3c or not 3c

It's been analysis day today (Inset - no kids in the building) and we've been looking at how much progress the pupils have been making this year. We've started using a new grid system that shows the level a child arrives from the infants with - and where they should be each year following on from that.

Well, year 3 did not look that good at all. Many of them were positioned below where they "should" have been, but we then did a bit of back checking. If we re-aligned them to the level they got when we retested them on the Yr2 SATs paper back in September, then suddenly all the children were working at the level expected of them, or even working at above expected levels.

That opens up a conversation - why did they arrive with such inflated levels? (we knew they were wrong a week into term - and our retesting proved it). Was it because they were assisted in their tests? did the staff inflate them to make their progress look good? (and drop us in it as a result), or is there a discrepancy between marking levels at KS1 and KS2?

Fortunately now we have evidence to back up our claims if ever Ofsted question us because they will - of course. They'll just look at the level a child left infant school with, add at least 12 points to it and expect them to hit that in Yr6. We're stuffed, but gathering evidence in our defence.