how easy/hard is it to get level 4 and level 5 at primary school?

[hotHELL]

Iam not British, so not very clear how the system works. I was under the impression that the average hard-working child who has supportive parents will get level 4 and level 5. Is that true?

Average ability is level 4 for an 11 year old. Level 5 is supposed to be about average for a 13 year old but the SATs tests they take in year 6 (top of the junior school) are from level 3 to 5. Each level is split into three bands e.g. 4c, 4b, 4a or some schools do 4, 4.3, 4.7. 4c would be slighlty below average for an 11 year old but still within acceptable limits for the age. 4a slightly above. Obviously level 5 is above average for an 11 year old

No, the average ability child maybe for the apprpriate year- a child can be outstandingly ahrd working with fabulously supportive aprents and have ability issues because of sn or whatever! It doesn't mean theya re lazy or non supported.

Blimey
I always wondered what they meant.
No I don't know - how inept is that!

We removed DS1 from his last school because he was not happy. He passed entrance exams to new school easily and is doing well. But in a big arguement with his teacher when i told her he was leaving, she told me he had just gotlevel 5 in all tested subjects. I just hurumphed as i did not know what that actually meant. She then said he had not been trying and was treading water as he had got level 5 in all testing done at entry age which was 7.
My riposte was "well clearly he has not been happy and progressing - why is this the first time you are telling me" but I still had no idea what level 5 indicated.

We are three years on now so it obviously means squat but no wonder she was cross we were pulling him out!And thank goodness i moved him as he is progressing well again and , more importantly, is very happy

You are absolutely right peachy. I didn't actually say any thing about whether the child was supported or not or anything about laziness or dilligence.Some kids make no effort and achieve level 5 some work their socks off and get level 3.Some with and some without support. But most kids , what ever their potential, will make better progress with support from home than without.

I understood it to be....

A child (average meaning no special needs, regardless of hardwork or supportive parents) is EXPECTED to reach level 4 in year 6.

This is the standard that government sets for the schools, to see if the teaching is up to scratch (imo)

I think I have actually almost deliberately blanked this area.
My DS1 seems bright enough so i just want him to be interested and learn and make friends. DS2 is severe SN and when they start breaking down his key stage and his pre-school equivelent ( he is 11) I don't really want to know. I guess now I have DD at school i should try and engage with it all this time.
But the endless testing just annoys me and I think I am now officially very old

AN average child should get level 4 in year 6 - but level 4 is a VERY broad band - I think it means anything from around 48% to around 70% depending on whether it's an a,b or c. Level 5 is very good in year 6 - I think something like 20% of 10/11 year olds get 5s.

Pagwatch - I would be surprised if your son's teacher meant a SATS level 5 at aged 7 - apart from anything else, simply because he probably wouldn't have covered all the maths necessary by that age. Could it have been some internal school grading?

No I'm sure it was SATs ( because I was already aware that I would have to nod sagely as if I knew what she was talking about).
He was freakishly good at maths though and had been doing seperate work at his school before who had told me he would be getting special work.

That wore off .

Wow - and level 5 in literacy and science too in year 2! Gulp. Definitely G and T!

I am feeling a little guilty now about sounding so indifferent to DS1.
I should stressthat at the time DS2 was in the middle of diagnosis for severe special needs and we were kind of focussing on him at that point.
I think his two schools in that time ( we moved to get provision for DS2) both told us he was advanced in a couple of areas but we were just glad he was coping and happy.

He is still doing well so I didn't just ignore him until now. He is currently just starting his GCSE's and is doing pretty well.
I guess he maybe should have had a bit more attention for his extra abilities at that age but I just wanted him to be happy - and maybe my attention being elsewhere wasn't a bad thing in the long run.

For what it's worth, I think you did the right thing - if by default! It sounds as if you concentrated on keeping him happy, which is the most important thing, obviously. If he's still doing well, then that proves you were right!

smartie it was to the OP not you who said 'average.... with supportive parents'

DS1 is at level 1!

I agree about all this bloody testing. Some sn children make fab progress which is not quantifiable by a QCA test. I work with a profoundly deaf kid who wrote gobblde gook when she came into the junior school (she had been assessed at 2c was more like 1c) She is now in year six and her writing/ language has improve beyond belief but she still only comes out at 2b. Looks like she's hardly made any progress at all. Fortunately she has a brill mum who takes no notice of nc levels.

pagwatch, am also sceptical about achieving level 5 aged 7! the routine year 2 SATs only test up to level 3. was he entered for the year 6 test? did your son appear to be working 4 years ahead of his peers? if so, he is truly G and T!

I honestly don't know. I didn't persue it.

I have been thinking about this since it came up and I actually think it may have been possible.I can't really describe how difficult a time it was for us all and this issue just kind of never really raised its head - but i can remeber him being different from his peers in some areas.

