PUMA for maths testing - anyone use or know these?

[drspouse]

DS finds maths much easier than reading at home - he's in specialist, and we feel is achieving age appropriate maths or even higher, but at 11 he's been tested with PUMA at school and has come out at age 9. His reading on the equivalent came out higher which makes little sense to us. He occasionally asks for help with maths at home (we use Doodle Maths) but generally just gets on with it, is working on Y6 topics quite happily, multiple digit column addition and subtraction including decimals, I'm not sure he quite grasps long division yet.

When a DC is given a PUMA maths test is that a generic one for the whole of primary (he's actually in Y7 but all of his class seem to working at about Y4), or is it specific to a year group? Would the lower score be because he's been given a Y4 or Y5 test and you can't go higher on that test or is he (not at all unlikely) just not paying attention to the specific test and missing items he can easily do?

If I recall from when we used them, there is a PUMA test for each year group and for the three different terms in the school year. There is an upper limit on the outcome depending on the test you take, so a year 4 test covers mainly year 4 work . However the maths ages covered in each test are quite wide, for example the year 4 autumn test covers a maths age from just under 8.01 to over 10.3 depending on the score achieved. So a child sitting the year 4 autumn paper could be assessed as any maths age between 8.01 and 10.3 using that one paper.

There is also a PUMA for KS3 which covers years 7-9 but I'm afraid I don't have access to the handbook !

Thanks! They haven't told us which year group they gave him (I doubt it was Y7 as they seem to be convinced that all the pupils are at least 3 years behind).

It could simply be a disconnect between what he can achieve on a day to day basis and what he achieves in a test. Some children ( I'm not saying yours!) struggle with the concept of changing from subject matter to different subject matter in each question, they are used to spending a day ( or a week!) on the same maths topic and can memorise the "flow" of each question. But if they are doing addition in one question, percentages in the next, then data handling, back to additional, then fractions.........well, you can see the potential for confusion! There is also the potential issue of timings and also simply exam stress!
Depending on how forthcoming the school are, you could always ask them for further information on the test and his ability to access it.

He's very good at switching from topic to topic when he uses his app at home. My guess is he hasn't read the question, as his app reads the questions for you if you want - he uses it for some word problems.
I've asked for current classroom work to come home so we can work on that.

I would ask them which test he did. We test them based on their current 'working at' level. There is still a lot of leeway in terms of scoring. We just find it easier to tell parent their child is working at Y4 level rather than 'below' as that's not descriptive at all. This way the tests can also be diagnostic and show is the gaps. Ask if you can have the test so you can work on the bits he finds tricky )I'd you are so inclined)