Practice Sats Year 6 - what score should children in top groups be getting at this stage?

[hereagain1]

Just that really, what score should children in top groups be getting at this stage in practice sats? What score is expected to be on track for a high score in May?

I got that, cantkeepaway - I understand exactly how target setting works. But thank you.

cant

You are quite right, schools may well ( and most probably do) have targets set from CATs, internal, yellis, midyis and a whole host of other tests and assessments carried out in secondary schools which will ignore the SATS results. But what some other posters seem unable to accept is that the "official" targets set by the DFE are based on SATS results.

Just as in primary where official progress measures currently run from KS1 to KS2 assessments ( and we too didn't know how the progress would be measured until AFTER the children sat the tests last year) schools may well have their own internal progress measures/targets that run alongside. But the official measures can't be ignored, i have just set targets for each year 6 child based on progress measures from KS1, secondary schools will do similar.

reup if you are in or near a Grammar area that is exactly what summer hols will have been spent doing English Maths and Vr/nvr for 11+ exam 2 or 3 weeks into yr6. That’s why you can’t compare op. Some areas will have children getting high Sats if they were tested start of yr 6 as they have already covered the yr 6 work (at home or with tutor)

Feenie,

I know you do! I was trying to explain in an alternative way for others, because I do think that there is a genuine misunderstanding that it is quite possible to have that a child's 'in school' targets / predictions are the same as their externally set accountability targets - and that because the 'in school' ones use all kinds of non-SATs data, SATs are not relevant for target setting.....

Regarding Sats being important in secondary school, the school being set targets based on Sats result in KS2 does not matter to the child though, and they don't owe it to their school to meet those (sometimes ridiculous) targets.
My son did very well in Y6 because the type of testing was in a format he found very easy, but I wasn't surprised that he did not get all A/A*s at GCSE as he was quite happy to coast along without busting a gut to get top marks in everything. He was not able enough to ace everything with little effort, unlike a couple of his friends.
Also for some ridiculous reason he would have been expected to get As in every subject because he could do reading comprehensions, write a couple of short pieces and was good at maths.
The only way his Sats was important for him was in setting for maths (along with reports from primary) at the beginning of year 7, and he soon would have been moved if he was placed in the wrong set.

But it can work the other way. If a child doesn't do very well at SATS, they might be give a target of 4s for GCSE( we have no idea yet what the target might actually be as the government haven't decided, but go with it!) if your child achieves 5s, the school will be more than happy as he/she is above targets and may then focus additional support/interventions on other children, even though with a little pushing your child might achieve 6s. It shouldn't happen, but I'm sure it does!

My son did well in his SATS and his school used them to set targets for all subjects. I was frequently dragged in as he was behind target in PE and Art and every year had to explain that, as he had dyspraxia, the chances of him achieving an A grade in these subjects was pretty remote. BUt the targets said A for everything and that's what they worked on

I think someone like Feenie is a great asset for forum like this.
I really appreciate those teachers' dedication.
If someone misinforms us parents, if no one correct it, we may simply believe what's been said.
It's very clear to see who has right information and who hasn't from the way they react on public forum.

So Feenie, thank you for always giving us the correct information and keep doing so, even there are so many people who doesn't understand the value of posters like you.
Please keep on guiding us.

Thanks, irvine.

Dd got the results back for her Spag practice tests. She didn't pass as the spelling was ok but not the grammar. I told her that it's because they haven't actually covered the year 6 grammar yet and there's plenty of time for them to do that so all fine. They just need to see what they need to cover with everyone this year. Gives us something for the teacher to talk to us about at Parents eve next week.

They've also recently started long division in her class and she said she forgot how to do it in the test, but again, plenty of time to get the hang of it.

Malaco - good idea to realise now that SATS are not pass/fail. There is the notion of an "expected level" but not meeting that, does not mean your child has failed.

That was what my daughter said. I have a dd in year 9 so know that it wouldn't make any difference to her whether she got a mark below or above the expected level in the real thing.

Assume dd just used "i didn't pass" as shorthand for "I did not reach the expected level." Neither of us used the word "failed."

Thing that I worry for the school which starts intense SATs prep this early, is that the results maybe inflated and does not reflect the child's true understanding and ability.
Good for school. Lots of parents look at SATs results when choosing school.
But I have seen some posts on secondary, that their child was put into higher sets than actual ability due to high sats score, and struggling.

Yes, i don't think dd's school will be doing intense sats prep. The test at this stage is just to see what they know. We didn't find that they did intense prep when dd1 was in year 6 and the sets dd1 was put in at secondary suited her fine.
I would have thought intense test prep would be more something that happened in 11+ areas in year 5 and i think if a child was struggling in a set or finding it too easy in our non 11+ area, it would be easier for them to move up or down a set than it would be to move to another school. They do move them up or down at dd1's school so it all settles down.

As far as I’m aware ds hasn’t sat any SATs tests so far. In fact they went on a week long residential recently which was a lovely start to the Y6 year.

All he’s mentioned is that they have longer maths and English lessons in the morning, every morning and topic work in the afternoon. He’s annoyed that they only get 20 mins of P.E each week though? I will double check on this at parents evening but I’ll be disappointed if this is the case, it’s not much is it, or is this the norm?