Teachers please - Y4 expected SATS levels

Lunar_Eclipse

Gingham R - when I have more time (am in a better frame of mind about it all!) I'm going to PM you for some gifted child advice.

ETA: just done it.

Gingham_R

jellyhead wrote: »

It's a shame all schools don't have a budget for gifted children, because being gifted is a SEN too.

You're absolutely right. And few people realise just how damaged gifted kids going through the system without help can become.

Lunar_Eclipse wrote: »

Actually, I can see how intelligence may be immeasurable and undefinable, but I do believe it can be innate ....
...I absolutely do not believe IQ is related to general success in life, and in fact, there is evidence that suggests the most intelligent people typically under perform.)

Intelligence is innate. You're absolutely right. It can be nurtured and developed or it can be damaged by environment. But you can't have a 7 month old able to tell you jokes if there isn't something already in his brain that makes him think like that. And no mother is prepared for that when it happens. So I can see why schools aren't either. But these kids NEED help and they ARE highly likely to underperform, just as children with very low IQ cannot manage successfully in mainstream schools.

If we can assess children as having too LOW an IQ to be in mainstream schools (and that's what happens) then why are we putting children whose ability is equally far away from the 'norm' in mainstream classes, doing the same as other children, without support?

If you have a child whose ability is assessed as being in the top 0.1% of the population, you might think there's no point in worrying about it because it might be another 30 years before a child of that level of intelligence comes to the school again. But one in a thousand means that there are thousands of these kids up and down the country. Even in the top 2%, or 5% they are still underchallenged, confused, under valued and bored. And it's no wonder that their behaviour becomes a problem, whether it's angry outbursts, refusal to do the work or (distressingly) mental health problems.

Then add the emotional and physical lag of asynchronous development and/or another special need (like dyslexia or asperger's) and they are even less likely to get the support they need.

Who's looking after their needs in schools? The truth is it's down to whether the individual teacher can and is prepared to cater for their needs and that's an unacceptable burden on the teacher who does try to do it without help and it's an unacceptable situation for the children who are left to fester.

Gingham_R

t4mof wrote: »

He achieved Level 4c in his Y2 SATS, yet the junior school thought the infant school had inflated the score so he ended up repeating a lot of stuff including starting his x tables from 2x again even though he knew all his x tables by the end of Y1. :wall:

:mad:Sorry, but this makes me :mad:. Parents aren't believed, teachers aren't believed and who suffers? The kids.

jellyhead

I suppose they all have to go through the same curriculum for the year though, because the facility to put them a year or more ahead just isn't there.

I'm in the opposite situation of wishing my summer-born children could be kept down a year. Even though eldest got 5's in year 6 and is doing okay-ish academically in high school he's young for his age with autistic traits and struggles to interact with his own age group (they're all older than him anyway).

It feels the same with my youngest who isn't ready for year 2 - he's still a toddler really. He doesn't want to concentrate all day with kids who are almost 7 and laugh at him for not being able to turn his clothes the right way out, and for his poor speech.

I wish both of them could have stayed in nursery or reception, or even year 1 for an extra year.

Equally I think there are probably 3 or 4 children in year 1 who are far too bright for year 2 and could go into year 3 if the right support was there (I assume they would need to come down to year 2 level for maths teaching?).

Our schools do a phonics lesson where kids can go up or down by a year group or even more. I wish they could do it for other lessons, but phonics is on the carpet so as long as there are enough whiteboards, pens and erasers it doesn't matter if a group has more kids than there are chairs in the classroom.

jellyhead

Gingham_R wrote: »

Then add the emotional and physical lag of asynchronous development and/or another special need (like dyslexia or asperger's) and they are even less likely to get the support they need.

Probably more likely to get the right level of teaching in a special needs school. Kids here go into whichever level they are working at, and stay there until they are ready to move on. I don't think our special school teaches at high levels though, but I could be wrong. You have to be very far behind academically to stand a chance of getting in there, or be sent there at preschool age (to special needs nursery first).

Are there any special schools for bright kids? I know someone whose daughter went to a very business-focussed academy instead of high school but she hated it and is now home schooled.

There should be some, because the only other option is to move house to get them into the most academic schools but even then the very brightest children might not be catered for.

In my town there is a primary and a high school in a similar catchment that get outstanding results, but housing is incredibly expensive considering it's mostly quite ordinary.

Spendless

jellyhead wrote: »

As you say every school is different, but my son's school and my nephews school both look at the maths, science and english result separately. A poor english result won't affect the maths set they go into although it may an effect on how many languages they study, which RE set they are in etc.

My son got 5 in english (he was told he HAD to, it was expected of all of them) then floundered in higher ability classes for english and RE at high school. He's good at german, but RE was a horrible struggle until he dropped it for year 9.

He always tested well due to high reading age, large vocabulary and excellent spelling. He doesn't compose very well though, and will have to work hard to get a C at GCSE. Things should improve now that they have allowed him to type instead of hand write.

