Ability range in top set year 7 (average secondary school)?

[trfed]

What kind of ability range (in terms of Sats results) would you expect to see in the top set in year 7 in a average (sometimes slightly below average) secondary school?

Does anyone know how schools will set now that SATS don't communicate the actual score but whether they work at the expected standards, towards or above?

Many (most?) schools don't currently set using SATs currently.

My DC's school, for example, teaches in mixed ability classes for maths for the first half term, and then sets based on their own observations of a student's ability.

Dd's school are doing CATS this week and next to see what their abilities are, it's a big co-ed secondary with children coming from lots of different primaries, they don't set them til year 9 though so it's mixed ability til then

Given it's such a small school, you could get quite a wide ability range. I'd assume 4 sets in a school with just over 100 in the year group, with bottom set being a smaller group and the others between about 28-32 students. In the top set, there could be a wide-ish gap between the best mathematicians, and those at the bottom of top set- at GCSE this might translate to grades 9 - 6, for example.

SATs aren't always great predictors of ability, as some primaries coach for these more than others. You can end up with students with really quite inflated SATs scores, who don't actually perform to that level in a secondary classroom.

You may also find in some schools there are students put into certain sets due to social issues, or SEN needs, rather than pure ability.

If the school doesn't teach all of Y7 maths at once, there may literally be a top and a bottom set in two populations, in which case the range in "top" set could be very wide.

It might help to share the reasons why you're asking and then people can explain a bit more about what might be going on if you have concerns?