115 average SATs score - advice needed!

[2024namechanger]

I have always felt my son was very smart - he learnt to read in a week when he was 3, and was completely fluent before starting school. He was always very quick to understand concepts, but we didn’t really push him. He is autistic and has ADHD and our focus has been on developing social skills. As primary has progressed his intel seemed to dim a little in terms of teacher feedback. Got expected across the board in the last few reports.

In the run up to the sats, he was getting below expected in the mocks. I kicked up a bit of a fuss and he was granted reasonable adjustments. His end of year 6 report again had expected across the board. Now his SATS results have arrived, he got expected for teacher assessed English writing, but for the other English and maths papers he got 114,116 and 116.

Google tells me this is a great score. I would like the hive mind of mumsnet to advise please! This isn’t a brag post, but a sense check. His older brother is very clever but unable to achieve so I am just trying to be a bit more alive to this one’s needs.

He’s a bright boy, what reasonable adjustments did he get?

That is very good scores.
Practically the highest you can get (120).

A prompt, and extra time. I queried the extra time, but essentially he needed so much prompting it was to allow for the time taken to prompt. He was previously unable to start the exam until others started leaving, and the sense of urgency kicked in. It’s hard to accept your bright child needs adjustments. But when they hand in empty papers, crying that they just couldn’t start, they clearly do. The exam board grants the adjustments, not the school.

Very good scores, he’s well above expected. Expected is 100, 110 is ‘greater depth’ and 120 is the highest score.

What sort of responses are you looking for?

I think that you can take the learning from this experience and advocate for reasonable adjustments going forward. The difference to your son in terms of his ability to achieve his potential is clear.

As he moves into secondary, I’d be having conversations to ensure continued support. Especially in the early weeks if they do their own benchmarking tests.

Agree with this. I would arrange a conversation with the SEN lead at his new school to explain the difference the reasonable adjustments made to his scores and push for more of the same moving forwards.

DD2 got this sort of score, also AuDHD and has a very high IQ. If your son isn't achieving at a high level in his normal class work you may want to consider an EHC needs assessment to see if he would benefit from more support in lessons. Also worth meeting the SENCO at his secondary if you haven't already.

Advice and guidance on what to do (if anything) for him academically. I feel like he has probably been misunderstood/not achieving his potential for a few years rather than the SATS being the anomaly, as he was so obviously bright as a little boy.

His big bro is bright and has an EHCP. Took two years to achieve and hasn’t made any difference. His big bro is now out of mainstream school and still can’t achieve in tests. I don’t want to repeat mistakes

@2024namechanger really until he has done at least the first term at secondary school can you say whether he is going to need any extra support.
Teaching style for secondary is very different to primary and until he has started you won't know how he reacts to it.
Are you basically thinking his high SATS score is "false" because he got the extra help?
SATS are very fake to be honest because primary schools spend so much of Yr 6 focusing on them to get the high scores they aren't really a good indicator of what a child is actually like.

SATS are not a great indicator. My DD got 120 on spelling, 118 in maths and 116 in other one for which she’d previously got 119 in the “mocks”. She is no genius but they were drilled so much in Y6 she did really well.

Many Secondary schools know that SATs aren’t that helpful on their own and re-test in the first term to sort out maths and English tests.

What is the secondary school like? Does it have a good senco and is it very exam-driven?

My daughter got 113, 116 and 117 and it was a big surprise because she goes(just finished at) to a regular state primary school and isn’t one of the kids considered particularly clever by the school as far as I can tell. The school handled SATs really well and proportionately (didn’t make a massive deal out of it or do loads of practice papers etc) so it’s not like they’d all been trained within an inch of their lives.

It’s a really good score on exams in a specific format in a specific year and I’m hoping it means that she’s really chill about and able to demonstrate knowledge in exams generally. But nothing is going to change because of it! Even if I’d known she was going to do so well I wouldn’t have put her in for the grammar school because it’s miles away and I’d prefer she go to the very good local girls school with all her friends, so to us it was just a positive bit of news that hopefully indicates she’ll find some aspects of senior school easier than we’d expected (though I know that exams are in a very different format, so maybe not that transferable) but which doesn’t really change anything.

