How common is it to be at Greater Depth throughout primary school?

[drinkingbeer]

Friend has 3 kids in Y7, 6 and 3. She says they've all been getting Greater Depth in all subjects throughout their primary years. How common is this? My daughter in Y3 is bright and got a Greater depth in one area but expected on others. I know it's totally not appropriate to compare kids, but what's the reality like? Has anyone's kids got GD across the board for every single report?

Our state primary did not just report on Maths/Numeracy and English/Literacy and Writing, but also DT, Music, PE, Geography etc etc
My DC were all Greater Depth or Exceeding in Numeracy and Literacy throughout including all SATS but not in the other areas. It would change from year to year. One year the highly gifted musician didn’t get exceeding in Music so I didn’t read too much into that.

All I did notice having multiple DC in the same primary school for years is that things kept changing. What used to be Greater Depth became Exceeding and some kids learnt cursive writing in Reception another not until Year 2. The underlying reading scheme was changed and altered multiple times (like one was a free reader in Reception although another was not allowed to be a free reader until the end of Year 2 although underlying reading ability was higher), as well as how they taught maths kept changing. It is really quite hard to keep up with! One kid was given a baseline reception government assessment test as a test of future outcome…. The very experienced elderly Reception teacher told me he was on track to receive all A stars at GCSE as he was way off the curve. I have to say that was the funniest thing I ever heard throughout their primary years. I still don’t know if she was being serious or not.

Also, a parent can heavily influence that anyway. Our school marked against set criteria in the National Curriculum that they would handout half way through the academic year during a parent evening highlighting which areas the child had already done and which they had not. A very involved parent could just practise the bits that hadn’t been shown yet and tell the DC to do that in school. As we are in an 11 plus area with lots of involved parents, I am sure many did. Just as they tutored heavily for 11 plus and some even did revision for SATs. So a child who had been honed in this way isn’t necessarily much cleverer than another child who has not.

It depends on your field. In mine, the term "ability" is associated with what you're calling "potential". I'm under the impression that the Department for Education uses the term "achievement" rather than "ability" to describe the results of the SATS. Just so long as we all know what we're referring to.

You make it sound as though they're cheating the system! Presumably schools are measuring a combination of raw intelligence and application

It’s not a measure of intelligence but what you are able to do. Children with involved parents will make more academic progress typically. It’s also of course impacted by the quality of teaching which is what SATs are for- to keep schools accountable for pupil progress

Yes this is quite common. Have more faith in your friend :)

One of mine has been throughout (about to sit Y6 SATs) - she's very academically capable, but much less adept in social stuff and some other areas. I would have been a similar profile when I was a kid - academically I'm pretty strong with a very good memory but other stuff is more of a battle for me.

Other child is greater depth at reading - and just about expected level for other things - but has a lot of SEN issues meaning things don't come as easily to her.

@Legomania - I did not mean it is cheating the system.

I meant that if you understand education, look up the national curriculum criteria for each year group, look at your DC’s school books regularly, ask inferential question during reading every day, practise harder spellings, tell them to use semi colons and dashes in their writing, vary sentence openers/length etc, check they really do know their timetables/basic maths inside out, then it isn’t that hard to achieve greater depth for a reasonably bright child…
The primary my DC went to has outstanding KS1 and 2 SATS and part of the reason is the school teaching the already involved parent group what it actually means to get greater depth at KS2 SATs. Once a DS is at that level, then secondary school should be relatively straight forward other than years when they don’t have a good teacher.

@Intergalacticcatharsis understood.

Do you happen to know if there is anything preventing (some) teachers from sharing SATS criteria with parents? We have a Y2 who gets GD and at parents' evening the teacher showed us what DS would need to do for GD, but implied he wasn't supposed to. (I know they can easily be found online).