Any advice for help to give my daughter who did not get expected standard in sats

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Has anyone any useful resources/sites I could use over summer to help my daughter with her Maths and English.
I have been looking on schoolrun and top marks. Has anyone any other useful ideas I could look at.
Thanks xx

I'd suggest not doing a lot - SATs year is enormously stressful. Doesn't she deserve a rest? Putting her through more work and making her feel inadequate really isn't going to give her the best start in secondary school.

SATs year is stressful enough without you worrying and adding more on over the summer. You seem really lovely and caring OP, but might be worrying too much (depending how far off she was).

The secondary school gets catch up funding to fund interventions with those who start behind so she may well be getting support from September.

In terms of what you can do, promote a love of reading, share books together, talk about what you've read, encourage her to write about any days out you have, if you're cooking have her help you with the maths element, in general just encourage her to be a broadly well rounded student. That will prepare her more for secondary than a child who has had the hothouse sats year and then does very little.

Personally, I would steer away from any formal educational material and focus on promoting a curious mind.

Thanks Ladies xx You are both right and I have got it in perspective. Over worrying and over thinking xx

Op, what scores did she get? If she got in the 90s she's just below expected, if in the 80s she's further below. At parent meetings what did the class teacher tell you she was working at?

Hi yes she was very close to expected and in her report the teacher has her working at expected level apart from maths which was working towards. However in the sats it was the maths she had scored highest in which surprised me. She got 99 for maths, 98 for Spaghetti and 95 for reading. However in her practice test she got expected for reading xx I am over worrying, just thinking of any help I can give but going to take a step back and enjoy the holidays and the last week of school xx

Lol not spaghetti for the Spag - English Grammar,Punctuation, Vocabulary and Spelling

Mine was below expected for several things ... doing a PhD now. Just read a lot!

Hmmm I’m going to go against the grain here. It’s all very well to say ‘read a lot’ and that’s great advice from an English teacher, but as a maths teacher, that’s not going to help with her maths.

A lot of secondary schools test Y7s in maths within the first few weeks and use these results (along with SATs) to set pupils. If she is rusty due to weeks of no use then she will not hit the ground running.

A pupil who is below the expected standard at KS2 is statistically more likely to be below expected standard at GCSE (grade 4). Lots of parents panic around Y10/11 time and hire tutors to try to get their children over the line. Telling those same parents to chill out in Y7 seems a bit counterproductive. I always say to parents that any maths that can be done at home will be of benefit in the long run.

You don’t have to go mad and hothouse her, but I’d practise these basic areas:

1. Instant recall of times tables including divisions (MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER)
2. Consistently accurate use of written methods for addition, subtraction (inc borrowing), multiplication and division (bus stop)
3. Mental methods for e.g. 20 x 300, 6000/20, 23 x 7 (20 x 7 + 3 x 7)
4. Able to multiply and divide reliably by 10, 100, 1000 including decimals
5. Being able to spot common factors of numbers (e.g. what goes into both 24 and 32, or 25 and 30)

She will probably be ok at this stuff as the SATs are numeracy heavy. If she can do all this at the start of the summer, don’t assume she’ll be able to do it at the end, kids forget stuff.

There are computer packages you can sign up for, like mathletics or workbooks you can buy if you want something more structured.

spaghetti sounds much more fun fo me!

I wouldn't say do nothing but I would say don't do anything formal.

So reading in general, maybe go back to you reading to her - get some old classics out of the library and read them to her, you can tell her you are enjoying the time together before she grows up and won't like it any more. so it won't seem like working or studying but she will be listening to much more formal and wordy language, older and longer words etc. Modern books aren't the same in terms of the language used.

and I would say try to keep on top of timestables. not sure how you make them fun but we forget them very quickly if we don't use them so worth doing that.

have the secondary school given any suggested stuff to do over the holidays? I know some near us issue a suggested reading list for year 7 and sugest they start some in the holidays, others have project work to do which includes doing science stuff or trying new things, producing a piece of art work. so can be fun (I hope seeing as this is what ours has given) but also a bit educational.

do some cooking as well, can use measuring or adjusting recipes for maths type stuff. (and then get to eat cake!)

I'm going to be doing short regular bursts of Nessy for writing/ spelling etc and Khan Academy for maths with mine over the summer. I did it last year and it really helped. Similar position re SATS as you.

I would leave her and see where she ends up in September.

All you are going to get is a very depressed child if you hot house her over the summer and purely because of that she ends up in a class where she has to work 10 tines harder and longer than any other child just to keep up with the class.
Then if she fails to make progress and has to be put down a set it is going to be no good for her self esteem.

I would work on her confidence levels.

Dd was always in the lowest set for everything but as I didn’t think it was a big deal she just got in with it.

I instead worked on her confidence levels and how to speak to people

She now has her own business.

