SATS 2016

[FeckinCrutches]

We got our results today, still trying to decipher raw/scaled score. DD got EXS for everything, which is great, but it's very hard not knowing what she would have got on the old system!

If a child achieves more than targets it's to the school's advantage

My son (year 2) is blissfully unaware that he even took any kind of important test, and thus doesn't care about his results either!
I however would really like to know - I know he's doing well in his year, but he's currently at a tiny school and his year has 13 pupils, so 'doing well' in that group doesn't actually tell me much and I'd be interested to see how he compares nationally.
So, does anyone know if the school have to tell you KS1 sats scores? Would I be OK to ask his teacher?

The school will tell you his scores if you ask but they are pretty meaningless in isolation. As KS1 scores aren't reported there is nothing to compare your child's score to.

I wonder how highly they would need to score to be the equivalent of a level 6?

Which is SAT criteria and which is GCSE?

Does the reading test equate to a reading age?

No

Well!
The GCSE criteria seems more manageable if I am guessing right....

The GCSE criteria is very vague though and open to interpretation. The SATs criteria is at least specific.

Found this blog about half way down it gives percentage gaining each mark on I assume ks2 SATS (as goes up to 120). They note that the sample isn't random or representative - as from anonymous school reports and their sample has achieved slightly higher than the average published statistics. Having said that it gives a rough indication and I found it useful to see where in the distribution dd seems to lie. Hope it is useful.

The GCSE criteria is very vague though and open to interpretation. The SATs criteria is at least specific.

The criteria for a GCSE pass is less than that for a SAT pass Fira child 5 years earlier

The criteria for a GCSE pass is less than that for a SAT pass Fira child 5 years earlier

Consequently, I can't help wondering why more children achieved writing this year than maths, SPAG or reading ...

Not in my school Reading was the highest followed by writing and maths (as normal)

Because it is, relatively speaking, easier to uplift the writing results by close adherence to the mark scheme than it is for the tested subjects. So, as part of normal class work, children can be given the writing criteria and told to include everything they need. we can't tell them where to include it, or how, but we can say "check punctuation, make sure you have used a dictionary, have we all included the subjunctive mood somewhere? those that understand what these are will include them correctly, those that don't, won't! Writing has become much more of a tick box exercise and you can train children to tick boxes! Is it good writing? Not always, no. Does it tick the boxes needed? Almost certainly!

My guess it that MN is representative of society, but who is going to post their DC got scores in the 90's?

DD opened her results when walking home with her 17yo brother who told her it didn't matter what she got in her SATs.

When I read DDs results I cried, gave her a huge hug and told her I was so, so proud of her. She thinks I was crying with happiness. I was actually crying becuase life's that little bit harder when you're very dyslexic, and I only have 4 years and 2 terms to get her to a decent GCSE standard.

I've mostly spent the last 4 days crying. DH has gone from rolling his eyes and muttering "FFS!" to saying "I'm going to use my thinking head about this...." and goes off to....think.

Apparently some of the DC in DDs class told her they have scaled scores of 200. As long as they all feel like winners!

Mandzi34 - at least three of the secondary schools (that I know of for definite, including the top performing one in this LEA and also the one that ds1 is going to) in this area have come out and said that they're not going to use the KS2 sats to set targets/assess and are instead going to do their own assessments. The reason they've given is that they don't think this year's SATs are an accurate measure of ability. Hopefully others will follow suit - I hardly think that this area is a hotbed of radicalism!

They don't have a choice the government set the targets for them.

Yes I know there are national scales. But the schools here or at least the ones I definitely know about are going to decide where the pupils are on the scale using their own assessment as they consider the sats to be inaccurate.

The schools can't "decide where the children are on the scale", whether they think the SATs are inaccurate or not, that is what they have and that is where the GCSE targets will be generated from.

Two conflicting info.... I will always go for mrz and spaniels's info.

Of course, secondary schools can come up with their own assessment and measure progress from there but the official GCSE targets ( against which schools are measured) are set from the SATs results.

It's a bit like me saying, as a Year 6 teacher, that I don't think the KS1 SATS results are accurate so I'm going to make up my own assessment and measure progress from there. I can do what I like but, come November when RAISEonline is published, the official progress will be measured from the official KS1 results and not from my own made up ones!

There's no real reason why I, as a parent, should care what targets the school sets itself - or is set by an external body - though, is there? Especially given that our kids are going to one with absolutely no setting/streaming. Targets are just that - targets. They don't cause grades.

I know of an outstanding secondary school that uses the SATs st year six, and the predicted grades that result from them, to determine if a child is allowed to do double science, for example. They do bend the rules in exceptional circumstances, but otherwise you make a choice, and whether you are allowed to do it will partly depend on SATs.

Depressing, but true.

Depressing - and daft, if you ask me. But then, some schools do rather tend to focus on their league tables standing to the exclusion of everything else, not least the students they are supposed to serve. Very often, that's how one gets an 'outstanding' grading...

Actually it is a really good school, in addition to being outstanding.