Have been stewing and seething over this all weekend will someone please try and calm me down before I see the teacher.

[Ingles2]

ds1 is 9, yr 4, but in a streamed 4/5 class.
Bright boy, maths has always been his thing, but quiet and really lacking in confidence. I moved them this september to a new school from a tiny primary, mainly for ds2's benefit but thought ds1 would love it.
He does, but the work is much harder, loads of homework and they test a lot
Anyway, even though he's yr 4 they've been doing SAT's assessments (WTF?)
Week before Xmas he did maths.
Got the results on Friday,... a 3C.... well not being funny but that's what he got yr 2 had a 3A end of yr 3.

He is devastated! I've had the worst weekend.
I'm rubbish, everyone else is better than me, I can't see my friends, they're all better than me, I hate Maths etc etc etc.
I'm going to see teacher.. I want to know why they are testing so much, he has mental maths, x table, spellings and capital cities every week also had non verbal reasoning, verbal reas, science, english he's just 9 FGS!
I've told him to forget it, he's not 3c and he's just as good as he was before. He was probably tired etc and it doesn't mean anything. This has completely trashed his confidence again and I'm on the verge of exploding

Sounds a bit odd. Our dc are only levelled officially when they do mock SATS at the end of each year. And even then the dc are never told the results, nor does it go on the report. They tell you informally at the parents evening.

Kick butt, I should.

it's weird isn't it!!!
why on earth would they announce the results in class in front of their peers?
Why are yr 4's doing them now anyway?
All this has done is ruin his confidence even further. Ever since he started this school he has been soo anxious about the homework, it's usually a nightmare
I imagine yr 5's are as the school are assessing to see who is going to sit the 11+ but even so, surely the teachers have a good idea who is right for the 11+ from continual assesment.
am really really

Teachers test all the time but the children shouldn't know about it. They do an informal test once a half term at DS's school (yr 4) but DS doesn't have a clue it is happening. They do it so they can plot progress which is fair enough.

Did you know about the homework when you enrolled the children? I don't think you say much about the homework if you chose to send them there but I would have a word about the testing and about the pressure that it is putting DS under.

I would also ask where he might have lost marks on the test. There is probably no more than a few marks between a 3c and a 3a. A simple slip up could easily explain it.

Calm down - I think from talking to my RL friends that it is really common to do so many tests.

I would talk to your DS's teacher, but ask CALMLY why the grade is what he got and say you are concerned it has bashed his confidence? You need to get a joint plan with the teacher to figure out how best to improve your son's confidence and abilities.

Teachers mark based on what they see, some are more lenient, some are harder. IMHO they get harder the older they get.

You need to calm down, you won't do any good going into the teacher all guns blazing.

but this is formal 11+ papers Niecie.
I knew about the homework, that was one of the reasons I moved them, I didn't know he was going to be doing 11+ preparation now,
I also didn't know he was going to freak out at every test which is the current situation. He'd never had any homework or tests before apart from the 2 SATS.
He said he only answered the first few questions because he was so nervous.
What do I do now to help him?

Testing is normal and most children of that age do want to know their score. If he was 3A last year and 3c this year, it may be that he's missed some learning for whatever reason. Did he miss any school time when you moved? It may be that as he's moved schools he has missed a unit as the different schools could have different learning programmes - particularly if this is a streamed 4/5 class and the other wasn't. It's a good thing if this has been picked up. With a child like your ds who is good at maths it will be fairly easy for the teacher to analyse his test, identify his areas of difficulty and help him with whatever that my be.

you're right oneliein. I'm so mad because I've tried talking to her twice before about his confidence.
At parents eve, she told us his IQ, said his work was excellent particularly his maths, but that he was very quiet and nervous...surely they can see he's getting over anxious?

