Tough Questions

The introduction of new, more difficult tests might well challenge children, but at the moment it’s teachers who are stumped, says Michael Tidd...

Before you read the remainder of this article, can you explain whether the word ‘before’ at the start of this sentence is being used as a preposition or a subordinating conjunction? And while you are reading, can you change verbs in this sentence into the past progressive form?

When the sample questions for the new style of National Curriculum tests were published in July, there were doubtless some gasps of horror in staffrooms up and down the country. We have been warned for months that the bar is to be raised; what we hadn’t realised is that some previous limbo-dancing might soon become pole-vaulting. No longer are questions in Year 6 teachers’ meetings about what will replace the Level 6 tests. It’s the lack of level 3-equivalent questions that is causing concern.

At Key Stage 1, one sample maths question asks children to identify the number of vertices on the square-based pyramid shown. By Key Stage 2, a fractions question asks children to fill in the blank space in the calculation 1/3 + 1⁄4 + __ = 1 (certainly not something we’d currently expect in Year 6).

The release of the materials does at least bring some clarity for teachers about exactly how children’s learning is to be assessed from 2016 – a not-too-distant date if you’re teaching Year 5 during the coming academic year. The expectations are notably higher, and the remaining five terms before the tests are taken leaves relatively little time for covering the new content.

However, perhaps more than anything, the release of this sample material highlights the continuing unknowns about primary assessment. As we begin the first term of the new National Curriculum, there are still many unanswered questions about how assessment will work in less than two years’ time, not to mention how schools will be judged in response.

What will constitute a ‘pass’?

In the past, the theory was that a student confident in the material at Level 4 should be able to score enough marks on a test to score Level 4, and thereby be deemed to be working at the expected level. The theory was flawed, but it was at least a starting point. We knew that some questions tested Level 5 content to identify higher attainers at KS2; equally, some tested simpler Level 3 content. However, in the absence of levels, we now have only the National Curriculum Programmes of Study as a guide. We have no way of knowing what proportion of the test needs to be answered correctly to achieve the golden scaled score of 100. And nor are we likely to know until after the first set of tests. Perhaps importantly, we don’t even know who will get to decide what constitutes a high enough score to be converted to 100 points.

What happened to 4b equivalence?

We were told that the new higher bar would be broadly equivalent to Level 4b on the old curriculum. Yet much of the new content would never have been expected at Level 4 at all. Indeed, in some of the maths questions, the expectation is nearer Level 6 or higher. Was the ‘4b- equivalence’ just a myth, or will that somehow be related to the magical threshold for scaled scores?

How will progress be measured?

Again, the absence of levels from 2016 presents a new challenge for primary schools. How are we to have any idea of how children have progressed when comparing a KS1 level to a KS2 scaled score – particularly given that the scaled scores won’t be known until after the event? Two levels of progress may not have been a perfect measure, but it was at least a measure.

What are Performance Descriptors going to look like?

We’ve been told that writing will still be assessed by teachers at the end of each Key Stage, with new Performance Descriptors to be published in the autumn. What we haven’t been told, though, is what to expect of these descriptors. At first mention, they sound like National Curriculum levels. Can we expected to see the moderation materials for KS1 and KS2 written with the levels simply renamed and a few wording tweaks?

As so often with releases from the DfE, we’re left with rather more questions than answers. The good news is that the sample questions themselves at least have the answers attached!

About the author

Michael Tidd is deputy headteacher at Edgewood Primary School in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire.