SATs, Level 6 Preparation in Kingston, Sutton Etc Schools

[htm123]

At DS's school the entire Year 6 cohort has taken a Level 3-5 mock SATs test at the beginning of term. Only DS and another 9 children scored 100% in Maths. On his school's data those children appear as being L5+ at the moment but working in a separate Maths group & with a different Maths teacher having L6 Maths lessons. In DS's opinion, the work is great @ a fast pace and very challenging. He loves Algebra and tells me they are doing quite a lot of it. DS doing one hour/week at home extra Maths work anyway in preparation for the 11+ test.

[YoungSuccess]

mastery level possibly?

Geez... that's even more deluding and deceiving - "Mastery" . I could just hear parents ..my son / daughter is "Master Level"

[Guest55]

Have you actually read the link I posted by ACME? I think they outrank him ...

It's not about 'getting level 6' it's about children being taught badly in some cases. I am spending FAR too much time trying to 'undo' some poor understanding of algebra and other topics. Just being told how to do topics without understanding how to solve problems is a very poor foundation for higher study of maths.

Let's teach children to THINK about maths - NRICH is far more likely to do this than a forced 'diet' of level 6.

[YoungSuccess]

Thanks G55,

Apology, I think I have over emphasised it in my my post. Again I agree with you on the ACME. I was echoing more on the constant oppositions from parents in my DS school, rather than your argument - which again I appreciate and support.

The post has now been removed - I assume the no blog rule - apology moderators. It is certainly not my blog!

Have a great Sunday!

[Guest55]

Thank you for clairifying.

Yes - I understand some parents may not see the implications of 'pushing' for level 6 rather than a long-term view of developing children as learners.

[Tinkers]

DDs primary made a point of not telling either the children or the parents who was going to sit level 6 or not. Some parents tried asking, but the school refused point blank to tell them.
The children would be told on the morning if they were going to be doing the level 6 paper that afternoon. Personally I think it worked well.

All I did was make sure DD did her homework and helping as required. If you do past papers then you are in danger of using papers the school will use as mocks, which helps no one. The only other thing I did the week before was show her what the level 6 SPAG and reading looked like as the school hadn't done this. She had only done level 6 (rename as appropriate ) maths papers. Glad I did as some of the other children were a bit shell shocked by the level 6 papers, not expecting them to be as hard as they were. She at least knew they would be, even if she hadn't actually done one.

[yoyo123]

Have you actually read the link I posted by ACME? I think they outrank him ...

It's not about 'getting level 6' it's about children being taught badly in some cases. I am spending FAR too much time trying to 'undo' some poor understanding of algebra and other topics. Just being told how to do topics without understanding how to solve problems is a very poor foundation for higher study of maths.

Let's teach children to THINK about maths - NRICH is far more likely to do this than a forced 'diet' of level 6.

Exactly!

[moved]

As a teacher, I am currently preparing our HA kids for the primary maths challenge as it's great training for level 6 maths. The L6 test has a high proportion of reasoning, which is everything that should be advocated for secondary school. Let's not redo the whole 'real' debate.

The chair of ACME, Dr Sue Pope, was an advisor to the development of tests.

English reading is harder as the inference skills required are very different from the 3-5 descriptions required.

SPAG is really straight forward aside from the written task, which is really tough.

I did some preparation last year for both English tests, in particular structure of sentences, paragraphs and whole texts. It is both useful for the test and secondary school preparation.