Education - SATS tests

[Fletch]

Re your advice to parents on SATs, the best advice you can give them is: "SATs are only important for heads to improve their standings in the government imposed league tables."
As a diagnostic tool for identifying children's sterngths or weaknesses they are virtually useless. So don't allow yourselves to get sucked into the pseudo-importance agenda encouraged by schools. It just puts more pressure on your kids.
The only time they may affect your child's future is in Y9. Many secondary schools use these Key Stage 3 results to group pupils in sets. So if you want your child to be in a "top" set, then encourage them to work hard for those SATs.
But in general the word is:"SATs suck!"

As a teacher of special needs kids i have to add that KS3 SATs are a source of great self esteem for our kids who (especially in maths & science) can achieve similar results to their mainstream cohorts (or better)

Go to www.bbc.co.uk/revision or bitesize if you want some help with SATs revision. Both my kids use it for different levels, its positive and fun. I've looked at the revision notes that their school provided for Shakespeare revision and I'm sure my English teacher must be spinning in her grave! I've also got 3 CDs from Dorling Kindersly for KS3 which are pretty good once you work out how to use them! WHSmith do good revision books at all levels. This is the really important time for them as someone has already said, because schools 'stream' the GCSE students on these results and if the school decides to put them in a stream where they can't get above level C at GCSE then the only way round this is to put your hand in your pocket and pay for them to sit it as an external candidate at your local college. I expect I'm a typical ex-teacher, trying to ensure mine have the best run at this possible, but I feel I'm doing someone else's work here!! Obviously you don't want to terrorise little kids with exams and I'd speak to the teacher quite strongly if I felt that was the case with one of my kids - think of the long term consequences of exam phobia! But, I think that older kids should also know the realities of this situation though. Fortunately mine have my example ie: back at college at 35 to try and get paper qualifications I missed out on through not working at school!!

My year 2 son will soon be taking key stage 1 SATS. He's expected do fine - he's pretty able in all subjects. His extremely nice teacher does not seem to attach much importance to the tests in terms of measuring ability, echoing some of the comments here about it being for the school's benefit only.

We have not been told to buy the special SATS coaching books or to encourage our son to reach the highest level he can achieve. This is in contrast to advice given to some of his friend's parents at different schools nearby.

I can see both sides of the argument. I don't want my 6-year old to get examn phobia. But equally I want him to be in an environment which encourages him to do his best.

My main concern, however is that I have put in an application for my son to attend a very good and over-subscribed church school. I do not know if I will want to move my son if a place came up since he is happy where he is, but I also want to give him the best chance possible of being offered a place. Would his SATS results affect his chances?

I would check the school's policy on streaming. I hope that most schools have the same flexible approach to 'streaming' as the one I work at. We do use the SATS as a guide but they are not the be all and end all. We look at the pupil's results in inhouse tests throughout the year and also 'gut feeling'. We often end up adding boys to the upper groups, this improves their selfesteem and we don't have the national problem of underachievement of boys in our department.

As an example I had a boy from bottom set Y9 move gradually up 2 sets, he did Higher Tier GCSE and achived B grade.

I hate to be a cynic - but some schools use SAT's results to judge teachers (PRP etc)so teachers do put pressure on pupils.

Also some schools use KS2 SATS to stream in yr7, unfair and unjust I know but it goes on, think about those league table places...

There seems to be an awful lot of pressure put on the pupils in Y6 as they are the last published for primary schools. I came across a little girl who lost hair due to stress! This cannot be right.

I've always told my children that as long as they have tried their best then noone is going to complain. They know I only get cross if they don't make an effort! But other kids aren't so lucky; I remember changing a report for a girl at school with me who was terrified to take hers home because it wasn't A1 the whole way through. We had to find another envelope because she wasn't allowed to read hers like I was. My parents said my report was as much for me as it was for them, how else would I know what was going on? I feel so sorry for that poor child you spoke of Kate71, that cannot be right. Makes me want to fight her corner for her!

It makes me really cross the way a lot of schools let parents think SATs results are important to the children's futures: they aren't. They are a test of the school's performance, not the child's. Secondary school selection takes place before the SATs results are out, and as for streaming, if the child does badly on the day of the test and gets put in the wrong stream, any decent school is going to find that out pretty promptly, isn't it? My son is in year 6 this year and it is obvious that the SATs are positively damaging to the children's education: instead of spending time learning new things, they are spending hours revising, doing old tests, going over the results - boring for the kids, boring for the teachers.

