SATS cheating - by the Head!

Oh, as an aside, a Head who can show the Governors that they have 'improved' the school as demonstrated by a larger number of children reaching the expected level/progress at KS2 assessment than in previous years is more likely to receive an larger salary or be able to negotiate one from a new employer. So it could also be seen as being done for personal financial gain.

Do you always believe everything your child says op?

Unfortunately this is a direct result of 'high stakes' testing. I can well believe the Head did this. Our local head did jail time for this, albeit twenty years ago.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/mar/08/schools.education

This is awful. Head is cheating to raise the overall school level which is skewing the image of the school. I would totally report it

There have been multiple cases where this has happened before, and I would assume many more that were never reported especially judging by the answers to this thread. It's a bit sickening to hear so many people are happy with cheating when I know how hard most schools work to make sure they do things properly.

I would report too. Unfair advantage. Headteacher is very well aware of the rules.

Part of my role is to monitor the administration of SATs, unannounced visits, checking against the strict guidance.

I also have a role in investigating maladministration.

@Dilemmaramma report here.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-report-maladministration-at-key-stage-1-and-key-stage-2

Definitely report it. Clear breach of exam practices, protocols and rules.

This is really awful and does affect students as some schools do ‘help’/cheat in this way and some resolutely don’t. This means some children are artificially set higher than they should be and have predicted frades they have absolutely no hope of achieving at GCSE. And some have really low predicted grades meaning they think they aren’t clever enough to get highter grades. You absolutely should report the headteacher. Or at least meet them and see if they are in the remotest bit remorseful. I’m a secondary teacher and I both like sats (done un pressured and untutored they do give a rough indicator of potential grade range) and hate them (for the reasons outlined above).

They all do loads more tests in year 7 to determine their sets so sats don't really matter. They do lots of tests all the time in secondary to check they are in the right sets ect. I don't agree with the head doing this though.

Well, yeah, if it means he's projected to get 7s-9s at GCSE when really he's going to need intensive support to get 4s-5s, it's not going to be great for him.

It's an annual irritation when looking at CAT4 data to see kids with low raw ability scores and spiky profiles combined with higher SATs from some primaries - it's also harder to argue that there is evidence of SEND affecting performance when KS2 data claims that there's nothing to see here, too.

ETA: we'd like to ignore SATs altogether as a result, but unfortunately, we're not able to because it's how progress and the 'quality of teaching' is judged externally.

Headteachers regularly lose their jobs for doing this. Such cheating is very likely to have happened at a few schools this week. Some HTs will even look at a paper beforehand and decide to do a quick revision lesson before the test.

It’s very unfair on the other schools in the OP’s area. Plus… it’s morally wrong.

Sorry SATS are used as predictions for GCSEs that take place 5 years later.
That's crazy, if true.

Still cheating.

SATS are info for the school to prepare your child for secondary. While this would be irregular, it is not going to affect your child’s future. Also as a person in education in a school that has just had SATS week, with staff deployed from all areas to assist, I’m having a hard time believing this actually happened.

@Dilemmaramma right there lies the problem with state education at the minute- some tests sat at the age of 10 are used to predict what a child will achieve at 16. Talk about putting a ceiling on a child or writing them off...

SATs are just rubbish. So much weight placed on schools based on (quite challenging) tests taken by 10 and 11 year olds, which therefore puts unnecessary pressure on those 10 & 11 year olds.

What the head did didn’t follow the administration guidance. But it also didn’t give your dc the answers. If they got them right as a result, that’s still something your dc is capable of achieving. Personally this is one I’d let go.

That is really poor behaviour by the head. I think you should report it to be honest because I work in a school and it makes me wonder what else the head is upto. I know it's not gcses but that's not really the point the head is cheating and that's a terrible example to set.

did they actuallly give your child any correct answers? Or just gently suggest they have another go? If the latter, your child will have only subsequently got it right if they were capable of answering it independently and the head has just helped them to dive deep and find the method or answer within themselves.

this is moral decision obviously. The fact it had helped my child would have no influence for me as SATs are literally about the primary school and them proving their worth by achieving good results. I think for that reason I would report it because if the headteacher is doing that for everyone they’re over-inflating the progress and achievement of the school. It could be hiding a larger problem that the headteacher feels they need to do that.

But don’t you also think that this is all a placebo affect? In that the kids only predicted lower grades due to their SATS score will never be motivated to try hard enough, or be taught well enough to exceeed their predicted grades?

It's a bizarre post