KS1 Sats Results

[PeacefulLiz]

I'm in the very weird position of believing my school have inflated my dd's grades.

They are telling me she is predicted to receive a 2C in all subjects, whereas I think she is only a 1B or 1A.

For example in reading she is on green band books (level 5), and she finds these hard.

In maths she is unable to add 10 to a 2 digit number (without counting another 10 on her fingers)

Any suggestions for how I can tell what grade she is, and what I should do?

Thanks

I'm not convinced that U should care or do anything.

Is she getting extra help?

You have every right to ask how they assessed your child when the levels are awarded. Bear in mind that there are almost 2 months before the final levels have to be submitted and a child may go up a sub-level in that time, so move from a 1a to a 2c.

Level 1 is generally 'with support' and level 2 is working with more independence.

You don't mention her writing, speaking and listening or science, how is she doing with those?

Schools don't tend to inflate grades, but rather err on the side of caution to avoid being caught out as the child moves through the school. Thdey can also be moderated and have to justify their decisions.

It would be a foolish primary school that is inflating the grades at KS1. A key parameter for the school is the Contextual Value Added (CVA) for the school between KS1 and KS2. If they inflate the KS1 result to get a good CVA they have to get an even better result at KS2 which is (at present) a moderated test, externally marked.

Children do tend to improve in leaps and bounds at that kind of age and maybe it is just one of those things that they have made that spurt forward just as the tests are being carried out. 2C is typically what you would expect as a figure at KS1 so I don't think there is any need to worry.

She has been on the special needs register for over a year, which is why I am worried.

As for the CVA - the school know that we are trying to move her to a better school, so their CVA won't be affected.

I wouldn't be worried if she wasn't so far behind all of the rest of the kids on the bottom table. She can't do anything without support. Her younger brother is in Y1 and I was told by his teacher that he is a 1A and he is miles ahead of her.

The reason it is important to know whether she is a 1B, 1A or a 2C, is because if she is a 2C why is she on the special needs register? And if she is a 1B why haven't they done more to help her?

because 2c is below expectations for a Y2 child?

I would also question the prediction of 2c for a child who is having trouble with green books. I would (tentatively) agree with you that they have inflated the grade, particularly if you have told them that you are probably moving schools. The inflated grade will be no use for the new school (or, for that matter, your daughter). You will need to point it out to the new teacher immediately.

Has this happened with maths and writing as well?

Has your daughter got an IEP? What stage SEN is she?

The practice Maths SATS paper I bought from WH Smiths put her at a 1. I can't work out what level her writing is, but it certainly looks terrible to me.

She has an IEP, but it is terrible. For the first half of the year her target was to learn 20 of her reception high frequency words. And she 'partially achieved' this target. Then for her IEP for this half of the year they want her to learn 100 high frequency words! It's never going to happen.....

Her other target is to write her alphabet. And to learn to add two digit numbers with the support of a number grid.

There is no way those targets sound to me like she should be getting a 2C.

I managed to get her 2 brothers into another school, and she's now top of the waiting list. And they only started telling me she was going to get a 2C after I'd moved her brothers. Before that they were telling me she would get a 1A.

She's only on School Action. The school has refused to let her see the Ed Psych, and she's been on the waiting list to see the SpLD team (Specific Learning Disablity) for 2 terms!

So, yes, I believe they have inflated her reading, writing and maths grades. All the evidence I have is that she is well below her brother who is currently a 1A. But there doesn't seem to be anything I can do.

Desperately waiting for a place to become available at the other school...

mrz 2C isn't below expectations for a Y2 child, a level 1 is. 2B is average, and 2C is below average, but not significantly below.

I would tend to agree with you that a 2c grade does not seem to mesh that well with someone who is on the special needs register, has an IEP and is struggling with learning 20 reception high frequency words.

I just can't see the logic of the school doing this.

Have you considered the possibility of appealing for a place in the other school at beginning of July before you break up? They would then be appealing to go into year 3 so no infant class size issues and by appealing right at the end of this year, you would still have the opportunity to appeal again sometime later in the next school year. The appeal would be quite simply that two of your children have transfered and you are finding it increasingly difficult to get to both schools. Or have you already appealed and lost?

No, I haven't investigated how to appeal yet. I also didn't want to annoy the new school by appealing. But appealing in July for next year does sound like a good idea. I didn't know you could do that.

If she stays in the same school, I don't see great problem for her. She'll continue on SA and hopefully, will see SpLD team (sometime). However, I daresay the Y3 teachers will be cursing their KS1 colleagues because of their targets and the KS2 leader will be spitting venom about skewed CVA.

However, if you change school, as I said before, you must make the teacher aware of the situation and the (perceived) misrepresentation of levels. I work in a service school, and we quite often get children entering Y2 and Y3 during the year on inflated levels. I had a boy enter Y2 on 2C last year, which, after publishing KS1 targets, I found was VASTLY inflated, and he ended Y2 on a 2C, with a perceived progress of zero! It is very annoying that teachers do this and I don't really see the point.

By PeacefulLiz Thu 06-May-10 21:59:58 mrz 2C isn't below expectations for a Y2 child, a level 1 is. 2B is average, and 2C is below average, but not significantly below.

sorry but 2b isn't average it is the expected level for a child at the end of KS1 the idea that it is average has somehow crept into discussions but the wording is clear expected to reach ...

In my school we target all 2c children for additional support

Mrz, thanks. I didn't realise that. So that makes failing to reach a level 2 even worse.

We haven't the resources to give 2c children additional support. mrz - you must be very lucky.

RollaCoasta extra support is in the form of staff giving up their time (unpaid) because as you know level 2 is vast and children entering KS2 at 2c or below can really struggle

We find little works with many of the 1A/2C boys - they do ELS and have support in class with me; we run a creative, child-led, boy-friendly curriulum; they are orally imaginative and enthusuastic. I wonder more and more that these children are just not ready to be 2B writers.

We abandoned ELS and ALS years ago as we didn't find them effective.
We have a very boy friendly curriculum and achieve high standards in writing by the end of KS2. Our support focus is mainly skills based for literacy - phonics - handwriting - developing vocabulary and the writing voice which they are then taught to apply in class

We also achieve high standards in KS2, but less so with boys especially at the end of KS1. They also do daily handwriting and phonics, bit their written skills still fail to match their considerable oral skills. We have prizes for targets met, house points, close the gap marking (which they like) and still they 'under perform' when asked to write. (I'm talking 3 or 4 boys here.)

gosh I was talking about 8 children (not all boys)

Thing is, I don't think they're trying to exasperate me - I genuinely think they are trying hard (they really want to please me), but their brains aren't developed enough to understand the parameters, however much modelled writing / sentence building / connective use we do!
(This is totally off track from the SEN question of OP... sorry OP!)

Rollacoasta thats really really interesting - my son is one of those, or seems to be. Do you suggest they catch by KS2 then and its a question of maturity?