What information do we get from the KS1 SAT?

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For KS1, do we only get information about which of the 3 levels your child is in? These are something like below average, average and above average but in government speak. I asked the school teacher and they said that we would hear in mid-July and this is all we would get. This seems a very coarse measure if true.

I'd be happy if the teacher told me that Irving. But parent teacher meetings are always so short, it is hard to feel like you are getting any meaningful information.

Yes, that's why seeing actual test paper help parents, I think, WhattodoSue

paper that is supposed to determine where he sits in the scheme of things I want to know!

The whole point being that the tests aren't there to determine where he sits in the scheme of things ... They are just one piece of evidence

Being told the score alone (e.g. scored 17 on paper 1 and 11 on paper 2) doesn't tell much unless I know how many questions there were, what was the maximum of points that could have been scored, and what was the the score an average child that meets expectations should have got.

Unfortunately teachers are unable to tell you what score a child needs to meet expectations because we are waiting for the DfE to tell us.

If your school is anything like my DC's primary was, at the end of the year you will get every single one of their books, containing all the written work that they have done - but not of course including all the verbal quizzes, all the quick fire times maths facts tests on whiteboards, the set of calculations they do as a quick 'can you still remember how to do this?' at the beginning of a lesson ... but everything in those books, all the teacher's memory and notes of all of those occasions, will go with the 'a few minutes on one day' test paper to give an overall judgement of your child.

Not only are the scores in tests not useful - because the level that means' meets expectations' isn't yet known - but they are also only a tiny part of the overall assessment. To equate e.g. times table tests to 'maths attainment' is also a red herring - it is from the child's everyday routine independent (or aided) classwork that the teacher makes the judgement, and until you get their books home you don't have that part of the picture - and you will never have the verbal and pictorial evidence that a teacher will also have recorded.

It is a fundamantal misunderstanding that 'teacher assessment' can be matched to, or is even linked with, 'average test scores'. I have encountered parents who say 'my child knows all their times tables and can do a Kumon worksheet in x seconds, they must be good at Maths', but from my knowledge of the child i know that if I ask a question that looks in any tiny way different from one of those standardised formats, they have not one clue what to do.

mrz if my child has had 10/10 in every spelling test and maths test all year (and I know he has because they get sent home at the weekend) I am interested to find out why he couldn't answer a single question on the problem solving maths paper this February. Hopefully when it came to the real test he did a little better. I would like to help him.

I don't work in KS1, but I can see that one reason why schools would be entirely happy communicating the results of spelling or times table tests but not the raw SATs test mark is that there is no risk that any but the most blinkered parent would believe that times table test mark = maths ability; or spelling test mark = writing ability.

What teachers want to, and have to, report to parents is the overall KS1 assessment - a balanced view (as far as possible) of the child's everyday work, drawn not only from tests but also from everyday unaided class work (I laughed at the poster who wanted every piece of work that their child completed unaided, as if that only happened on special 'test days'), written, practical and verbal. If the 'numbers' from a test are reported specifically, then they are likely to be given undue importance as parents might well consider them to be a 'genuine' mark of where there child is in that subject. at KS2 using a test mark rather than a proper rounded teacher assessment is bad enough, at KS1 it is ludicrous.

I had forgotten about that! Now that you mention it, teacherwith2kids, I remember receiving some letters at the end of reception and Year 1 saying their books were being kept and we will receive all of them by the end of KS1. That's even better than just getting the score or a copy of the SATs papers.

I still would want to know DS's score out of curiosity. Presumably before the end of the year the DfE should have made up their minds regarding what score a child needs to meet expectations. But the way things are these days with the DfE, who knows.

Thelying - but what do the regular tests test? Knowledge of maths facts e.g. times tables? Ability to do specific arithmetic? the teacher will know that, plus everyday class work, plus the test, and will use all that to come up woith a rounded view.

It's like English - one of my least able writers gets all their spellings right, every week, in a test. They are NEVER spelled right in everyday writing, and all other aspects of their writing are weak. If someone said 'but they always get full marks in their spelling test, surely they must be able to write a really good story?' that would be obviously silly - though you may well be doing the same thing in conflating weekly e.g. maths fact test scores and 'ability to solve maths problems'.

Teacher I understand what you are saying, and I know that his problem is recognising the question when it is phrased even a slightly different way. The slightest change in angle will throw him right off.

I also know this should come with time, experience and confidence. That doesn't stop me wanting to know how he did this time round.

I think part of my problem is that I am a secondary teacher and every assessment we do is always available to parents / students (in my subject at least). I think I just don't get it.

I do think that by secondary there is a clearer separation between 'assessment' and 'other work' - work isn't marked and assessed daily with AfL, for example, a vastly higher proportion of children are able to show their understanding in written form etc.

It's a bit like the jump from the Foundation phase - I find the observational assessment of that age group alien to my KS2 mind! In the same way, i can see that the 'absolutely continuous' nature of KS1 and lower K2 assessment, and even the TA element of the KS2 assessment, would be alien to someone steeped in the very much more 'teach.... then assess' model of secondary

Did you ask in February?

Schools don't have a problem with sharing the KS1 test results if parents really want them but most accept they a pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things ...

www.nahtedge.org.uk/Newsandviews/BlogListing/TabId/422/PostId/1116/secure-fit.aspx

Feenie I am afraid I still don't understand one of the points you are making. "Schools have to follow statutory legislation". Are you saying that the legislation prevents schools from giving out the scores to all parents? My reading was that it simply didn't mandate that they had to. Those seem like two very different things to me. One is the absence of compulsion to do something and the other is a compulsion not to do something.

I know we won't agree on the rest but I hope we can at least clear up what your point was.

They're not two different things in a school. Reports follow statutory guidelines. Parents can ask for scores if they like. That's it. I was further reminded of the correct legislation and the fact that test scores are not reported to parents after this thread in an LEA standardisation meeting. No one thought it was strange or that anyone was hiding anything because they were all Y2 teachers who understand KS1 assessment!