Primary Maths and English
It is true that the government has changed the way in primary Maths and English is tested and May 2016 will see children sit these new types of test. It will be much more difficult to se how your child has done compared to previous years in July 2016 but will improve as the years go by. The new test will see how much progress your child has made when comparing your child to lots of other similar ability children up and down the land. Your child will be tested in the following areas: English reading, English spelling, punctuation and grammar, Maths arithmetic and Maths reasoning. The government have alerted schools to the changes and all schools should be ready for your child to sit the tests in May 2016. Some schools might decide that they would like to enter pupils early for the tests but they should let parents know if they are going to do this.
Having already said that the progress of the child is important the progress will be based on the primary value added measures. It is important to know that the school’s score will be worked out when the children of that school have their Key Stage 2 results compared to all children in other schools nationally who have similar starting points. The Department for Education will make a decision and set a target for a school which the school needs to aspire to. If that target is met after the tests are taken then the Department for Education will class that school to have made ‘sufficient progress’. Remember that this classification is only set after the tests have been sat.
As a parent this is a good way to compare schools in the future but the challenge for all parents looking for a new school will be to compare schools using performance tables in September 2016 because they will be faced with comparing the old version of data from September 2015 to the new data in September 2016.