eggon
The fall in standards indicated by the press is just a stagnated maths score and a 1 per cent fall in the English score. This is not even a statistical hiccough as the changes are well inside standard deviation, and wouldn’t make a statistician blink. But when did newsmen, politicians, inspectors and educational advisers ever understand statistics?
middlemarch
Since the numbers achieving level 4 or better have risen since 1997, one could as easily write the headline ‘Tories were rubbish at getting enough kids to achieve L4 or better’. However, most of us understand that: a) Sats show nothing that proves anything; and b) when Sats began, the concept was that level 4 was meant to identify the average grade.
emperorkatan
In 1997, to reach a level 4 for English writing the mark range was 31-38. In 2008, the mark range to achieve a level 4 was 25-36. It is lower, which might well have been done to throw more students into a level 4 or higher and make it appear there has been improvement. The fact that there is a dip this year, even when the boundary marks are much lower than they used to be, should be a great cause for concern.
mountainpaddy
So after years of things improving, listening to the moaners complaining about things being made easy, a drop in the statistics suddenly means the whole system’s failing! How about a bit of perspective?
jubilee
Failing to get a level 4 in English does not mean that those children leave primary education unable to read and write.
maizie
Regrettably, for most of the children we take in Year 7 who get a level 3 or below it does mean precisely that. They cannot read and write to a standard that (I suspect) anyone on here would call truly literate. Or are the children we get in Year 7 at my school different in some way from those in the rest of the country? Don’t be fooled by the ‘standards’ for achieving level 3.
year6teacher93
Of course the levels are inflated. Year 6 is now spent doing nothing but revise for Sats. Not through choice - we are forced into this position. My sympathies to Year 7 teachers, but until this love affair with data is binned and league tables dropped, the situation will only get worse.
