Year 9 mock Sats

[Remotew]

I know its only Sats but DD's Maths teacher pulled her aside to tell her she'd done well being a mark off a level 8. We flicked through a level 6-8 book the night before but that's all the revision she did.

She feels she is not grasping Maths lessons and has asked for a private tutor but there's no spare money for that. I was surprised at how much of the key stage 3 maths book I followed Is it worth us working through it at home before May or should I leave it to school to help her reach level 8 seeing as good results benefit them?

Golly she's done incredibly well Eve....she doesn't need a tutor in my opinion, my daughter got a 7b in her Maths and that was regarded as quite an achievement - on the way to an a grade at gcse.

Have you tried the KS3 webpages or asked the school whether they subscribe to SAM learning? my dd1 uses that a lot although I don't think much of the English part.

There's no point in piling on the pressure for SATs - she's got the next 2 years of GCSEs then A levels etc. If she is already attaining a 7a, there is no reason why she won't just naturally go up a grade within her normal lessons.

Thanks I'd rather not put any pressure on so will leave it and maybe help her revise before May. School website has SAM but she will only look if its homework.

Her target is a 7c. When we looked through the book, the level 8 questions were separate, and she dismissed them as it was above her target!! Which is really annoying as she usually exceeds teachers expectations when it comes to formal tests.

The targets confuse me as I've been told they dictate to what level kids are taught. It seems that its not a level playing field anymore, excuse the pun.

I was concerned about the fact that I didn't think my dd1 was actually being given enough homework and the teacher suggested I upped her study at home with SAM.

Her grades had slipped as well so I was cross with the school about the lack of homework.

They don't have to just use SAM for homework as they all have separate log ins which they can access at any time.

If she is concerned that she needs extra help then I thought it might be an idea instead of forking out for expensive tutelage.

I don't like these SAT scoring/ target methods either and have the same concerns as you.