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strawb
Posts: 16
Joined: Fri Jan 30, 2009 10:17 pm

spl's

Post by strawb »

Hi - I wonder if someone could solve a little bit of a mystery for us.
I have a really bright daughter who usually gains excellent marks in everything she does. She's really self motivated and loves to achieve, so is beating herself up a little over these statistically predicted levels they have been given at senior school,
She's been given level 7's in all the main subjects which I know are really good, but she has also been given a 7 in maths. She knows that the highest level you can get in maths is an 8, and can't understand why she didn't get one. Maths is by far and away her best subject - she got 99% in ks2 sats and just laps it all up. After she had finished her cats we had a letter home saying she had received superior scored on one or more of her 3 papers. As we understand it the spl is based on cats and sats and so she can't understand why some girls in her maths class were getting 8's. To confuse the issue even more, one of her best friends who is in a lower maths set, got 80% in her sats and no letter about superior scores and has been given a higher grade. All we'd like to know is how do they work these things out? Is each individual cat paper considered or an aggregate of all three? We've tried asking the school but with little response. I know that these things are relatively unimportant, but if they must give them to the kids shouldn't they be accurate, and shouldn't they be able to tell us how that arrived at them.
Sorry - long post but it's making her really despondent, and I was hoping someone might be able to explain it to us.
Guest55
Posts: 16254
Joined: Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:21 pm

Post by Guest55 »

The school should be a bit more open with you about this. Tell your daughter is not the setting of the target that's important but the 'getting' - encourage her to show them they're wrong!

They are probably based on the average of the CATs scores - schools often get predictions based on this.

However I would expect a level 8 from such a high KS2 Maths score
strawb
Posts: 16
Joined: Fri Jan 30, 2009 10:17 pm

Post by strawb »

Thanks for reply - you're right the school should be more open, I was fobbed off with "well she couldn't have done as well in her cats as she thought, I can't access the computer at the moment" Fair enough maybe she didn't, but that would be very unusual for her and they also sent us a letter saying she would continue as part of the G&T programme due to high cats scores! We will be asking for more details as parents evening.
I know she will try to excel in response because she always does. I guess it's annoying because she has gone from a small primary school where her capabilities were catered for, to a much larger school (albeit a good one) where she has inevitably become just a number.
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