SATs practice

Key Stages 1-2 and SATs advice

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Brum Mum
Posts: 604
Joined: Thu Jan 10, 2013 6:27 pm

SATs practice

Post by Brum Mum »

Has anyone else's DC started SATs practice (yr5) in school already?

My DS mentioned yesterday that they had already done a practice paper...

Actually in hindsight - I wonder if this is just for end of year assessment / reports.
secondtime
Posts: 138
Joined: Sat Apr 17, 2010 3:53 pm

Re: SATs practice

Post by secondtime »

My school does 'optional SATS' each school year so maybe this is want your DC has done. I always had to remind my DCs that is was optional for the school not for them individually! :lol:
yoyo123
Posts: 8099
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:32 pm
Location: East Kent

Re: SATs practice

Post by yoyo123 »

Yes, the QCA tests are being done around now. Results are used to track progress.

Some schools are also doing CAT tests in year 5 now.
mystery
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Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: SATs practice

Post by mystery »

Why do some primary schools use cats?
Amber
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Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:59 am

Re: SATs practice

Post by Amber »

mystery wrote:Why do some primary schools use cats?
At my children's primary they were used for tracking. I was shown ( I didn't ask - it was brought out at parents' evening) a pretty graph which had some lines on it showing my son's expected trajectory. When OFSTED came to the school they must have been shown the same graph as suddenly we were told that son needed to sit level 6 SATs in order to satisfy OSTED that he was being pushed, stretched, challenged etc (all the things I did not want to happen to him at primary school) to make the stats of his CATs and his SATs tally.
mystery
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Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: SATs practice

Post by mystery »

Ah OK. So presumably his CATs showed very high ability.

Yes, you might not have wanted you son to do level 6 stuff . However, presumably sometimes CATs will show teachers that they could have misjudged a child --- doing them early year 5 would give time to help a child who was clearly capable of 4s or 5s but had for some reason only be heading towards 3s get out of the mire before starting secondary.

If schools do not do some slightly more objective assessment of ability than just looking at children's school work to date, a small proportion of children could fall through the cracks.

So, as well as saving money by not doing CATs in early year 5, schools have the benefit of not uncovering for themselves that some children could maybe have done better in years 1 to 4, given the help and support that state schools generally don't have time for.

So the job is left to secondaries - they will see the mismatch when they do the CATs in year 7 --- if indeed they do. I guess fewer secondary schools are doing them too.

Do secondary schools that don't use CATs have other ways of doing this which Durham CEM charge for?
moved
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Joined: Fri Oct 12, 2007 1:42 pm
Location: Chelmsford and pleased

Re: SATs practice

Post by moved »

The problem with CATs is the hugely wide confidence intervals. Results are taken to be exact by both schools and parents.
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: SATs practice

Post by mystery »

True I am sure. Any idea about the confidence intervals on 11plus tests?
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