AIBU to think our kids have been set up to fail?

[theluckiest]

There are heated conversations in Education about this but I really feel everyone should know what's happening - I have only been teaching primary for 5 years. However, for most of that I have taught Year Six. This week I came close to quitting a job I love and think I'm good at. This isn't about pay or conditions. This is about a system designed to make kids fail - the new 'expectations' for an 11 year old will ensure that most children this year will simply not reach them. They will be judged as 'working towards' ie. not good enough. AIBU to think this is going to be a national scandal this year?!! If your kids are in Y6, I am so so sorry. Sorry that they have been set up to fail, sorry that their lovely rich curriculum will be abandoned for a diet of SATS drilling and sorry that concerns for children's mental health have gone through the roof. This is happening right now people - in your kids' schools. AIBU to think something just has to give?!!!https://m.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tes.com%2Fnews%2Fschool-news%2Fbreaking-views%2Fdear-nicky-morgan-a-talented-and-demand-teacher-has-resigned-she&sid=0&appid=966242223397117&referrer=sociallplugin&rdr

I'm surprised to see people say that this doesn't impact the children.
My son has always been near the top of his class for ability. He's year 7 now but when he was about to do his SATs last summer, he was sobbing and in tears because of the pressure. I've never pushed him academically - I haven't needed to and I was pushed by my parents and its lead to all kind of issues now I'm an adult.

Sure there will be some kids that don't understand or don't care but I'll bet a fair few of them will know. They'll certainly know that "working towards" means they haven't met the expected target. And for what? How exactly does it benefit the children? And if it doesn't benefit the children then why is it being done?

YANBU. I'm a TA in Y5 and think the goal posts have been moved far too far.

Carol, I am going to treat your goady and misinformed comments with the contempt they deserve. But just to clarify a few points:

• No, Y6 teachers & schools are not the only ones who 'care' about SATS. We see them for what they are. But we are held over a barrel by a Government who deems them the be all and end all. Believe it or not, most teachers actually care about helping kids access a full curriculum and helping them move on as happy, confident people....not beating them into submission with SATS for weeks on end and making their memory of primary school a miserable one.

• 'Should've been teaching them to these higher expectations' made me snort. No, you're right. And thankfully the writing expectations were published last Monday which gives me ample time to get them there before the May deadline doesn't it?

• I shall treat your comment about Performance Management with utter disdain. But luckily I have a brilliant, supportive Head who can see that this year kids are 'collateral damage' to a Goverment who doesn't give a fuck and that, believe it or not, his staff are trying to give it their best shot regardless.

Ok, perhaps my title was rather dramatic but think this is as bad as it appears and I feel really angry about it. I only realised quite how bad when the 'Expected' writing examples were published this week. Sadly, I don't think most people who don't have school-age kids realise how shitty and unfair this change in goalposts actually is. And how damaging to kids' self esteem. I would NEVER label a child as a failure - but that's what the Gov seem hellbent on doing this year....

SATS results matter for secondary school as they determine the child's GCSE targets. Targets in music, art, history etc. are determined by English and Maths SATS results. Great system.

The new way of teaching literacy just looks dull tbh. Like they are taking a subject that can inspire and open doors and are squeezing all joy out of it.

I have sympathy for teachers, but the absolute, blunt truth is that at universities, we are getting people with A and A* at A level who have very, very limited skills - many who admit to never having read a complete book , frankly appalling punctuation and grammar skills, a lack of ability to construct a coherent sentence (never mind an argument) and often horribly lacking in confidence as well. So the current system isn't really working either - it's all very well having a "no-one can fail" system, but that's not the reality of life: and it's pretty piss poor when university lecturers are having to teach very basic writing skills that students used to acquire in primary school (eg correct use of commas and full stops - I'm not talking about semi colons or anything like that!). What's even more infuriating is that these are engaged, enthusiastic and capable young people - who have simply never been taught any different: it's not their fault they're lacking - it's an education system that says what you meant is more important than what you actually said.

Science degrees shifted to 4 year programmes a while ago primarily because A level students no longer had the requisite skills (mainly in maths) to perform at under-graduate level, so the first year is now getting them up to university standard: of course, these are presented as MPhys/MChem etc, so it's not apparent to an outsider that these are still the bog standard BSc courses, with an extended project tacked on to make it seem "higher" - because people on the outside wouldn't have accepted that it now took 4 years to educate to a BSc level, so they had to "create" a justification for it becoming M something or other.

British children are falling down the OECD tables for there levels of attainment - so whatever's been happening in the last 20 or 30 years hasn't served children and their futures very well.

Those of you who have Y6 or Y5 children, or think that the expectations are not really too high, look at the writing exemplars here:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/2016-teacher-assessment-exemplification-ks2-english-writing

Look at the working at expected levels samples. Do these seem reasonable as what we should 'expect' ALL 10/11 year olds to be able to produce? (And is it reasonable for the Y6 teachers to only have received this guidance this week?)

The tests will be easier for the Government to re-fudge - because they aren't going to be 'levelled' until everyone has taken the test. So if it turns out that the marks are extremely low on very hard papers, the Government can then compensate by making the mark to get 'expected' extremely low as well. But these writing samples are out there now, as absolute standards.

Got me

I have a Year 6 child and I work in a school. I'll go the other way and say the highest achievers are being let down massively. The tests are now 'what is expected', government minimum standards, and much too easy for these children, including mine. How are they going to push them and keep stretching them when suddenly they're forced to only re-cover material they aced 2 years ago?!