No one has ever asked what GCSEs she has but because of her confidence and a bit of common sense she has done some really fantastic jobs

Thank you so much everyone for taking the time for your much needed advice. noblegiraffe thanks for your suggestions it was very interesting to read and I will certainly act on your advice. Also the reading suggestions. Looking forward to reading some classics together -never thought of that as an idea.

Thanks again have enjoyed reading your reply’s

Have you tried any online sites for maths? Like the maths factor or bbcbitesize?
My kids used to do maths factor which we found to be quite good. You do have to pay but there is a 14 day free trial.
I also recommend reading lots. Not just books but pick up a Sunday paper and read an article a day from it.

What might be instructive for parents is to go to www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk and type in the name of the secondary school that your DC is going to.

Scroll down to ‘Results by pupil characteristics’
Then click on ‘Prior attainment’

Look at the percentage of low prior attainers who get a grade 4+ in English and maths.

It is likely to be very, very low.

I don’t think telling parents that they are over-worrying or just need to relax and it will be fine is the most helpful message.

Personally I would get the cgp 10 minute maths tests and go through them. Explain anything she gets wrong or doesn't understand. If she finds the year 6 one hard go back to year 5 or before if necessary.

They also do 10 minute tests for times tables.

An hour a day over the summer and her maths will be completely sorted by September if she was only just below.

Good luck!

Thanks again everyone and thanks for your link noblegiraffe, will look at that later out of curiosity. Will definitely help DD with her maths over summer and ongoing for the future.

Mathletics online is excellent for maths and does a free trial, something like £40 a year after that. You can adjust the year in the parent controls up to 6 times if work is too hard or too easy - also a something easier (-1 year) and something harder (+1 year) button on test. Both mine have used this in the past and loved it though they love maths generally.

English if she will read get her to read a few books - tell her she can ask you about any word she doesn't understand. Doesn't really matter too much what as long as books themselves contain reasonable English.

I wouldn't go overboard - summer holidays are primarily for relaxing. Mine both aren't keen on reading but love maths so they don't read books but we will discuss the news, the look up the news online and they will ask me about words they don't understand.

It can be helpful to do sometimes things with kids if they are struggling with something. You can often see problem quite quickly.

Hi PenguinsRabbits,
Thanks for the heads up about Mathletics. I went on the site yesterday but did not know the pricing. That price sounds very reasonable. Daughter really is not a keen reader at all so have tried to find something to spark her interest. Together we have found a book of interest for her and I am going to read it to her and then get her to read it. Maybe whilst I read my book at the same time. Looking forward to sharing this time with her. Also the school she is going to is going to do a maths competition for year 7’s to do during the summer, so will do this with her.
Great ideas given everyone and thanks again.

Mathletics give a discount if you don't subscribe immediately so do trial first then they send you an offer.

Mathletics and IXL Maths never worked for us. I really believe in pen and paper at this age, especially if they need to master the basics.

At the beginning of year 6 my DD was getting low percentages in all the test papers that they did at school. My DD's school is outstanding, with SATs results much higher than national and also higher than the borough ones. DD was in the middle set for Maths, so I was surprised. I decided to work with her myself, to cover the gaps.

We used the GGP book series: SATs revision book standard level, together with SATs 10-min tests, again the standard level. She worked about 2 hours per week (2 sessions, 1 hr each) and I helped her with the areas where she was struggling. This was until Christmas.

In the Spring term I got her the SATs revision book advanced level, plus also the 10-min advanced level tests. Those took us almost to Easter break.

During Easter break and in the weeks just before SATs, I got her SATs practice papers - one standard, one advanced. She finished them all and required very little help from me. She was already getting high marks in these practice tests. This gave her a big confidence boost, she went to SATs with absolutely no stress.

In SATs she scored 114 in Maths and I couldn't be happier that all her hard work paid off and she was able to see the link between her hard work and results. In her final school report the teacher have her "above expectation" (5/5 rating) for the first time in primary school, and noted her great progress in year 6. The secondary she is going to will set based on Maths.

I would not leave it until year 7/8 if I were you... the more you leave it the harder it will be to cover the gaps.

Sorry I meant the CGP books. Their SATs revision books are excellent. They cover all key topics, with worked examples and practice questions for each topic.

www.cgpbooks.co.uk/primary-books/ks2/year-6-(ages-10-11)?sort=best_selling&quantity=36&page=1&view=grid&currentFilter=Subject_32&filter_subject=Subject_32

Thanks sitlux will get hold of them. Your daughter has shown it can be done . Will give them ago to see if it helps my daughter.

I second pen and paper. My son spent ages on a times tables app and didn't learn much.

The cgp ten minute times table test books sorted him right out. And went beyond rote learning of the tables to address how to use them.

Not saying the apps dont work for any children just not for mine.

Schofield and Sims does great ks2 maths books as well.

if you struggle to spark interest with reading what about looking at a magazine like whizz, pop, bang which is fun and loads of kids find it really interesting.

Thanks GrapefruitsAreNotTheOnlyFruit have just had a good look at the books available for cgp and have ordered a couple. Have ordered one for my younger daughter going into year 2 as well.