To think the Yr 6 Reading Comprehension Test today was far too difficult?

[Lottielo]

Ds just home from school and very upset because he found the reading comprehension paper much harder than previous sample papers he has done in school. He didn't even finish the paper (missed out 5 questions).

Was this paper harder than expected or was my Ds not properly prepared by his school? I know it shouldn't matter too much, but I'm worried it could knock his confidence.

My DD came home and I asked how it went. She said oh I love SATs, you only have to do an hours exam and then we got to play out most of the day. Or draw. Think the stress has bypassed her.

It makes me so sad hearing of children still talking about the test and how hard it was, parents feeling bad because they should have done more at home, kids in tears etc.

The results will be fiddled to make sure a decent proportion meet the national standard, that's what governments do.

I'm early years atm but in all my years of teaching I've not been this sad or angry about sats (and I'm by no means a fan)

What are we doing to childhood

I saw the paper from this morning and it was very demanding - some complex words too, and lots of inference expected across the three texts. One question in particular stood out - it had misleading question phraseology and would have taken a lot of effort but was only worth 1 mark, despite having multiple parts to the answer. Some questions were challenging even for adults and could be done only with a healthy background knowledge of the context and a degree of intuition.

Partly it is a question of "what answer is the examiner wanting?" If you can't come up with it, but come up with equally valid answers, you are marked wrong. eg [not from the test] - "What reason did X have for doing Y?" There could be many answers to that but only one will be correct for the SATs.

DS1 was in a complete state this morning before he went to school. Although he is good at reading and is in the top set he hates reading comprehension.

I picked him up fully expecting loads of tears but he came out saying that it was easier than he expected and better than the Mock one. He left out 2 questions at the end. Obviously have no idea if he got them right or not but he was really positive which I wasn't expecting at all.

My son said it was fine and he finished it.
He said no one cried or was upset in his class. There is a very wide range of ability in that class.

I think his teachers have been handling the tests well.

Coffee I think I know what question you mean.

DD said there was a question which asked about something not even in the text. She said she read it and read it and couldn't work out what they were asking her. She gave an answer but it was a pure guess.

Lots of vocab questions apparently. Some of the words she mentioned I wouldn't expect an average 11 year old to know. Obviously we know MN doesn't have average 11 year olds

Dd said she didn't have enough time and left two at the end which she would need to have written quite a bit on. I am not sure that I agree with the SATs being under such a time pressure. If they want to see how much they know then let them write as much as they know. It's good to hear that she only needs to get half the marks why not just set half the questions then .

My (extremely laid back) DS' verdict was that it was hard but not impossible. He did say "There was one bit with three 3-Mark questions in a row. If I could have had a word with the author, I'd have said "Calm down, dear"".

Literacy is my dd's strongest paper.

She's been super chilled about SATS. Has had the highest mark in class tests and mock exams. She came out saying "she'd done awesome". Then she said she'd left 2 questions as they were incomprehensible. Then she went all giddy and silly in the car, which quickly turned into sobbing. She can't explain why. She now in her room.

I'm not confident for the rest of the week. This is the first time she's shown any lack of confidence.

I've seen a few times on TES and Twitter that the test was "middle class" / "classist"; how can a test be middle class??

Mrsgiraffes, yes not sure how to describe a paper as mc!

Because it was so difficult and sounds akin to an 11+ paper I suppose is why people are saying it was middle class. People will complain about anything though!

If all children found the paper hard the marks should reflect that so they shouldn't worry.

You can't teach extensive vocab. Children pick it up from the language used at home, the books they have access to, the TV/films/radio they hear.

If you are testing children by asking them what words mean, they need to have had access to those words in the first place.

It is a great example of how a test can be biased to children from other 'lower' classes who aren't exposed to that kind of language.

DD has mentioned two words that she was asked about today. They are both not words you would hear in an everyday conversation at all.

mc= subject matter, vocabulary and content. Phrasing of answers.

When I was at uni, I failed a general knowledge paper, along with everyone else in my seminar group.
The questions didn't make sense and whoever set the questions obviously expected us to have knowledge outside our experiences. I had no idea if you should wear red or blue when walking down the named street, and almost every word requiring a definition I got wrong.
It turned out that over 90% of schoolchildren in LA, in the American equivalent of PRUs passed with A*. The paper required knowledge of LA street culture and slang, American fast food, gangs and the rest.
The paper was set to show us that we may be teaching children who don't have the same background as many of us nice, white mc students back in the early 1980s.

It doesn't really matter - its a test of schools, lots of people are in tops sets who don't get level 6s (or sometimes even 5s). I know children on the secondary G and T register who didn't get 6s at Primary.

To do better than your "natural" level can actually be a disadvantage.

I've just asked my dc about the test and the vocabulary etc and got a face. So I pressed further. Nothing out of the ordinary according to them.

We aren't mc but they did pass the 11+ and they did complete the whole paper

I think the MC comment means the text was aimed at an audience who were white, British and fairly well off children, often who have parents who are university educated and in professional careers. So, some of the things the texts were about may not have been as relevant to other groups of children.

So, for example instead of being about a trip to the local park it may be about a trip to a ski holiday resort abroad.

There is a fair bit in education these days about making topics and text more relevant and accessible to all children in the class regardless of their family's wealth, religion, culture, nationality, etc. So, I assume the comments suggest that the topics and texts used were more limited in range/audience.

My dd is a high achiever too and would have probably sat an old level 6 paper. She came home sobbing but is now saying it was ok (even though she messed out two questions). Bit confusing. The girl's like a bomb!

DS said it was 'fine' he did finish, though said others didn't. When I asked if anyone in his class got upset he looked at me like I was mad and said 'no'.

What kind of vocab are we talking?

vocab = vocabulary....couldn't you just say words?

I think exhaustion, pressure from school and general "omg a test!" is getting to them a bit

According to teachers at my school the paper was hard, but the problem was that there was too much to do in within the hour.

But if the paper is supposed to stretch up and over a level 6 then it's going to be varied and a significant number won't finish it and it will seem hard as it's subject matter that was otherwise in a separate paper