Any teachers about? Can you tell me about assessment data

[SholaMola]

If there are any primary teachers about please can you tell me the following:

How are children assessed?
Are there government targets for how much progress a child should make in a year?
What happens to schools if these targets are not met?
Where does this data go? Lea? Department of education?
How is this data QAd? Is it by an external body or by a colleague?
If a child starts a new year with falsely inflated levels, how does that impact on the next teacher?

I think there are huge issues in primary schools with this. I worked in an Academy where the data inflation was ridiculous because teachers were virtually beaten every six weeks, capability, lack of a pay rise and failed performance management threatened, if 'progress' hadn't been made in numerical form.

I wish there was a like button ...

Putting in a complaint won’t change anything.

It’s very common for dyslexia not to be picked up.

You’ve spent too long trusting school. You need to stop that now. And focus on what YOU can do, today, to help your child.

Also ‘work with school’ to see what they can provide. But it’s far less than you can provide.

Almost certainly the school can’t and won’t do very much - or the right things - for a Y6 child with dyslexia.

You haven’t got spare time or energy for a formal complaint. You need to use ALL your resources to find out how to help your child, and then to help them.

Formal complaints are very stressful and won’t helo you solve your problem.

It’s made up shite in secondary too. More teachers need to be talking about this. I always feel guilty when I hear parents paying attention to the detail of the figures like they’re meaningful, and now we have a situation where a pupil with dyslexia couldn’t access support promptly because the crappy data was seen as more important than the child in front of them.

I have wondered that SaltyMyDear but the school is generally considered crap at picking the things up and now I know why. The thing I don't understand is my dd is almost certainly going to fail her SATs. Surely that causes them more issues. If they had invested the time in her before she might have a chance to pass.

4 sub levels difference. In the same school? I’d say that’s one big cock up that no one picked up on it to be honest. Is it a one form entry school?

Yes it's the same school. Year 4 teacher says he progressed by 4 sub sets. I believe 1 subset is a term so it was the same as a whole academic year and one term which they term as an 'accelerated learner'. Year 5 teacher disagreed and felt he was at least a year behind but could only say he was a sub set behind as it would otherwise make their data look weird. By the end of year 5 the Ed psych report said he was dyslexic and 2 years behind. My argument is that had the data in year 4 been correct then SENCO would have been flagged up earlier.

I meant she. Bloody phone.

What I want to know is, do I have a point that her dyslexia would have been picked up earlier had the year 4 data been correct.

E as it the ed psych who picked up the dyslexia?

SholaMola - I have replied to your pm, but in what you are saying on here there is a key and significant difference.

steppemum what key and significant difference?

MyOtherProfile Yes the Ed psych picked up on the dyslexia. We had to pay for that assessment.

Ok, Op I am not trying to be a pain, but as I said in my PM, the evidence was there.

Up thread you have said:

The issue is the assessment data for year 4 places her above average

But it didn't. The end of year report said she was working towards in one third of subjects and at age related in the rest. That is not above average, that is well below average and a cause for concern.

The whole issue of whether or not that was after 4 steps of progress is a red herring. At the end of the year there was a clear concern that she was performing well below age related expectations.

The year 5 teacher should have had her on their radar for support and help, which they did, and she received it. After all that the gap has not narrowed, it has widened, which is not that unusual for dyslexic kids, as the coping strategies don't work as work gets harder and faster.

Rather than worrying about complaining (and what is it that you want to the school to do? They can't turn back time) instead put your energy into working out what she needs NOW

I agree that the school should have acted sooner, and pushed for assessment sooner, and you shoudln't have had to pay for private assessment.
Unfortunately I know that schools are so stretched that kids have to be really bad before they are getting the help they need.

OK, I think there's been some confusion. I knew she wasn t above average for year 4. But because they had said she was this meant SENCO was not forthcoming. In my view, no child should discover they are 2 years behind and have dyslexia in year 6.

OK, that makes more sense, so they didn't involve SENCO in year 5, because she had made progress in year 4.

I will come back to what I said before though. What is it you want to achieve through a complaint?
Are you complaining to improve the situation now, or because you are angry and want your feelings/opinion on record?

