KS2 Sats mocks - how much improvement?

[wtftodo]

I know this can go either way, eg a child can do worse on the day than in mocks, etc. I'm just trying to guage if anything I'm doing is helping or whether I should step up my support.

I have a bright (GD across the board in y2) child who may or may not be neurodiverse, we're on waiting lists; they often underachieve or dial it in at school; they avoid mental effort, and panic about maths reasoning in particular. Context: I know they're still young and high school will likely be better for them in lots of ways but I want them to have the best possible start and I see how much happier/confident they are when doing well.

They are still on track to be greater depth in everything else but from year 4 their maths has been sliding. Since June we've been doing a little extra maths practice at home, maybe 5-10 minutes 3-4 days a week. They don't tolerate being taught or shown but they will (reluctantly) do a few extra questions. They mostly seem fine/ to confidently tackle them as long as they read the question properly. Using Atom which suggests they should be doing v well on tests.

Anyway I was hoping this would feed into their maths at school..They got 101 in maths at end of year 5 mock sats, which is great; but just got 104 this week in another mock. I guess I was hoping they'd have made a little more progress than 3 marks in 5months with the extra support I'm trying to offer at home.

It feels like it's too late to get them back up to where they could/should be - is it? Can anyone offer any insights or advice?

Also there have been improvements socially and emotionally I think which is the most important thing. I just want to help boost their confidence so they start high school with good self regard. (long, sorry; thanks if you've read this far)

tl:dr; how much would you expect a (supposedly) bright child to improve from mocks to final ks2 sats? esp in maths.

Look at the arithmetic paper first. There are only around 8-9 different types of questions, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fraction and percentages. If they can master these, they can easily get full marks, which goes a long way towards a good score! It's also easier practicing these than the reasoning questions , as each reasoning question appears different, even if the processes are not!

Most kids i know were getting 40/40 on the arithmetic paper? Is she doing that?

We progressed 9 scaled score from the mocks. With a lot of practise at home. Basically mine couldnt finish the papers. So sped up a bit.
There are cgp practice papers. Have a look whst she got wrong on these mocks

Year 6 teacher here. If she’s got 104 on a mock SAT paper now then that’s really good! A lot of the Y6 curriculum won’t have been covered yet. To improve her score, definitely focus on arithmetic! Half my class were getting 40/40 on it last year which really boosts their score and it’s always the same style of questions that come up. If you use the maths bot website then it creates arithmetic papers for you and if you select a certain question it will make endless amounts of thst style!

You’re putting far too much pressure on your child. They are still working at a good level, and there’s no such thing as ‘mock SATs’ - its just test practice that helps build test technique often with little correlation to the maths they do in class. really, you’re setting them up for a massive disappointment if they get a lower score on the day.

101 - 104 reflects a change in standardised score not marks so it’s more of an improvement than you’re seeing. Especially if the 101 was on y5 level paper & the 104 on a proper y6 sats paper. With some targeted intervention a child getting 104 can definitely reach 110+ (greater depth) by sats week. I regularly manage this with the children I work with in booster groups.

However, you also want to consider what’s going to help your dc most at secondary school & that may not be top set if they do best when they feel confident & know where they are. Being top of second set is often better for these children.

You do know that the SATS are for measuring the school, not the child, don’t you?

If, or even if not, your child is ND, please focus more on your DC learning that they have to practise/revise/learn new methods, etc as this is what they will need for Alevels and university.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/62c30b5ae90e07748b592966/2022_key_stage_2_scaled_score_tables.pdf

This table shows the raw score conversion for the 2022 SATs papers (this will change each year so will be different for different papers).
It shows that your child must have scored at least ten more marks than last time, which is a very strong improvement in such a short space of time.
I’m targeting every child for GD in my top set.
In my class there is a lot of Year 6 content we haven’t covered yet - six months worth. Once your child has learned that, their score will continue to improve.
(Another thing the table shows is how difficult it is to get Greater Depth. You can’t miss more than 15 marks across the three papers!).

Don’t worry too much about greater depth, you can still be great at maths and get working at expected. Many parents underestimate just how challenging the state curriculum is now. My DS got 108 in maths ks2 but he’s solidly in the top half of set 1 at his comp and working on maths that I didn’t do (despite being in set 1 and good at maths) until year 10!

Not the same but similar. My child was and is still GD in most subjects but really struggles with maths. Over the years has slipped from expected to working towards at the end of y5.

After a score of 16 on her arithmetic test we decided to started her with a 1:1 tutor to help with her confidence going into SATS. In only a couple of weeks we, the teacher and the tutor have seen a huge improvement.

