11 Plus Exams Forum

hi there, a question for parents with children already in grammar school really - what were your childrens sats levels at the end of yr 6? and do sats levels have a bearing on grammar entry in your opinion? thanks, nicky.

SATs levels have no bearing on Grammar School entry at all as SATs are taken at the end of Year 6, in May. This is after school allocation day to Grammar/Secondary School, which is in March.

My DD was level 5 in literacy & maths ( but had been working at level 6 maths and passed test). DS was level 6 for maths level 5 for literacy( got a place on appeal after failing test). At least the CEM test does test english and maths skills . We only VR testing in Gloucester.

My daughter was Level 5 in maths and english. She took a Level 6 maths paper internally and was one mark off. She gained a place at KE Handsworth.

My DS was levels 4/5. He was nowhere near a 6, yet passed. There is no relationship between the two.

DC at KEFW was level 6 maths and level 5 for rest.

The only real connection is that predicted SATs levels may be useful evidence for an appeal.

There are plenty of children with level 6's here who aren't in the grammar schools, and plenty without who are.

There are plenty of kids at GS with a mix of 4s and 5s (but I'm willing to bet that almost without exception the girls got 5s or better). Y5 levels can give you an indication but they're not a reliable predictor.

In Kent there is only a small proportion of children at grammars who do not have level 5s - you can see this by looking at the dfe GCSE performance tables for each school - the high attainers are the ones who left primary with level 5s, the medium ones are level4s, and the low are level 3 and below.

In Kent the 11plus test contains GL assessment maths. I have recently read through all 8 familiarisation papers. Without having covered level 5 work one would struggle with a fair few questions in the familiarisation papers. If the real test mimics the practice papers this would explain why few children who are level 4 at the end of Year 6 (and therefore even lower at the start of year 6) pass the Kent test.

You don't have to write in the Kent test - everything is multi-choice. So it would be possible to be an average or poor writer and pass the test.

In Kent about 25 to 30% of children get grammar places. In more highly selective areas I would have thought that you would see even fewer children with level 4s at the end of year 6 gaining admission to grammar.

I've not heard of anyone in South Warwickshire getting places but not achieving level 5 SATs. East Warwickshire (and in particular the area closest to Rugby) will have a similar percentage qualifying to Kent, so there might be a few there. But I do know quite a few boys who got level 6 KS2 SATs but still didn't get places.