Year 1 phonics screening test

[MooPointCowsOpinion]

I'm hoping this won't come across as a humble brag, so I'm saying up front: My daughter did hers this year and did well - it looks like she got 39/40. However, I'm a secondary school teacher and I find assessments very limiting to my own lesson planning and the emotional well being of my students too.

I'm very interested in this test as it's the first 'formal' one kids come across. I understand what this year 1 test is, what the questions are, that it's not at all daunting to most kids, but I can't find online what the threshold was to be working at expected levels and I'm wondering how many kids score above the threshold.

Does anyone know where I can find the percentages/data?

Wtf is going on tonight?

Wtf is going on, on my side, is that I wouldn't take Muva's post seriously anymore.

And back to reality...

Thanks. 95% of students are considered capable of accessing the curriculum at any given year so a pass rate in the 80-90% range is interesting. that's so interesting OP, where does that idea of 95% of children being able to access the curriculum come from? I'm on a bit of a phonics banging head against wall crusade at DCs school. That sort of info would help to explain to the governors why I feel a pass rate hovering around 70% is not good enough...

". I understand what this year 1 test is, what the questions are," sorry to repeat myself but it isn't a test it's a screening check.

"Teachers teach when they can, if they're being told not to correct or help or prompt, that's a test." No it's still a screening check to identify those children who are unable to accurately blend sounds to decode unfamiliar words so that they receive early support rather than are left to struggle and later fail.

It's a great diagnostic tool if used correctly.

Any school that sends home lists of words to learn clearly don't understand the principles of teaching phonics

"95% of students are considered capable of accessing the curriculum at any given year" by whom?

We had a pass rate of 65%, which we consider a success given our cohort (lots of SEN, EAL, children who aren't read with at home).

In my class (I'm the TA) we had 20/29 pass. One of the non-passes was disapplied because she arrived the week of the check with no English. None of the others came as a surprise - the four boys in our bottom English group, one of whom has behaviour issues which makes it really difficult for him to concentrate; one who only really started blending in Jan/Feb and just doesn't know enough sounds; one who really struggles but still got 21; and one who's EAL and arrived in January - he got 28, I think. Then there was a group of three girls who we'd already identified as probably not going to pass, and were already giving extra phonics support. Plus a boy who's made so much progress recently (RWI group B to G in a term), but just not quite enough - he got 30).

Of our passes, most were above 37, including three children who arrived in October/November with no English. We only had one who got 32 exactly.

We sent home phonics games to generate alien names to encourage the children to not be freaked out by words they hadn't come across. Being able to focus on sounding and blending rather than memory of a word.
87% pass rate with those not passing getting between 3 and 12 out of 40.

Oh dear

Why would pupils be freaked out by words they have not encountered before?

Are they not reading books that include new words (even character names)? Do they not encounter new words in other lessons? (different animals, concepts, plants)

It sounds as if that school sorely needs new resources all round, and not patch a problem with overly-limited vocabulary in the classroom by a random-word generator.

Assuming of course that the issue is that the pupils are 'freaked' because they are not meeting new words as happens in every other classroom at that age (when so many words and names are previously unseen). Rather than a total misunderstanding.

I was really annoyed by all the practise sheets that were sent home - lots of "put the sound buttons on these words then circle the alien words" type sheets, only some of the "alien" words were homophones to real English words...

My DC got 38/40 and I think she'd have done BETTER without all the practising. :P

I didn't practice at all with ds specifically for his phonics test (he goes into year 3 september) but he did read lots. He got 39/40.

I think of it a bit like an eye or hearing 'test' - there isn't any point ion the optician or person doing the hearing test 'helping' the person being tested. because otherwise you won't know what they can really see / hear, and they won't get the help they need.

However I'm really shocked to hear some of the low scores on here - GettheGood, Strumpers. In a school where quite a few children arrive with no spoken language at all, and up to half the class have illiterate parents, a school i used to teach in was desperately disappointed when a single child out of the cohort didn't pass.

If you teach phonics really, really well, as the only way to decode English, then except in the case of the child arriving a week previously, or very significant SEN, then every child should pass. However if you confuse matters by doing 'guessing from context'/ 'learning key words', or by using non-phonic reading schemes, and if you have n expectation that lower groups within the class will fail, then of course more will fail than should.