On the whole I'm not really bothered about SATS results however our first choice high school set only for maths based on SATS results and the way she was going it would have been a bottom set, that wouldn't have been a true reflection of her overall ability and also would have massively dented her self esteem. If she can reached expected by SATS week and bag a middle set in high school I'll be more than happy with that

Are people actually practicing papers with their children and arranging tutors to increase their sats scores??

I'm genuinely surprised.

One of my children didn't pass her sats (she's AuDHD) but we were so proud of how much she'd progressed and what she achieved. My other child is on track for GD this academic year, but if he doesn't get this, I know he'll have tried his best.

They are both are on different journeys with their learning and their sats scores reflect that. I would have hated for either of them to feel any additional pressure or expectation from us as parents. My parents were very focused on my academic attainment and not focused enough on my wellbeing.

I've started with the tutor just to build her confidence. I remember vividly getting really upset at the dining table with my mum over y6 maths and I would hate for her to feel the same. It's definitely working for her and knowing that she won't clam up in lessons and get herself worked up is enough for me.

In hindsight I would have done this sooner. It isn't just for SATS reasons.

It depends on the child. Our primary did a lot of boosters ror some kids and really over inflated scores. So some kids then went into the wrong y7 sets and have dropped back down. I think thats because those children are able but dont necessarily pick things up quickly so the repetition of y6 really helped them as they had accuracy and the tests arent that stretching. I imagine they will start moving back up when ks3 starts repeating some of the work a bit more or into gcse work. They just cant cope with so much new stuff.
Theres also not enough feedback (at our secondary) so identify and improve on mistakes in the tests they take. They had the same q twice now and dd had gotten it wrong twice and she said most of the class still got it wrong. Its a bit of a trick question.

What does school say? If she is floating around the 100 mark, they will be doing plenty in the coming months to bolster that score as they what her to meet the required standard.

I personally don't care about SATs (I have a yr 6 child), they are to test the school. However, I would be thinking more broadly about her maths skills and if she needs some extra support. I'd look at either CGP resources at home or an hour per week small tutor group. We also tried Numerise for a while which had Yr 6 and preparing for secondary school modules that were good.

I agree about not focusing on SATS, which is why most teachers who have replied have said to focus on the arithmetic section. These are the key mathematical operations that will stand ALL year 6 children in good stead for secondary. The greater the automaticity in times tables, basic operations and fraction manipulation, the more " brainpower" can be spent on the higher level reasoning and understanding areas of maths.

Thanks so much everyone. Very helpful and some interesting advice. To answer some early questions: she scored pretty much 70% (69-71) across all three maths papers, with some silly mistakes in arithmetic according to teacher (I haven't seen the papers). She can get close to full marks on arithmetic for sure, some years she's been full marks on arithmetic and half marks on reasoning. So that's great advice to focus there again and make sure she's not losing any easy marks.

Agree it is still good progress. I just wasn't sure if what we are doing at home is having any additional impact (beyond progress you'd expect anyway) or whether I should change tack.

The school calls them mock sats not me.... and I don't discuss any of it with her. We talk about effort and practice and how much it helps her feel better about the work, and how she feels when she figures something out, etc. I'm clear the sats are a measure of how well the school is teaching them and that the only thing we care about is how she feels about her work, ie does she feel like she's trying hard, learning well, etc. I agree that this is a general maths issue not a sats issue; I want to avoid tutors for financial reasons and also I hope that doing it this way will ultimately help her realise she can be in control of her own learning if that makes sense? Ie long term study and motivation skills, which are a challenge for her.

I have zero interest in her going into top set, I agree it would be bad for her; but currently she's gone from being top few in maths to bottom half and the worse she does the less she tries, and gets even less enthusiastic and less confident.

We will try the arithmetic focus and keep doing bits and pieces at home.

Just to add, she is very strong on times tables, 4 operations, order of operations etc. Mixed at fractions but I think they do more of that this term.

They use CGP books for homework so I don't want to do more but I'll check out numerise which I hadn't heard of, thank you.

From the other end of the scale how much progress is realistic for those not at expected standard?

I’m not really focused on ‘passing’ but I want to help plug the gaps. I don’t want them to be in bottom set. Also worry that due to gcse predictions coming from Sats there’s no incentive for schools to help them and resources will be prioritised elsewhere.

my child has dyslexia but surprisingly was approx 5-10 marks from the reading expected level but SPAG understandably a much bigger gap.

Maths processing issues seem to be a factor. Really struggling to retain times tables. I think they have learnt to sight read or pick up the ‘gist’ of text but in maths struggles to know what to do with written questions or misinterprets what they are asking . Is ok at straight forward maths questions.

I’ve got some cgp books aimed at lower ages. The Mathsbot website is not great on my phone any information on what is good for? Is a question bank or lessons. At the minute I’m finding areas where they struggle and finding resources like white rose and maths no problem and using these to help build up the knowledge.