Interpreting KS2 Sats

[Ang69]

Just got DD's KS2 Sats results, this is the first time I've dealt with these so unsure what they mean. It says she has achieved standard which is good but can anyone shed any light on the scores? She got 109 in English Grammar, 118 in reading and 110 in maths.

My very clever DS only dropped 2 marks across all 3 maths papers but got 118, so if you get 120 you have basically get full marks in maths! It's a bit lower for reading. Frustratingly, he was 1 point off 120 for maths and reading (and a couple of points off for SPAG).
He got 118 for everything.

It's entirely arbitrary though, if the midpoint of scoring isn't set at 100 but that is instead some sort of 'criterion point'. It's like no standard score I ever saw!

@superbirdtrooperbird a lot of our children who we were expecting to get GD in maths didn’t. Not sure why really, thought the arithmetic in particular was harder than expected. Odd she only got 30 mins for papers 2 and 3 though - it’s deinitely 40 mins for those.

That said, I wouldn’t worry. 109 means she was only 1 or 2 marks off the 96 marks out of 110 needed. I have a couple of children who are excellent mathematicians and got 109 - it’s just one of those things when you’re basing it on one set of test scores.

@MissWimpyDoodle one of ours got full marks on paper one, and 17/20 on paper two for spag and was given a scaled score of 120 so you can still score 120 with a couple of mistakes on the spag.

For what it’s worth, I think it’s harder to score highly on the maths than the two English papers. Just my opinion but when it’s out of 110 and you need 96, that’s a lot of marks where silly mistakes can be made. The average scale score is lower for the maths than the reading.

Skeleton it was only one of the papers they got 30 mins for, pretty sure it was reasoning. It was the one with question about nets, and the dice with some sides blank.

The last one was definitely reasoning and that’s the one with the dice. Should be 40 mins. How strange, I can’t see why any school would give them less time... very very odd

I asked DDs teacher and she sort of just brushed me off. Which is unusual, I've worked in her school and we have a good relationship.

DS (ASD) got 115 maths, 118 SPAG and 108 reading, last year DD was 120,120, 114 reading and she's at a London grammar - only just got in but results there are almost all A/A*s in GCSEs and she got above average for the grammar in her end of year tests esp. maths (93% vs 77%) and science. English she struggled a bit more on.

Both mine find the maths the easiest though DS is silly he says he does the paper in 5 mins though he's ASD. I prefer maths to English too.

Dd got 108 for maths. Lower of the three scores. She thought the paper was very hard. Good to know she was only a couple of mistakes off though.

The kids in her school have spent the last three days discussing who got what. Apparently there were no surprises. Those expecting to do well did,those expecting to not do well didn't do well. The kids aren't very interested really. After four years in the school they all have a pretty good idea of how they're doing.

Are there any secondary school teachers on here? If so, can you give us a guide of what maths sats score would mean being top-setted in a pretty high-performing (but non-selective) secondary school? I realise it's an estimate but any info helpful, thank you

I'm not a secondary school teacher, but in my experience, if SATs are used for setting at all they are used for an initial sort before the school does it's own "fine tuning" test. What SATs are used for is to provide baseline predictions for GCSE results. Obviously this is.very broad brush, and not to be regarded as targets for individuals.

Glad to hear SATS don't convert to individual GCSE targets Bertrand -couldn't see how reading ability at 11 could set/ predict GCSE music, art or biology.

Is it just a school with x% joining who are meeting expected standard would be expected to get y% of certain grades from that cohort.

Sets will be what sets will be. In a school with say 240 pupils, only 30 or 60 (if they run parallel halves) can be top set. There is no point thinking about it now, just relax for 2 months. Any decent school will a) adjust setting as needed as the year(s) progress and b) not limit a child who happens to be second set in a high performing year group.

Our school shows scatter graphs of incoming CAT scores v GCSE results. yes there is a correlation, but it is not as strong as you might expect. They stress every time that a pupil's attitude to schoolwork can make a big difference to final results.

Just tell your children the school will put them in what they think are the best sets based on info available, and if needed they will be moved up or down. Don't get hung up on 'top set' - that way madness lies.

Muuuuuum The SATs results are used for the government performance measures for individual pupils. But schools should/will set their own targets too for pupils based on how they have been proved to perform. Expectations of pupils shouldn't be 'limited' by their SATs results.

"Is it just a school with x% joining who are meeting expected standard would be expected to get y% of certain grades from that cohort"

No. It's an individual computer generated baseline for each child. The school will not have done it's job properly if this individual child does not at least get those baseline grades.

I think our secondary used CATS and subject scores in the computer model to give predicted GCSE grades though could have got that wrong. When you get expected etc its related to those for your child. Though we only got a vague thing saying your daughter is expected to get grades 7 to 9 in her GCSEs and didn't get individual breakdowns.

SATs are used by many schools to generate GCSE target grades for every subject, so yes, reading and maths at KS2 generate target grades for art and PE GCSE. Schools generally use a company called Fischer Family Trust to generate these targets which are called FFT targets. Schools can decide whether they want to give students target grades which would make the school average, or put it in the top 25% of schools or top 5%.

Crucially, these computer generated target grades should not be shared with students and should be amended by teachers who know the student and their recent attainment. This, unfortunately, does not always happen, some schools plaster them on report cards as target grades, and some schools only allow teachers to amend them upwards.

Students who look like they may fail to meet their target grade may find themselves in intervention groups/compulsory revision classes come Y10/11.

So good SATS will mean high expectations for GCSE across the board and pressure to achieve those at least for the school and quite possibly passed on to the child?

My daughter put quite a lot of pressure on herself for SATS despite her school and us trying to keep it low key - there were no extra sessions, homework worksheets etc, and we told her they were to measure school not her.

Hope the next 5 years aren't going to be her feeling equally pressured to meet targets

What’s more bonkers is that computer generated GCSE targets change every year as they are updated as genuine GCSE data comes out.

So a kid in Y7 may be given an FFT of 9, and that same kid be given an FFT of 7 in Y11. If they get an 8 then they’ll have gone from underachieving to overachieving, when the only thing that has changed is their target grade.

Another ludicrous thing is that whilst Y6 teachers are statutorily required to give a teacher assessment for Science, that grade isn't used to predict Science GCSE targets - the Maths and Reading tests are.

"So good SATS will mean high expectations for GCSE across the board and pressure to achieve those at least for the school and quite possibly passed on to the child?"

No. Just "expected progress". The school, the child or the parents might impose pressure to achieve, but being asked to make "expected progress" should not be a burden.

Bertrand you know that “expected progress” is bullshit. You can’t measure progress and it certainly isn’t linear.

That's interesting Feenie. DS2's school do very little science and I've often wondered how they are able to assess anything. The science work topics mentioned on a couple of reports hasn't actually happened (according to DS2 who isn't prone to fanciful stories). DS2 has done really well on his SATs tests but he'll be starting from scratch practically when it comes to science.

My ds was exactly the same - his school didn't even bother to report it, even though it's statutory and ds says he had about 3 lessons. The high school Science teacher is tearing his hair out trying to teaching Y7 kids with vastly different experiences of primary school Science and ds struggles to keep up as a result.

I taught secondary science for 14 years and there was a definite drop in the level of science knowledge that incoming year 7 students had on entry to secondary school after the year 6 science SATs papers were dropped.

That being said, the coverage of the curriculum in some primary schools was always quite variable.