Banding in yr 7 - by yr 6 sats results or teachers assessment?

[mummaemma]

how do schools band children when they start secondary school?

Is it by the teachers assessment from primary school teacher or do they just look at their sats results?

It depends entirely on the school.

Some use SATs results (some of these, e.g. writing is a teacher assessment anyway) to stream or set (stream = ability banded across the curriculm, inflexible. Set = ability banded by subjects, flexible for those children who e.g. do very well in Maths but less well in English).

Others use CATs.

Others - a minority, but DS's school is one - in which no setting (except for maths, which is flexibly set, initially on SATs results but rapidly adjusted through ongoing assessment) oiccurs in Year 7, and Year 8 sets are based on actual in-secondary performance by individual subject.

i think they are set = ability banded by subjects. I know theres an A band (high) B band (med) and a C Band (low) just wondered how they decide which my son goes into as he is good at maths but poor at literacy.

DVD school use Cats and Sat's. The CATs are taken on transfer day in July.

DSs school only set for geography and history in year 7. I'm guessing that must be done from teacher assessment in year 6 as no SATS etc to take them from.

DSs school does an entrance exam to band them (has 5 bands and gives places to equal amounts for each one) and uses than for the first half term and then they get shuffled about within subjects according to teachers assessments.

So no, their secondary school doesn't use SAT results for banding.

My DCs school use their own internal tests in week 1 to set DC for maths and English. All other subjects are not mixed ability until 1/2 term.

Then all subjects are set on the basis of their secondary teacher assessments.

The last school I taught in had mixed ability groups for Year 7s. Target grades were set by SATS/CATs/pulled out of thin air and the setting for Year 8 was done on a combination of Target grades and Year 7 teacher assessment/recommendation. IME Year 6 teacher assessed grades weren't used at all.

In theory it could work. In practice there were LOTS of kids put into top set who shouldn't have been there, because their Target Grade was too high for them, lots of teacher recommendations disregarded and some fabulous kids put in lower sets because their Target was set low.

Sorry, I'm cynical about all this. In my experience I would say the SATs are relied on way TOO heavily when setting targets and allocating groups, often in direct contradiction of the evidence of the work of the child who's been sitting in front of you for a year. I was also [shocked] when I saw the top sets FULL of one particular colleague's class every year. She marked VERY generously and often just put down the Target Grade for an easy life even if the kid was nowhere near that level. I know this because I taught that top set and lots of them were a whole level below where she said they were. I mark fairly and my top students were overlooked for the top sets the whole time I was there. I'm not teaching any more but I'm still mad about it!

Sorry for the confusing rant!

Targets are based on end of KS2 levels because it is all about levels of progress. Doesn't matter if you disagree with it, it is the measure that counts!

Reassessment over the first half term. I think they would look at SATS results and if there was a big discrepancy consider what is best for the child, but they say it's internal assessment.

Yeah it is a useful measure.

My daughter was put in sets straight away for Maths, English, Science and French. As I understand it was based on her SATs results, with the exception of French where she sat a test in primary school which was fed through to her comp. Within the first week they were all tested in class and no one was moved. They were placed in sets for all other subjects by the end of October - some by teacher's assessment (like PE) and others by testing.

It depends. Most schools will take into consideration the SATs results. They do not tend to consider primary school teacher assessments. Nearly every secondary school will have their own baseline tests, usually called CATs - cognitive ability tests. They usually do these in the first half term. They are tests you can't revise for.

Have a good weekend.

CATs in the local schools I know about. Teacher report & SAT info in borderline cases.

We use a combination of SATS Reading and the results of a short writing baseline assessment which the pupils complete during induction. This way we can make sure that the writing level is based on the same task, completed in the same conditions and it gives us a clear picture of what the pupils can do.

We test at Xmas and set based on that test in yr 7, but sets are quite fluid and we reset each year.
When we set by sats they were very unreliable.

In our experience SATS are unreliable so we initially set in maths, english and science based on our own tests but they are fluid sets. We also Use CAT testing in the first few weeks and continual assessment (6 weekly) to ensure students are working at the right level.

DD1's school does CATs in the first two weeks of Yr7. They don't so much set as stream, which I am unhappy about as I know it will serve many children badly (though it works for DD1 - we're lucky with her). There is no fluidity in Yr7, unfortunately.

They will set next year, for all subjects.