Expectations at the end of Year 6

[Mandzi34]

I'm just wondering with the changes to the new curriculum and the loss of levels whether this year will see less children working 'in greater depth' and more 'at national level' at the end of Year 6? It all seems much harder and imagine that you need to score pretty highly to reach the greater depth target.

My DS took his SATs last academic year. Level 4 was classed as the National Average.

I feel the same: my year 7 child got level 6s in Y6 last year. His sister had similar levels in Y4 (high level 4s, level 5 for maths) at the end of this year, which was higher than the 'national average' for that age group. This year she is simply 'on target'. She's top table in a very able cohort (compared to my son's class), too. There were a lot of very upset parents after the last parents' evening, and I really felt for the poor teachers.

Thanks for the comments. It's as I suspected then. Do you think schools are going to end up with lots below expectations?

Yes, very good points Lucsy. I like the way they've altered the SATS in terms of the content of the SPAG paper as I believe it's important to have children leaving primary with good writing and grammar skills but the whole SATS idea is wrong to me.

I think the govt will fudge the figures this year. They are under huge pressure over these sats and need a positive spin on them somehow.

Or it provide the proof required to tell us all we're shite and will have to become academies.....

My school has an intake of 95% EAL with about 35% of children from a Gypsy Roma background who are fabulous kids but consistently at the bottom of any performance by ethnicity tables.
Last year we were bang on threshold (65%) for joint Level 4 achievement across reading, writing and maths.
This year I predict around 40% of children will achieve this, going on what I believe will be the new "pass" mark. It's horribly worrying, demoralizing and unfair, and I worry so much for my school which does an outstanding job in a very difficult area.

My ds got level4 for end KS1 TA last year. That meant to be the level for end of KS2?
Now in yr3, he is "expected", not exceeding YR3 level. Quite scary to think how normal level children meet expected level with new curriculum.

I have a child in year five and will look at the new tests with interest. He has always been in the more able group but suspect he will now struggle.

There was always going to be a larger gap between the y2 assessments and moving into the y3 curriculum because of the gaps in the old curriculum which are now having to be covered in Y3. Therefore even a high achieving child will not have covered the topics in sufficient depth to be above expectations in Y3. The same applies to children who have moved from Y5 to Y6 this year.

As a governor, we are concerned about what our Sats results may look like. Our current y6 cohort were not as good as the previous y6 anyway so even standing still was a challenge. Progress is slower than we would like for too many children, especially the ones in y3 who came from the feeder school with a 2a, 2b or 2c. They have a greater wall to climb and we find teachers are less secure in making judgements on the attainment of the children. They are cautious. Worrying times ahead for all!

It's a horrible pile of disorganised shite.

For the first time today I got grumpy with my lovely Y6 group about reading comprehension. It's the stupid test I'm angry at, not my class. Still feeling bad tonight over making the loveliest boy you could ever wish to meet cry. OK, he shouldn't have left so many gaps in his reading comp paper but he really really finds it hard. Putting the really tricky questions on the same paper as the regular ones has entirely thrown some of my class, however many times we talk about it. I didn't even get very cross - they just have such a negative view of their abilities because they are now comparing themselves with the most able all on one paper.

Confidence boosting day tomorrow then.

This isn't what teaching is about.

Sorry to hear that goingmadinthecountry. It must be so hard on the teachers to have to deal with all the changes to the curriculum that keep occurring. DS had guided reading today and his teacher said how much harder it all was. I know a lot of the class have trouble finishing the paper, let alone getting most of it right. Poor children, teachers and TA's.