Brief Report Nov 2009

Cat Scores June 2009

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Matthew has been placed in the C stream for now as I phoned the SENCo in July to find out where he was to be placed following these Cat tests and his Sats scores. He said that they were putting him in a large class of 30 in the C stream which I thought would be too much for Matthew too soon, so after some discussion the Senco decided he would be placed in a class of 14 children. I did not know at the time the actual Cat scores and assumed that he had done particularly poorly.
There was a Parents evening Monday and the CAT results were given out along with a presentation as to how the school interprets them. The average range the school uses is 95-105, tighter limits than usually published, they also use the upper confidence limit scores as the children's full potential, so that's 5 above the SAS score.
Naturally we had some question for the teacher, such as "how did you decide on the stream for Matthew?" The teachers are actuallly already discussing what to do with him and have been for a few weeks, he is a "quandry". They might possibly move him to the "B" stream at half term but want to make absolutely sure he would be able to cope. We are happy to go with the decision they make as they know what they are talking about - I think.
1 thing that worries me is that they think the lower verbal score is due to Matthew going to welsh school which is probably true to a small extent, but to me it is more the dyslexia . I also discovered 1 friend's son from the welsh school had 2 average and a below average in his CAT tests but he is in the "A" stream due to the his SATS being level 5s. The feeder schools have all been practising the tests - although how you can practise your ability to a higher level I don't know, the welsh school being a non feeder didn't do this, and I see this practise as unhelpful almost as though they are trying to cheat the system- to what end? The teacher also explained how these streams are all "fluid" and they will be moving the children around so I think any attempt to push up grades by the primarys should be ironed out, (some schools also push the SAT levels up as it's all done on teacher assessments in Wales).

School report click on it to enlarge

School report

Here is an extract from Matthew's report.

School report-Sats

Sporting Success!

Matthew won the most improved player of the year 2008/2009 in his Rugby Team. He was absolutely delighted as he kept asking if he would get it, as he knew himself that his skills have soared this year. It was very well earned, he had his sights on winning it for the last few months, he went out and worked his socks off. The team won a silver medal this year when Matthew was picked to play. We now have a "Wall of Matthew" for him to put his trophies on :) That's JPR WIlliams (an X Lions and Wales rugby star) awarding him his trophy.

Update

Thought I'd better give you all an update. Matthew's support reteurned after Christmas after an uncomfortable time with the school. He was given double support to make up for the lost hours - this cannot really make up for time lost but we have to be grateful for anything these days. He's much happier again. We had a parents evening in April where the teacher was very pleased with him said he was a bright child who came out with a suprising amount of facts verbally, he showed us a excellent piece of work that we know he's capable of, done with very little support (science), he's been holding his own in the class tests. The teacher allows him to answer questions in english if he's struggling for the welsh words which takes alot of pressure away.
His tutor is very pleased that he has improved vastly since she first taught him back in September, ordering his stories and spelling. He actually loves to read Tintin books and is asking me to buy him new ones all the time. He also enjoys history along with maths!