Is DD1 'behind' in Maths

[katiestar]

Had a meeting with the teacher just before Easter and she said that DD (who is in Y3) was tested just before the Feb half term (ie halfway point of the acdemic year) and was only at level 2A .The teacher said 'the average child' should be at level 3c at least by this stage.
Is this true ? I thought they were supposed to be at least level 2b in yr 2 and then go up 2 sublevels a year .So in half a year that would make 2A ok surely ?
Can anyone enlighten me ?

The averages don't actually work out if you use 2 sub-levels - so 1.5 sublevels per year is used to check children are making 'satisfactory' progress (in Ofsted speak). This is difficult to quantify, e.g:

Average end of Y2 - 2b
Average end of Y3 - 2b + 1.5 sublevels, so between 2a and 3c.
Average end of Y4 - 3b
Average end of Y5 - 3b + 1.5 sublevlels, so between 3a and 4c.
Average end of Y6 - 4b

So in terms of these averages, you are right - your dd has actually made two thirds of the progress an 'average' child should make at halfway through the year.

Of course, there is no such thing as an average child, which makes a mockery of the whole sodding thing anyway. Children are children, not robots, and rarely make exact amounts of measured progress in neat little bursts of time. It's a load of crap. However, it can be a useful tool to check progress is being made. I suspect, too, that your dd's teacher is under pressure from management/Ofsted to make 'good' progress, as opposed to 'satisfactory' progress.