Frustrating as it is, I would focus on what you need now. What support does she need now?

You're right steppemum I do need to concentrate on what she needs. I suppose I want them to understand how much of a negative affect they had by repeatedly testing her in year 5 and she came home in tears when she was always bottom of the class. I want to make sure that won't happen again to anyone else. But my energy is better spent on 'working with them'.

What was her Year 2 attainment? This would be a good indicator of her likely attainment in Y6. I’m a teacher and we do not pay for dyslexia assessments because they are too expensive and a diagnosis doesn’t change any classroom practice or get a child any extra support that we can’t provide without a diagnosis.

I do have faith in the data on progress that our assessment system provides. As a Governor, I don’t want thoughts about progress, I do want data. I have no reason to believe the data isn’t accurate and the teachers sample books and do as much as is reasonable to ensure accuracy. We really do need to know where there are any weaknesses. If you do not monitor progress, you don’t know how the Sen children are doing, or the pp children, or the boys or the girls etc. We have all this data and look at subject data too so we use our budget to improve areas of the curriculum and teaching. If it’s all fiction - heaven help us! (It’s not!). We know all our children and we know what needs improving.

A child not meeting expected in one area in y4 may or may not have Sen. You would look at progress patterns and keep a close watch on what was happening. Some children plateau and steam ahead after that. Some don’t. All teachers are trying to get good progress but just because there wasn’t a diagnosis, doesn’t mean the school didn’t know that extra help was needed. It didn’t stop them giving it either. All teachers should set work based on accurate assessment. They must know what the child can do.

Many teachers go through performance management without the performance of every child being analysed. It depends what their agreed targets were. Therefore inflated progress isn’t useful to anyone and leads to massive disappointment come Sats time.

@yumyumbananas. I hope what you mean is that if dyslexia is presumed then you make adjustments in line with someone who has it. It's pretty shocking if you think having dyslexia shouldn't change classroom practice. Just for starters they may require paper with larger lines, to work from computers, extra time in exams, printouts of work to be copied from the board, time in small groups to concentrate on areas of difficulties . It's also important for a child to understand why they are struggling. The damage to my daughters self esteem has been awful to witness.

@BubblesBuddy. In this case the data was most definitley inaccurate. It put her significantly ahead at the end of year 4 which was at odds with her year 3 report and more importantly what her year 5 teacher thought. The year 4 teacher said she progressed by 4 sub sets which bought her above average. The year 5 teacher thought she was no where near this and was at least a year behind but couldn't put this on her data as it would make it look weird (her words) so instead she bought her back one sub set when she felt she should be back at least 4. So, yes, in this case it was fiction. It's interesting what you say about inflated targets not being helpful to anyone as that's what I'm trying to work out. Why would someone make out a child had improved so much when they hadn't. As you say, it would have all come out at SATs which I don't think she'll even be sitting now.

I agree she was given help, but it wasnt working (presumably because it wasn't aimed at someone with dyslexia) which surely should have triggered a SENCO referral which of course it wouldn't have as the data looked so good despite the year 5 teacher disagreeing with it.

Yes that’s what I mean, of course. We make adjustments if dyslexia is suspected. An official diagnosis wouldn’t add to this.

As for the data, if we had a child who was way out on our internal data system then we would just overwrite it to correct it. The leadership team can make changes to correct mistakes.

How did your daughter do in Y2?

We've had pupils arrive from other schools in KS2 with hugely inflated Y2 results

I can't find her year 2 report but she passed her ks1 SATs which at the time we were surprised at as she had always struggled. Shes always been in intervention and at the lower end of the class. We've been told she won't pass the ks2 SATs. Interesting what you say about making dyslexia type adjustments in the absence of a diagnosis. I'd like to think that happened here but I don't think it has as since her diagnosis she has had more adjustments made like a copy of the alphabet and handouts of work to be copied on the board. What's more perplexing is they have 3 members of staff able to diagnose dyslexia.

@yumyumbananas. When you say the internal data system, is that the annual assessment data? Does it just stay within the school then so not sent to the LEA or anything.