Ingles2, I would wait and see what the teacher has to say. If your son only answered the first few questions, then that is why his marks dropped. The teacher will be able to see that this does not reflect his maths ability as she will be aware of the work he does in class and what he is capable of. If she says that she thinks the mark reflects his real ability, then you should start stressing out, but I don't think that will happen!

I wondered that Cornsilk and have even asked her to make a note of missing work and let me know, but nothing has ever appeared in his book. BTW I've only spoken to her about 3 times ever

right, I'm off to school... I will be calm.

I find it sad that a 9 year old boy has harnessed his self-esteem so thoroughly to his attainment at school

That's helpful Molesworth

Sorry, I didn't mean that to come over as unhelpful or judgey. Just that I think he needs help to see that his attainment at school isn't that important. In no way did I mean it is Ingles's fault!

sorry molesworth - I'm in an arsey mood today. It's easy to read something the wrong way on here.

if this is a formal 11+ evaluation, surely any 9yo is going to struggle to understand the q's and so their ability is going to appear lower than it actually is? notwithstanding the differences between assessment in KS1 and 2, where it often looks like kids drop a level because the assessment is done slightly differently, it is a bit weird that they are doing yr 6 SATs stuff at all... unless they gave it to him 'because' he was so bright?

if i tried to sit a maths degree exam with an o level, i wouldn't be able to answer a thing...

in secondary, it is normal for teachers to write '4c' or whatever on work, but why are primary kids being graded like this? whatever happened to 'gold star' lol?

ingles, hope your meeting went well and it was sorted out without angst - hopefully a misunderstanding and ds's confidence can be built up.

Not your fault cornsilk - I should have worded my post better. Good luck Ingles with sorting this out.

Thanks guys.... well his teacher is very nice and it is a bit of a misunderstanding.
It was an end of term assessment paper not SATS that was just the verbal and non verbal reasoning.
She said he's doing great still, but this time, he nowhere near finished and made lots of silly mistakes, he doesn't usually make, she would have expected him to get a 4c. Infact his confidence had really improved and his work overall is much improved. When I told her about all the dramatics, she was really shocked.
I'm worried it's me now but really I know it's that he is extremely competitive and a perfectionist. I'm going to have to try and curb this I think, Molesworth is right on that.
you're right about the grades though, what is wrong with 25 out of 30 or whatever.
Anyway, Thanks for calming me down, if it wasn't for you guys I would have gone in all guns blazing and looked a right tit!
Off to talk to ds1 ...

How did you get on Ingles2? Generally nowadays there is movement away from giving children 'scores' as all they do is compare.

Instead it is important for them to know:
a) Am I on target?
b) What are the next steps I can make to improve?

I don't recall my boys or us ever being given NC Levels for any of their subjects except for their actual SATs results in yr2 and yr6.

Even in school reports the grading system is simply:
well above average/standards expected for age
above average
average
below average

It is very unlikely that he has actually regressed, but rather that a L3 in yr4 is more demanding than a L3 in yr2.

For instance my son (yr7) has done a term of German and was given a L6 or 7 at the end of the term for a piece of work, because he had used past tense and future tense. But he actually doesn't know that much German so far, as he's not been learning very long. So he has a long way to go in expanding his vocabulary and being able to express himself and understand in lots of different subjects/topics. So it may seem like he makes 'no progress' for the next 3 years in German if I were to assume that a L6 now is the same as L6 at the end of yr9.

I hope you are able to raise his confidence working together with his teacher.

I'll second that.It is very normal for a child's levels to go up and down.I think it is only right to tell children what there scores are.it would be pretty demoralising to do a test and not know how you got on.

As a primary teacher, the over-testing aspect of this school would worry me. Teachers should be more than capable of making a skilled judgement based on children's classwork (and yes, to previous posters, that would still be a level - in order to identify next steps). They should not have to test continually to 'check' their teacher assessment, for exactly the reasons you describe. No wonder your ds is upset. Did the teacher say at what level he is working on a day to day basis, not in the 45 minutes of one test on one particular day?