Reading all this has been really interesting. I'm a Year 2 teacher and after the Easter holidays we will be doing the KS1 SATS. I make a point of being VERY low key, we show the children the past papers only to show them what they will be doing. You can't put a SATS paper in front of a child who has never seen the format before - it just isn't fair. The SATS have never told me anything about a child that I didn't already know - I have to do a teacher assessment on them before anyway. I feel they are purely for Government statistics and a way to put the pressure on. Assessment right at the end of the Key Stage would be more useful - as well as Baseline information to make comparisons, to judge each child's progress over the 3 years. Level 1 looks awful on paper until you look at the Baseline scores for that child and realise that they had a real paucity of language when they came to school. I also think that parents get very worked up about the SATS and they really don't need to. You can't teach the test - a child will do what it can on the day, with the paper that is given. My eldest son did his KS1 SATS last year and we didn't even talk to him about them before - he sometimes came home and said that he had done 'special work' and that's how it should be. A low key approach from the school and home.

Forgot to say this - some secondary schools don't even bother looking at the KS 2 SAT results. What does that say about them?

I take your point about the low key approach to SATs, but my children's school does use the results for streaming GCSE groups. My son is dyslexic, he and I revised Macbeth together, and the look on his face when he came back afterwards to tell me that he had had no problems, used examples and quotes and hadn't needed extra time, was worth every second. 'I wrote 3 pages!' from a child that thinks 15 lines is an essay! He is positive about his tests now, he has experienced the results himself. His school is not particularly geared to help dyslexic children and it is going to get a shock when they get his paper back and I'll be interested to see what group they put him in!

mel - i thought that baseline assessment had been introduced formally in order to make a fairer judgment on each child's performance at the end of each key stage? my son is now in Y3 and his reception year was the first (i think) in which the baseline assessment was offered to parents; isn't it being used by the dfee/lea/whoever to assess the school's performance?
i have heard of PANDA grades, in which schools are compared with other similar schools (based on size and number of free school meals?) but isn't there anything based on "value added"? there certainly should be.

incidentally - for anyone not sure about the value of the literacy/numeracy hours - we have a grammar school locally, with an entrance exam, and my kids' primary school had - until this year's Y6 - sent more children than the other local primary schools (usually 14 or 15 from a year group of about 40). (our school has always taught along the lines of the 2 strategies.) this year though, with a group of roughly equivalent ability, only 11 got in, and the other local schools' pass rates had increased...obviously one year doesn't prove anything but one of our Y6 teachers puts it down to that.
and - bucking the national trend - for the last 3 years more boys than girls (from our school) have passed! goodness knows why that is...

JanH - sorry, I didn't make myself too clear. What I meant by using the Baseline for comparisons, was, to make that the information available to parents on the same sheet of paper as you give them for the Y2 SATS, so value added and individual progress is perfectly clear. Baseline information has been shared with parents in Hampshire for a while now. but what is going to happen is that they are going to move formal Baseline assessment to the END of Reception. This means that it won't be a Baseline from when the children come into school. How can schools then show the progress, the value added, that the children have made in that first year? You're right about the Panda grades - but you have to make sure that your school is in the right group. The school I teach in is in an area where there is a large black economy, many parents don't claim for free schoolmeals, because they want as little on record as possible about them, and so economically our school looks better off then it actually is. Our Head has just fought successfully to get our PANDA group changed. This means that we are compared for SATS results with schools that actually match us.
Kia - I think that revising is important for older children - I just feel very strongly that 7 year olds ( and a substantial number of 6 year olds ) don't need pressure of that sort in their educational lives.

mel - you mean they've moved the goalposts AGAIN????
i do wish they would stop pratting about and let things settle down for a bir so we could all see what's been happening...

mel - you mean they've moved the goalposts AGAIN?

i do wish they would let things settle down for a bit so we could all see what's been happening...

oops! didn't mean to post 2 messages - 1st one wasn't there when i looked!

I don't think they'll ever stop moving the goalposts! Sometimes this can be good but when you're on the receiving end of implimentation and you can plainly see that, whoever thought this wheeze up, hasn't been near a primary classroom in the last 100 years or so, it's incredibly frustrating!! I could think of worse things to say than pratting around!!!!!!

The clock is ticking, my 7 year old son's SATS tests begin this week. His teacher takes the cynics view of them and has advised me to do likewise. But I have to admit on Sunday I wavered and dangled a SATS example book in front of my son's nose. I asked him to tell mummy what level he thought could tackle. He looked at me with some contempt and said "my teacher says we must relax and enjoy ourselves this weekend before the SATS tests, mummy, so I am not going to tell you"

Just thought I'd add this to all the other education-orientated messages popping onto the boards today!