I’d carry on as you were! The adjustments probably helped him but then again you could give me all week to do a maths exam and still wouldn’t get a high grade! So I don’t think they’re the reason he did well, and why wouldn’t you speak to the senior school to try to get the same adjustments for later exams? Other than that, just congratulate him and move on?

it sounds like the issue isn’t academic ability, but being able to function in the classroom (not being able to start until others have left)

school day to day is nothing like SATs which is just a controlled test environment. Your son won’t come up against that again until end of term exams or GCsEs. Surely the issue is how he will learn the content for his tests in the classroom rather than whether he’s capable of it?

My son got 120, 120 and 118 in his but we know he’s reasonably bright. However I’m more concerned that he’ll fail to fulfil his potential at secondary, as he has the propensity to mess about - although hates getting told off, which I hope will continue.

I was a bit annoyed about his flat refusal to do the 11+, although grammar school would mean long days/bus ride and him going to school in a different county (we’re technically in catchment). He was absolutely convinced he’d hate it there. However the local comp is ‘good’ and he’ll still be with his mates.

What are you hoping for in terms of adjustments at secondary? From experience, secondary school does its own tests for setting purposes anyway - were you hoping he’d be allowed additional time in these tests?

Learning at primary is very different from learning at secondary level. Sats are an indicator of ability to memorise things like spellings and times tables and perform basic maths manipulations and basic comprehension in english.
Secondary level learning is much more applied and to do with the ability to connect concepts and imply connections between things based on similar situations which the student already knows.
They are totally different skill sets. Especially where there is a learning disability or neurodiversity. Even with those high scores, he may not be able to make the step up to applying the stuff he has learned already. I would wait and see how he does in y7.

Encourage him at home and try to ask him lots of exploring typed questions to help you gauge how good he is at thinking around a problem. So things like, if you are reading or watching something ask about what the people are feeling and what are they saying to show that (helps with quotes for english lit and other evidence based subjects) or ask wondering questions about how the world works, e.g. I wonder how the water in our house gets heated up for the showers, i wonder why cakes rise in the oven, i wonder why food changes colour when it cooks. This helps with science and technology subjects.
If he can do this sort of stuff easily then secondary will be easier for him although obviously could still be very hard if he is neurodivergent.

Op. I think what you need to do is make sure the secondary SENCO is aware of pre and post adjustment results, and ask how prompts can be used within in school assessments (eg sit in front of teacher, or next to a TA).

Is it only tests? What about normal work in class,

I'd view that as midpoint exceeding. Like a PP has said, some schools really drill SATS so they aren't really a measure. I would ask for standardised scores across Years 3-5 which will be more indicative of prolonged performance (although would expect they would be given to secondary school)

DD got 120/120/120 (not even hiding the stealth boast on here as we can't discuss in "real life") from a standard normal school, hadn't done ATOM prep or whatever else as it's not a selective area and will be going to a standard comprehensive. They do have advanced learner courses and stream at her new secondary. We'll see how she goes.

But I have long since learned, after a long stint at primary, that schools will primarily ignore parental queries and just crack on regardless.

Oh and also edited to say that the people I know who are teachers all say writing is particularly hard to get exceeding on. Most don't.

Yes I’m aware. His big brother did, and looking at their writing throughout the years, the younger one has always been the better writer. She does play favourites (same teacher for Y6) and used to tell my eldest he was her fav, so I am slightly circumspect about the writing result for both! Some really sensible advice on here thank you, especially around the differences in education once secondary starts. He didn’t do any prep for SATS; I’m not sure how much they did at school other than two sets of mocks. To the poster asking whether I think the result was false because of his help - he didn’t have help. His attention was directed back to the paper and he had extra time to allow for the time wasted in redirection. No one told him the answers, or made the questions clearer. He has massive issues with concentration and only completes school work in the last few minutes, so I don’t perceive him to be massively advantaged. I have always sped through exams in order to create breaks during my exams from GCSE-degree-professional, obviously at the cost of higher marks. I have an ADHD diagnosis now. It’s great that kids today can access accommodations that they need, instead of my experience.

My DS got 118/116/115 I think he’s fairly intelligent but interestingly was classed as average apart from reading all the way through primary (he has excellent grasp of comprehension and vocabulary). He did a further set of tests in year 7 at secondary and did really well on those too so ended up in sets 1 or 2 across his tiered subjects. He’s now heading into year 11 and classed as ‘top stream’.

Primary schools are good indicators of ability for those children compliant or mature enough to perform from a younger age but they can only give you a snapshot of their development at that time. Interestingly one of his younger siblings has followed a similar pattern of academic performance throughout too - maybe my kids mature into learning a bit later 😂