3-5 papers but I don't think he's ready for the L6 paper, so on reflection I'm quite happy he's not doing it. He was looking forward to SPaG today, it's his favourite apparently

DD has now said that the L6 reading paper was hard. But unfortunately she's been upset by one of her classmates crowing about how incredibly easy they found it. It's really shaken DD's confidence, especially as she normal exceeds her classmate in literacy topics by quite a long way.

Roll on Friday.

PerspicaciaTick - if she's better than the other child at literacy things, then she will learn a valuable lesson over the next couple of months when she sees the boastful child fall flat on their face.

We all know people who talk themselves up, and others who are too hard on themselves, and we know to not take everything others say at face value. Maybe your DD is about to learn when to apply scepticism. If she does, it will stand her in good stead.

Thanks var123. Of course DD has jumped to the conclusion that she is not up to the L6 tests...trying to reassure her without raising expectations too much (because, by all accounts the paper was tough) is difficult.

PerspicaciaTick, almost certainly your DD's classmate simply didn't understand the text. It's not supposed to be easy. It looks easy to someone who misses all the nuance and ambiguity. A child who is doing better will make more inferences, understand it better and realise that it is more complex. They will therefore find it more difficult than a less able friend.

To be honest, LikeASoul, I nearly withdrew my permission for DD to sit the paper as I don't think the 'techniques' required to pass L6 can be taught to 10/11 year olds, no matter how bright they are. But hey, that's just me ??

My DD is looking forward to SPaG too, and that's all that matters in my book.
PerspicaciaTick, there is 'nowt' easy about L6 reading, DD has a similar peer-best just ignored!

We had a letter from Maths teacher sayjng that they put everyone gettjng 5B in for L6 paper unless parent doesn't want them to. Plus if children on 5C wanted to have a go that is fine, ti let them know. At parents evening she said the L6 paper offered to all of top set maths usually. It is a middle school though so bigger year groups, 120 ish currently in DS' s.

DS struggles with spelling and I do think sometimes with a very strong family history of dyslexia there might be something going on.

He is doing L6 reading but not SPAG apparently. Does this seem a bit unusual given the figures of L6 achieved for these ? I know someone else mentioned it further back. Just wondering if I should look again at getting properly assessed for Dyslexia. He struggles with his handwriting too.

Is there anyone that can answer my question posted a while back??:

is the 0.15-0.5% (seems to fluctuate!) pass rate in Level 6 Reading a percentage of the whole of that Y6? ie the whole cohort that year??

I do understand the difference between Level 6 and Year 6, btw

I thought that was a percentage of the Yr6 children who actually sit it rather than the whole cohort.

slightlyjaded - this is where the confusion seems to lie! Different people are saying different things

If it's the percentage of kids who actually sit that test, then it's gotta be a useless test!

not much better if it's the percentage of the whole cohort

Kitnkaboodle - sorry if I misunderstood you.

It is a percentage of the whole year group.

Perhaps children improve significantly in Reading over the next three years as they mature and develop more emotional awareness etc to grasp the subtleties what is implied in text rather than simply written. Maths is much more logical and possibly linear in development and easier for a younger bright person to get ahead on.

Just speculation.

I would think it is the percentage of children who achieve L6 in comparison to the Yr 6 cohort.
Surely, the percentage of children that achieve L6 in comparison to those that sit it would be higher?
Mind you, maths isn't my forte