oh ranty rant rant, tell me to stop being so irritated by my friend showing me her dds amazing SATS results

[Enid]

grrr I PROMISED myself i would never get caught up in this shitey shite

this is dd1s old friend who has gone to a private primary (4 int eh class!!)
it was the bit when she pointed to the national average of level 3's (22% or something) and then to her dds class (80%). I said god that is shocking really (dunno why) and she said 'well you know, bright children'

oh it just pissed me off, I expect I'm all jealous and that.

I feel better already, thanks.

Um - how many is 80% of 4?

(Somebody didn't get level 3 for maths )

Just a thought... how did 80% of the class get level 3 when there are 4 of them? Surely each child represents 25% of the class, so even if 3 had acheived level 3 that would still only be 75% of them.

You may like to point that out to your friend

nit-picky? moi?

Sorry, x-post (slow typer)

Afraid its unavoidable! You just can't excape the parent who wants to boast! Just remember though, its all very well being at the top now, but its a long way to fall and she's gonna have so much pressure to keep that up! Much better to progress steadily imho!

her stats aren't necessarily wrong - it's possible because they write more than one subject (it's about 5 or 6 isn't it?) - so the 80% will be 80% of 20 or 24 papers iyswim.

From the tables I remember the percentages referred to the number of children with that grade in that subject, not the number of papers?

I bet her dd was the first to sleep through the night, sit up, talk, and discover a new planet too. Ignore, ignore, ignore.

I have no bloody idea really Wendy. But I just had a look at dd's ( for not looking at it properly beforehand) but their year results (as in all the children) are done as a percentage.

However, dd's individual result has 5 scores in total so theoretically, as there are only 4 in the class, they could have given the results by paper rather than percentage.

Anyway I prefer the idea that the administrators of this school full of bright children can't do simple percentages

yes, your theory is better and somehow, more satisfying

Enid, she's trying to rope you into the school I think. She knows that having four in a class is not ideal, and she's trying to recruit.

She can't say 'Your dd will be ok because she's not ugly like mine, so come to the school' so she has to say 'Ooh look at our exam results.'

Her motives are appallingly clear.

Schools with less than a certain number of pupils per year are not supposed to be allowed to publish their SATS results because of the risk of being able to identify individual children.

To gbe honest, I have gone private for my children and one of the advantages in her particular school is that I will avoid the comparisons (sil I know will be a nightmare, her dd is the same age as mine). She already tries to compare everything but my dd will not do SATS at all.

I always get suspicious when SATS results are too high as I think at what cost. usually intensive coaching/ignoring the wider curriculum etc.

I think this was her individual evaluation

I do feel horrilbe and carping moaning about it thougj

100x my dh says what you said

I have tried to tell her a million times that we are NOT going to go to the school. I suppose I encourage her by saying wow that sounds fantastic when they talk about the 100 acre gournds etc etc but I am only being polite and couldn't really give a shit

and her dd is so not ugly (aRE any children at 7?) she is beautiful. poor lamb.

Hi Enid - your friend might be trying to do down the state system to bolster her own decision to go private perhaps. For what its worth my dd has just done her end of year 2 sats. To help put our own child's results in context, we have been given the class results by percentages of girls/boys/whole class and then a comparison with national. 86% of the girls achieved level 3 or above in reading. It is a good school but has a very mixed catchment yet they can achieve excellent results like this.

Surely it's not that great statistically to compare a really small sample with a really large sample. The governors at ds's school were in a dizzy spin this year because it was a really small year 6, and so much more vulnerable to 'bad days'.

League tables are rubbish for that reason alone.

Surely 80% with only that many in the class is an appalling result. I'd complain if I was her.

So three kids in the class did well. Whoop de do. Silly cow.

(a) they've effectively been having private individual tuition, so I too think why not 100% then?

(b) 80% of 4 ... hmm, one got a level 2 then. Has she provided evidence her daughter's isn't the level 2 child? (Not that it matters! - but it's sort of odd she's talking about the average, not her own specific daughter's results.)

(c) it's only the not-so-good, aspirational private schools that do SATS - and as someone else said, it's not exactly irrelevant to their marketing. The really good ones don't bother

How many people have I repeated?

whoops - one child got mostly level 2 then

Enid. Just look surprised and ask her why her private school is still doing sats. For me. Please.

Of course, there is the fact that schools which overdose on 3s at KS1 SATs have nowhere to go at KS2 other than down - whereas schools which are more cautious in doling out the 3s have a little leeway and can hence show their Value Added.

I say this partly because DW's Appalling, Stupid Yet Pushy SIL keeps on at us (through MIL - she doesn't speak to us directly, perish the thought) to know what DD got in her SATs, beause her DS got all 3s. (Well, whoop-de-doo for him. No way is he brighter than DD, so she can sod off.)

Our head teacher has been giving the same line to everyone who asks - namely, that this academic year is a blip in our school and there are a lot of bright kids. They could be giving 3s out left, right and centre, but they are not - and when she took me through the criteria I can see why. If you stick with them to the letter, it is very, VERY hard indeed to get a 3.

Um - how many is 80% of 4?

(Somebody didn't get level 3 for maths )

I expect the school can do percentages, but the poor sod who only got a level 2 was swiftly kicked out!