I would consider getting a tutor for GCSE, but personally I would rather their SATS were closer to the teacher assessment rather than too high for their ability.

But then my kids aren't G+T, and yours is very bright.

Would that be as they enter yr 7 or later when they've been in Secondary school a while? Son's school may well do it the way you describe but at the minute I don't know how they do it. A year from now, when I'm clearer about what happens I might think I whittled about nothing.:o

I feel an overwhelming sense of 'wandering into the unknown' at the moment and am worrying over it. I can't say I ever felt like this when he started nursery, reception or junior school.

When I went upto the parents evening at his Secondary school a few weeks ago and went and met his form teacher, there was a list of children in the class, names, sex, which Primary school they'd come from and ability level. Of 28 kids 7 were ability level 3, 14 were level 4 and 7 (including DS) were level 5. I saw the list. I don't know how they 'decided' who was what level, but after the experience of him going into the wrong set, due to his sats results rather than his classroom ability, something his own teacher had picked up on, I just didn't want to take the chance.

I attended the same Secondary school, albeit a long time ago and for some bizarre reason they grouped maths and french ability together :huh: which had a knock on effect in the later years.

jellyhead

Maths and french is a bit odd - was that just the way the timetables were organised?

Yes, I felt that you didn't get much information from high school - that all changes when you the first parents evening though and in our LEA (I don't know if it's the same for everyone) there's also an odd 'target setting' thing where they close school for the day and parents come in with the children for individual appointments which can take up to half an hour.

Iirc although the kids are in a tutor group (for the whole 5 years!) with a wide range of abilities they will not be taught many subjects as a whole class. They will have different ability sets for maths, english, science, language at least. My son did music as a whole class, IT, technology (which includes art, drawing, woodwork, cooking etc) and PE. Possibly history and geography for the first year too. Oh, and PHSE.

If not before, once they choose their options for year ten they will be doing everything except for PE and possibly RE in ability groups.

My son has a different year 10 set-up because he's in the alternative curriculum, which as far as us parents can tell is for the kids who would lose their own head if it wasn't attached

Spendless

jellyhead wrote: »

Maths and french is a bit odd - was that just the way the timetables were organised? Maybe, I don't know. There was also that only if you were in the top set for maths could you learn German in yr 9 (middle school system then yrs 8-11) but you could take it as an option in yr 10 (by which time you'd be behind the kids who were good at maths who could have taken it a year earlier).

Yes, I felt that you didn't get much information from high school - that all changes when you the first parents evening though and in our LEA (I don't know if it's the same for everyone) there's also an odd 'target setting' thing where they close school for the day and parents come in with the children for individual appointments which can take up to half an hour.

Iirc although the kids are in a tutor group (for the whole 5 years!) with a wide range of abilities they will not be taught many subjects as a whole class. They will have different ability sets for maths, english, science, language at least. My son did music as a whole class, IT, technology (which includes art, drawing, woodwork, cooking etc) and PE. Possibly history and geography for the first year too. Oh, and PHSE.

If not before, once they choose their options for year ten they will be doing everything except for PE and possibly RE in ability groups.

My son has a different year 10 set-up because he's in the alternative curriculum, which as far as us parents can tell is for the kids who would lose their own head if it wasn't attached

They do that at my friend's kids school, because I have often rang her and queired why her boys are at home and been told it's 'assessment day' so I asked another friend with kids already at the secondary my son will go to about it, and my local school doesn't do it that way. What they do instead, I've no idea.

Spendless

Today, I've got my kids SAT results. DS has level 5 for English as his teachers assessment (5 for reading and speaking/listening, 4 for handwriting) with his test results being 5c for reading and 4a for writing. Maths his teacher assessment was 5, test results 5c, and science which was teacher assessment was 5.

I mentioned earlier how beneficial I thought having a private tutor for just a few lessons was. This is from son's report ' X has made very good progress, building up to his sats I saw a big improvement in his depth of writing. At the beginning of the year he struggled to write at length but as his confidence and ability has grown so has the length of his writing'

(It was the length of writing that gave him the 3a score in his mocks, he was meant to write 2 sides of A4, he wrote 1/2 a page)

As the OP asked about a yr 4 child, this is the info I got with my yr 3 child's report.
'Levels start at W, then run from 1 to the maximum of 5 at key stage 2. Each level is then split into 3 sublevels called a,b and c with c being the lowest. As a rough guide the average child nationally will start junior school (yr 3) at Level 2b and leave at level 4b'.

Gingham_R

Some educational psychologists argue that having problems with writing is a defining characteristic of giftedness, Spendless. There are a few reasons for this. Briefly, their ideas run faster than their hands can cope with; asynchronous development can mean that their motor skills aren't as advanced as their intellect and seeing the 'wide picture' can mean that it's hard to focus on putting it down on paper.

The NAGC has stuff on this too, though it sounds like he's doing a great job overcoming it.