Just come back from Parents evening at my kids school where the 13/14 year olds look at their GCSE choice/options. Just sat through the most amazing amount of self-congratulatory claptrap! One of the comments was 'and the students taking this course can get HALF A GCSE'!! I kid you not. I'm sure that would be an absolute belter at interview! What planet do these people live on, whoever thought up that little gem? I sometimes think that part of teacher training should be to go to one of these evenings to see how not to do it! I had to restrain myself from re-arranging the face of the art teacher who has single handedly managed to put my son off anything creative. I mean with the wealth of naked ladies and/or blood and guts available to study how can you not get 13 year old boys interested!? I shall be using the comments made by this teacher in one of my presentations next week as a classic example of how to demotivate. Oh I'm sorry but I was soooo angry last night when I read the report that I seriously considered taking time off 'work'(!) and doing home teaching myself. By the way my ikkle boy got excellent marks in his English which apparently came as 'no surprise' to his teachers! I could rant, but my blood pressure is spraying out of my ears as it is!

Kia what exactly did you want from the teachers? Did you tell them how you felt? Perhaps you should get back in contact with the school. Wouldn't you have felt worse if your son had done well in English and it had been a surprise?

I understand your comments Kate71 - you sound like you work in a really great school and are a professional and caring teacher in it for the right reasons. Yes, I have told the teachers what I feel the problems are and yes every year they agree they've made a balls-up and every year I go into battle again. I was actually at a parents evening with 300 odd other parents each desperate to talk to teachers about options - it is just not possible to discuss anything in such a scrum so what was the point? So we are now waiting to have an interview with the course tutor to put our views and concerns again. I don't really understand your comment about feeling worse if he had done well in English? My son and I put in a hell of a lot of work at home quite apart from the English studies and the dyslexic workbooks (which I found on the internet)- the job which should have been done at least in part by his teacher. So the comment that it was 'no great surprise' that he did well is quite breathtaking! Don't get me wrong, I'm not doing your profession (my ex-profession) down, I'm just saying the representatives I'm currently dealing with leave a great deal to be desired and yes I've told them so - and whats more they've agreed! I have just had to be proactive about this and teach him myself - but what about the others who dont have this training or inclination? I also feel that because they know that I used to teach, they know I will walk the extra mile because I do it every year! And I'm sorry if I upset you or anyone else - but what possible use is half a gcse to anyone? The personnel officers I talk to look for grade C and above in the 3 'r's and anything else just isn't going to be acceptable. I expect you would probably class me as a 'difficult know-it-all' parent and yes I am all those things and more than one teacher has hidden in the photocopy room when they saw me coming!! I'm not confrontational - promise - just have a very acute bullsh*t detector!

I'm slightly ashamed to say this Kia but if your son was in my class of (on average 28-30)pupils I would concentrate on others because you are doing the work at home. Unfair? possibly but what about the others pupils whose parents will not help them? These are the horrible decisions you have to make and one of the reasons I no longer teach in a school. The choice was me giving more to other children than i did to my own, so I stopped. Is it the teachers or the size of the class?

Yes, parents evenings are rubbish you do need longer, but this means teachers staying longer. Teachers don't like this anymore than you, it would be nice to work with parents. All this needs time and thought and money. Over to you Mr Blair.

Do you think it's generally true that teachers do not concentrate so much on children who have lots of parental support? All this week my son and a small group of his classmates (the good readers) have been shunted from one teacher to another because his class teacher is doing some last minute one-to-one coaching with the rest of the class to get them over the SATS literacy hurdle. This, and Snowy's comment, makes me wonder what goes on for the rest of the time. Not that I blame the teachers - it's the class size.

Its hard isn't it. I think the clever ones then get very bored and demotivated. I wish it were different.

Snowy, I think you've hit the nail on the head! I think I do get so angry because I know how hard many teachers work to get students through and I'm ashamed to be pushing them when I know the stress they're under, but but but.. you know the rest! I too gave up because I was spending more time getting other people's kids through rather than my own, and .. you know the rest! As for parents evenings - I particularly get pissed off with the way some teachers treat parents like they're 'big' children! On more than one occasion I've found the 'I beg your pardon?' ploy gives a mental bucket of cold water into the face of someone who only gives instructions to subordinates! I have recently been back in the students chair and was absolutely horrified at the lack of preparation, abysmal technique and out of date experience in the real world shown by a succession of lecturers. For the first time in my life I walked away from education. I still feel terrible about it. When I think how I agonised about what I taught and how to best capture the imagination and motivate students, ..but you know this too!