And that's what happens when you don't proofread, especially after you've changed the structure of some of your sentences - it probably isn't the only one in there, either

But like it or not, we are floundering compared to the rest of the developed world - with whom our DC will be competing in the global job markets.

Of course we could just teach them degree level material and cut out secondary school altogether!

I haven't seen mentioned on this thread that from current Y5, kids who fail to meet the expected level in their KS2 SATs will be failures who will be forced to resit the exams in December of Y7.

So not only a shitty experience in Y6, but a bloody awful start to secondary school too.

And teacher's link is very helpful - I have very few final year university students (of the 200+ I see every week) who would have been able to reach the "expected" standard for Y6 at the start of this academic year: those able to meet the "greater than expected" standard would be in the (very) low single figures. It's not unreasonable to raise standards, at all: it is unreasonable to expect children (and teachers) to be able to do this in such a short space of time.

Hefzi - surely the answer is to go back to what we used to teach in schools? Rather than teaching children how to pass tests. Michael Rosen wrote a lovely little piece on the answer to what grows on trees. It's that sort of thing that drives me mad. And Nicky Morgan refusing to answer times tables questions on tv/radio interviews - if she isn't confident enough to answer basic arithmetic questions, she's the wrong person for the job.

I absolutely will not entertain any argument that we achieve less than other countries when the poor mental health/suicide rates for young people in those countries are worse.

Just for contrast, this collection of work:

www.harcourt.kent.sch.uk/downloadfile.asp?file=295
is what was produced by the Government in 2013 as an example collection of work at the old 'expected standard' - Level 4.

Whereas this one was for children achieving well over the expected level - Level 5
www.harcourt.kent.sch.uk/downloadfile.asp?file=296

Talking about setting kids up to fail, GCSE pass rates are projected to fall by 23% this year too.

Hefzi - I agree the system up to now has not been great.

My DC got a 4b in Y6 SATs, ie the 'expected level' but he can't read or write well enough for secondary, and they don't have time to teach him.

So a 4b last year wasn't good enough, even though he was told it was.

I wish primary teachers had more of an understanding of high schools. Of how secondaries don't teach reading, writing or spelling.

Actually I wish we still had middle schools, and pupils got a primary style education till Y8.

ewe I completely agree. The teachers at our school say they're only able to say whether the child is doing what is expected of their age group and they aren't allowed to say whether a child is coasting or not. As the parent of academically very able dc this is what angers me most about the whole thing.

I have to say I am concerned that so many students at universities are, to all intents and purposes, illiterate when it comes to any standard of academic writing. We have completely failed our children for decades with ever decreasing standards and lowered attainment levels to ensure no child fails. What we've actually achieved is every child failing. Standards need raising and I suppose someone's got to be the first year to go through the new system.

four but it's only this cohort who are being hothoused because it's so alien to what they've previously learned. For everyone else it should come easily

Four I totally agree with you- I'm opposed to all this standardised nonsense anyway: we had exams twice a year at school, from Y1 up, but the results then weren't used to beat people over the head with - as it seems happens with teachers and SATs, no matter who's in charge.

But I think a lot of people in general are really lacking in basic literacy and numeracy skills - not because they're stupid or lazy, but just because no-one's ever thought it important enough to teach them properly. It's not the teachers' fault - it's the national curriculum and the imposition of standardisation. I really struggle with the fact that you don't need to have an economics' background to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, a rural background to run DEFRA, or have been a teacher to be minister for Education: I know they are supposed to be advised by their civil servants, but clearly, something is no longer working. Of course, it's normal to be anxious before an exam - but something is seriously wrong when you see what PP have said about the stresses their children are already under, and exams haven't even started. (And of course, this post is about children, but the stress on teachers is even worse)

It's no wonder home educating is becoming increasingly popular.
Wouldn't it be a brilliant poke I the eye for the government if parents kept dc's at home the days the sats are set, though no doubt they'd fine them all.

I have a year 6 child and I am also fed up with SATS. Its relentless. Homework handed out on Friday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. After school class for SATS prep (Maths) once a week. All children expected to be in the classroom 10 mins before the bell goes every morning to do, you guessed it, SATS preparation. Almost all English homework consists of the same SAT style test paper every single week. I imagine they are also doing them in class during the week. How tiring and boring. What happened to the days of spending an afternoon doing art work or listening to the teacher read a book for a while?

It reminds me of when my son was really into learning his musical instrument and would practice without being asked. Then he was so good his music teacher entered him for Grades and it was a never ending session of learning the same tunes and scales over and over again. By the time he finished his exam he had pretty much lost interest and now has to be forced to practice.
I remember when he would come home excited to see what his homework was for that week and very keen to learn his spellings so as to get top marks. Now again, its gone the same way as the Music prep.

I dread to think what homework expectations will be like by the time he is doing his GCSE's.

"Of how secondaries don't teach reading, writing or spelling. "

I absolutely agree with this. I can see from my own teenage DCs that the overcrowding of the secondary curriculum in terms of 'content' means that they don't teach 'basic English skills' any more, and as a consequence, the standards of accuracy in their work has declined from what was basically a 'high point' at the end of primary.

Rather than pushing this 'high point' to be 'higher', at a point when the children aren't really mature enough to maintain writing in the very particular 'style' and grammatical complexity required by the new standards [Note that there is NOTHING in the new standards that requires the work to be interesting or engaging. Just grammatically advanced, to an age-inappropriate level.], it wold be better to look at the teaching of English writing skills in secondary.