Ks2 sats week 2015

[Catbat77]

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

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-curriculum-assessments-at-key-stage-2-2014-revised

this may help

SPaG day today: DS is home and exhausted after doing 5 papers in one day.

He is saying that he felt the Spag exams were harder than yesterday's reading tests and he's not very optimistic.

Luckily its only 1/2 a day of tests tomorrow.

anyone else?

DD just got home and seems a lot better than I thought she would.. She has problems with spellings so I was very surprised that she had been entered for level 6 but apparently she has been scoring very high in the other tests so they wanted to enter her as she still may pass..

She said the Level 6 spellings were very hard but thinks she may have got about half right....

Level 3-5 was fine.

I am also pleased only half day test tomorrow and she has a rounders match in the afternoon so will take her mind off it all.

I can relax now as I know she will be fine from here on in, was just today I was dreading as worried I would have to pick up the pieces but luckily her teacher had told her level 6 was really for yr 9s so she isn't feeling bad that she found the spelling very hard..

DD said SPaG (3-5) went better than she was expecting and she had time to check her answers twice. DS didn't say anything when he got home, just dumped his schoolbag and went straight to the park to meet his friends.

We're half-way there, everyone!

Didn't mean to say she only had 1/2 day of tests as that is the same everyday - only doing tests in the morning - is that the same for everyone? Both level 3-5 & 6 are done before lunch time leaving the afternoons test free.

Yes only half a day for us too. Less for DS today as didn't do L6. Swimming this afternoon, cookery tomorrow afternoon, no idea what is Thursday and Year 6 had talent Friday, so does break it up.

"Perhaps children improve significantly in Reading over the next three years as they mature"

There was a report on L6 SATs: www.shu.ac.uk/_assets/pdf/ceir-investigation-key-stage2-level6-tests.pdf

Lots about L6 Reading iffyness in there and life-experience/maturity is one theory.

Even without the 2014 brokeness, my opinion is that it has been a bit of a lottery even if the child has been consistently achieving at that level i.e. a strict Y6 teacher assessment reckons they're a secure L6.

Kay - thanks. That seems to make the most sense! So out of every Y6 cohort, 0.5 percent or fewer will get Level 6 in Reading.

Any idea how that translates into actual numbers of kids per year? I'd just like to know how rare it actually is. My daughters' school is great but they've never achieved it.

SPAG seemed to go OK today - both levels. Nothing much to say on them!

Dd thought today went okay. She felt she did well one the morning, had plenty of time to check her answers and is confident with the spellings.

She said the afternoon spelling test was harder and she knows she definitely got a couple wrong, the question paper wasn't too bad and she thought the writing part was a bit silly but thinks she did okay. She chose not to go to music group at 4pm as she was feeling tired, but has gone out to play with her friend and is still going to guides later.

I feel like the pressure if off a bit now as dd seems to find the maths papers easier.

They seem to just be doing normal lessons around the tests, nothing special planned for Friday as far as I know but there is a year 6 residential trip next week which is nice timing.

Just seen this in the 1st document on link below.

There was no change in attainment at level 6 in reading. Only a small
number of pupils achieved this level (around 900 pupils but as a
percentage of all pupils in the key stage 2 cohort this rounds to 0%).
4% of pupils achieved level 6 in grammar, punctuation and spelling,
compared to 2% in 2013.
9% of pupils achieved level 6 in mathematics, compared to 7% in 2013.

Ds1 thought yesterday went very well and today aswell. Phew!
Maths on Thursday, he thinks.

Maths tomorrow and Thursday...tomorrow is mental maths and paper 1 Thursday plus level 6 papers 1 & 2 .

Catbat doing KS2 tests as I said (children working below the level of the tests are included in the data even though they don't participate in the tests).

In 2014 553,464 pupils were eligible for the tests in Y6.

No level 6 papers here. Ds1 is a level 5a apparently and says he is happy with that.
He obviously isn't good enough to sit the level 6 paper, so there's no point destroying a child's confidence by entering them into a paper that they simply can't do.

Cardii I'm assuming you haven't seen the dire warnings from the Dept of Education warning people not to post any details of the content. Suggest you ask MN to remove/edit your post

Just to refer back to the L6 Reading discussion. I agree with the life experience/maturity theory, definitely. However I also think that the nature of the L3-5 reading paper, and the fact they're so accustomed to it, affects their chances of achieving level 6. For example, in the L3-5 you can get marks for slightly referencing a point or vaguely alluding to something, whereas in the L6 you HAVE to pinpoint exact relevant quotes to support your answer. When I've run boosters for L6 readers, it's been undoing the L3-5 mindset that's been the trickiest element.

On a positive note, I thought the SPaG today was ok on the whole and the spellings were a gift!

Crap!

Who's MN?

Mumsnet!
I've reported it for you.

DD seemed happy enough with hers today, though she said they had to miss a bit of lunch time for one paper, and the teacher accidentally ate one of the sweets she'd saved to give them at the end, so there weren't enough to go round, and no one got one . Then she had a complete meltdown because she couldn't find her favourite hairbrush before she went out to a club. Maybe not going so well after all.

Thank goodness there is only one test to do tomorrow. After 5 today, they must be exhausted.

Thanks! I've reported it too.

I found the acronyms after I asked :p

Please stop posting what is in the tests, some children haven't sat them yet!

My mistake. We've reported my post.

Shame I can't just edit it.