Y6 SPAG test published online

[Arkwright]

Another blunder by the government. The test was published online in error by the test company Pearson. It was published onto the marking website early.

I'm afraid I didn't check, did you? So they might have to do me and every other sane Y2 teacher for maladministration.

But did you check them for phones after you had snorted though? When you do the maths, you might want to check for illicit diennes cubes and number lines.

You know how sneaky these year 2s can be.

I think they are saying 'do as I say, not as I do,' Hula.

Or maybe, 'make sure you master the basics at primary or you too could end up on the Conservative front bench.'

We didn't check and frisk them down, no. I guess we could be done too!

That's true Rafa; maybe that is the reason for all the errors - making us really why it is oh so important to learn how to do things correctly at age 6, so they don't grow up to be as incompetent.

I wonder whether there was a slight sigh of relief when they realised there had been another fuck up, but that it wasn't directly the DfE's fault.

In any other year this would still have been a huge cock up, but it would not have been the most recent in a long line of them.

So far Pearson do seem to have handled this in a better way than whoever was responsible for the 2008(?) debacle managed anything.

Lots of concerns with this.

But with regard to these having little or no impact. The FFT scores are generated from KS2 sats, this could mean that many children could have artificially high scores which affect the target GCSE grades.

But its not just the pupils this affects with teachers having PRP, getting the pupils to grade is a major factor in grade and pay rises.

I think that FFT scores are going to be useless this year regardless of whether these are correct or not. And I don't think they'll work with the new progress measures.

Firstly this is the first year that scaled scores have been used in year 6 and there is no previous data to compare to how that might map out.

Secondly, the current year 6 will be assessed on GCSEs that have barely been written are completely untaught and use a grading system that no one has ever been assessed against.

There is no way you can currently map a scaled score of x onto a target grade of y. You can barely predict what the current year 10/11 might get. It might be possible in 5 years.

The current year 10s will be doing those GCSEs in Maths and English. My year 10s are at least partly taught... No idea what grade they'll get mind you...

They'll work with the progress measures because we will only know what good progress looks like when all the rests are in. Progress 8 is all about scaled scores really.

Rafal

By the time this gets to GCSEs the issue will be forgotten by anyone in power and (IMO) will be covered by a raft of other changes.

Isn't that why they won't work though?

You could target a current year 6 child with a scaled score of 100 to get 5 grade 5s or a given attainment 8 score. But if children with a score of 100 in most other schools get a higher attainment 8 score, then the target score is redundant because the school will still have missed the progress measure.

Once there is a few years data, it will probably be possible to predict what sort of score will be 'enough'. But I don't think that will be the case for this year's year 6s.

The FFT scores are generated from KS2 sats, this could mean that many children could have artificially high scores which affect the target GCSE grades.

Can someone explains to me how thre SAt results can affect the GCSE results?
Or is it about expected grades and getting said grades?

Rafal

I agree, my point as such is that it won't get 'officially' adjusted and will be used to beat the schools with, as they are trying to get unobtainable results and will make the pupils feel inadequate.

HappyNevertheless

The KS2 sats are used by the family fisher trust that uses them to generate the probability of what the pupils GCSE results will be, the government and LEAs then use these to set the targets for the pupils and the schools in the form of expected grades.

adding to the last post.

the teacher's (and school's) performance will be measured on how many pupils get their expected grades.

A value added score of zero means that all pupils have met their expected grades.
A plus means that some have exceeded it etc.

I think I see what you mean.

I'm just trying to get my head around how any sort of FFT target setting is possible for this year group. It's completely illogical. Although I realise that logic and SLT/the DfE don't always go together.

Happy, SATs results are used by the government to set a 'target grade' for each pupil. This is out of the schools control and is what each school will be judged on. Pupils exceeding their target grade have made 'better than expected progress', pupils missing it will have made less than expected progress. Ofsted will be looking for how many pupils fall into these groups when they judge teaching and learning in a school. It isn't just about the % of A*-C grades the cohort get. It's also about what they get based on their starting points.

The government doesn't set target grades, and not all schools use FFT (and there are different FFT targets too). From this year, schools will be judged on the progress of students from their KS2 results, compared with the progress made by other students from the same starting points. So we don't know what good progress will look like until the results are in. We can make predictions about that using data from previous years, but the progress measures also mean schools are changing their GCSE offer, so it's an inexact Science.