I also think , now i look at it from this time distance that he concealed it.

Mostly i think that because DS2's autism had made DS1 very uptight about beingthe centre of attention. And I remember him getting upset about the maths thing - he kept being asked how he knew some of this stuff and he got upset and said he didn't know " he could just see it in his head".
I think looking back he was a bit afraid that maybe he had an 'autie' element to his understanding .
When he had spellings at school he was ALWAYS top and never practiced them .He could just see then once and then know them.He would just look at the list and that was it. all right every time.

Please bear in mind the way this has come up. I did not ask if my son was G&T and was just a bit flummoxed by the levels his ad quoted. This was also three years ago so have not tried any bragging rights .

I am personally sceptical of the whole G&T thing as I was a highly gifted very early reader who got pulled into classes two years ahead ( which my sister was in and i am now totally average. Sometimes these things just level out.

So what I am saying is I just don't know. maybe he was or maybe she was fibbing or just wrong. But it is interesting in retrospect - to me anyway.
And he is happy

as i am writing this and remebering this stuff I am slowly realising that he was scared that he was autistic.
He raised it once but i didn't see how much it worried him. He is NT of course but now I think about that poor little chap being anxious about doing wekk because of his brother. off to give him a hug.
Oh the JOYS of an average kid.

It depends on the school and how well they 'teach to the test' (and I'm not having a go at the Primary school teachers, I know that we do the same thing at secondary )

I have taught children who have got at level 4 in science who at 11 years old cannot tell my why we get day and night!

We have some very different primary schools, and in yr7 often children's prior attainment are referred to as:
"Johnny got a L4c from school XXX" and "Melissa got a L4c from school YYY"

because they mean very different things in terms of the child's abilities.

All the children sit CATs tests, but these are not used at all. SATs are used widely for target-setting and progress monitoring, but they are very unreliable.

I know what you mean martianbishop kids are taught to jump through hoops then the next key stage have to pick up the pieces.
What drives me mad is stuff we have to teach in primary- lots of 10 year olds can now describe the process of photosynthesis (which I studied for my o'level biology)without truly understanding it, but do not know simple things like the name of the tree an acorn comes from!( "erm an acorn tree?")WHen I was at junior school we didn't even do science but I knew alot more about plants and animals than most of today's kids.

Smartie, primary teachers have all my sympathy. this jumping through hoops thing is insane. I've taight kids of 12 who cannot tell me which season follows summer. Not that they have not been taught by good teachers it is just that the bloody NC is so prescriptive nowerdays.

TBH, I;d rather them go back to a 'Nature table' and leave stuff to an age where they can actually understand what is happening.

i think level 4/5 is broadly average for a yr 6 pupil. no real experience as my eldest is still pre-school, but our local school gets 100% level 4 and about 80% level 5.

Ds1 is in yr6. In some ways I don't see entirely eye-to-eye with his teacher, but in others she is fantastic.

She told the children they don't do any SATs practice/prep until well after Christmas, and that no-one is to get stressed about it, and that if parents ask about SATs to tell them they are testing the school not the pupils.

She doesn't believe in homework. But sets some occasionally because she has to. This week's Maths homework is called 'the laziest game in the world'. it's here

Apparently it's 'fantastically thrilling' and 'addictive'
I'm not sure about that, but it's a lot better than some of the alternatives!

Yes! Ban SATs and bring back the nature table! - I think it would help children to appreciate and care for their environment too. I know my kids are so turned off science in the junior school it's so boring most of the time and taught by teachers who are not really specialists with limited resources to do the subject justice.(and this from a junior school teacher). My eldest has just started in year 7 and she LOVES science now. I remember doing some lovely projects on animals at junior school and it didn't stop me getting good science o'lvels.

I have never met a primary teacher yet who cannot tell me, without the benefit of SATs , where one of her class 'is'.

To a degree, in secondary, an external exam makes some sense, since I teach nearly 200 children if I'm working full time, so I don't have the depth of understanding of a primary teacher, who teaches 30 children.

And you are right, primary teachers are ofetn not science specialists, and lack all the good kit. I'd hate to teach outside my field. and know that I wouldn't do a terrific job if I had to try.

Brring back the nature table (unless there is a science specialist on staff) and let us deal with the more complex stuff when the kids are capable of dealing with complex abstractions.

Why dot they leave the teaching to the teachers, eh?

Martian bishop- we are kindred spirits thankyou thankyou thankyou . What's even more annoying is that I teach deaf kids and I am STILL expected to make them jump through hoops (when they have very delayed language and some additional difficulties). Ofsted recently critisised the unit where I work for the levels some of our children achieved. (Although most achieve very highly compared to other similar settings) All of my pupils are statemented for christs sake!!!(He knew diddly squat about deaf children) but that's a dicuission for another thread.