To think we need to get a grip about SATs and stop the drama

[PeaceLoveGonk]

DD(11) has to work very hard just to be average academically. None of this SPAG bollocks comes naturally but she just bloody well gets on with it.

She came out of school yesterday, said test was hard, she didn't finish it but did her best. We then went for ice cream and when we got home she went on the iPad.

No one in her class had hysterics, went into meltdown, cried or did anything other than try their best.

I've read a thread on TES forum describing the test as 'brutal' and there is much talk about ruining our children's lives. I think it's just 4 tense days before they start the wind down to summer.

We're not doing our kids any favours with all this anger, breast beating and angst. They're not working in clothing factories in India, trying to make a living from a rubbish dump or facing death on a dinghy trying to cross the sea to escape persecution. It's 4 days of tests!

Gosh. Well I'm glad DD is at her school then. Much nicer children

Nope. DD is lovely as are most of her school friends. They just don't indulge histrionics the way kids at your DD's school do.

Hugging in the playground and walking into the exam room hand in hand? Not at DD's school, thank goodness

"I didn't even know what SPaG was until breakfast time this morning when it was on the news."

You win the competition then givepeas.

"Also, everyone has done the same prep and same exam so literally everyone will 'fail' if they are as bad as people are making out. Which will show, entirely nothing about the children, only the system. "

Please could you read MMM's post and maybe do some more research around the subject also. Especially if you only found out was SPaG was this morning.

"I am trying to be sympathetic to the stress but it really makes no logical sense."

I'm not sure that empathy and compassion are related to logic.

Also, everyone has done the same prep and same exam so literally everyone will 'fail' if they are as bad as people are making out. Which will show, entirely nothing about the children, only the system

Yes because all children are identical aren't they. sarcasm

There is a fundamental problem: The govt hasn't trusted teachers for years and years. They are professional well - educated people who do the job for the love it. These tests aren't about raising standards, or upskilling the kids who take them or any other excuse the govt come out with. They are a test of the teachers ability to teach and pretty soon we will see performance related pay based upon them.

my kids are much older now and I think to some extent testing more rigorously when they are younger prepares them for GCSE's and A levels. there are simply too many kids of 15 / 16 who have no idea how to revise, how to manage their time or how to answer questions in exams. perhaps starting them earlier will pay dividends later on but we wont know that for another 5+ years.

I don't know much about the USA education system but seem to recall end of year tests mean you are kept down a year if you fail? I can see that coming.

it is a tragedy that kids are moving into senior school without basic numeracy and literacy but the only value of rigorous testing is if you use the results to work out why and then put systems in place to overcome the problem. they seem to want to do part 1 but not part 2.

I wonder if people on this thread really mean to sound so dramatic?

But it would make sense as to why the children involved are so stressed.

Cue more histrionics

To anyone who said that they did SATs in primary school and it was no big deal...

It is no big deal if the curriculum you have been taught and therefore the content of the SATs is age appropriate, consistent and fairly marked. You know, back when the SPaG wasn't more appropriate for those studying linguistics at university than 10 and 11 year olds.

(Also not so stressful for teachers back then when results weren't linked to teachers' pay.)

And perhaps no problem at all if you don't have to resit in Year Seven if you fail.

That last point is really my biggest bug bear and my greatest regret for our current Year Six children. It's even more upsetting than the nonsense SPaG they're being misinformed^ about, sorry taught^, by perplexed and bewildered teachers who have to do as they're told by the government.

All those who say the SATs this year are no different to other years and that over-sensitive children and their hysterical parents should get a grip please consider this:

You fail your SATs in Year Six and know you will be having to resit them in secondary school - but not for another 8 months. You didn't pass them the first time, despite the intense teaching and revision, so how will you pass them a second time? The curriculum in Year Seven will not help you - for them fronted adverbials and the past perfect impossible tense are a thing for university - and eight months is a loooong time. Meanwhile, you will be anxious about starting a new school, travelling to school on your own for the first time maybe, leaving old friends behind and making new ones, moving around a large building for your lessons instead of staying in one classroom, having lots of teachers and getting used to being a small fish in a big pond instead of top of the tree. And you have this resit (on stuff you have no real life context or need for) hanging over you and it marks you out as a failure. At the age of 10 or 11.

This won't be the story 'just' for EAL children or less academic children. Very able children who love a test will have to resit because the SATs this year are designed in such a way that they're hard to pass, even if you understood what the hell they were about in the first place.

So doom on you Year Six. What a mixed up, messed up end to your primary school career.

Also, everyone has done the same prep and same exam so literally everyone will 'fail' if they are as bad as people are making out

The actual prep may be the same (though not sure about that) but teachers and schools attitudes definitely aren't. DD moved schools in Feb. Her old school were far better in their prep and attitude towards the sats than her new school.

Have a look at this Mummymeister

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Is this actually raising standards. Or taking up precious learning time with cramming codswallop?

primarysite-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/9fe2f8f2134040fda4f9608fb4cf1ff4/afc3/GlossaryoftermsforYear6grammar%2Cpunctuationandspellingtests.pdf

bicyclebell you already know the answer to that one.

givepeas Maybe I am one of the posters who sound so dramatic? But I have experienced 2 different schools with 2 very different attitudes to SATs.

Still interested to hear from the poster who said their yr6 child didn;t even know they were taking sats. As fab as my dds old school was even the children there knew they were taking them.

I wonder if people on this thread really mean to sound so dramatic?

I wonder if some on this thread are being deliberately obtuse....

I am old. when I was at school we had end of year tests every year. from aged 7 onwards. they were set by the teacher and marked by the teacher. I don't recall ever being worried or stressed about them because they were just something that we all did.

We also did the 11+ which I do remember and it was stressful.

as I said in my post my kids are too old now for these tests. but fundamentally a test does not improve standards. it never has and it never will. it just identifies short comings and issues which then require action to put right.

Meanwhile, you will be anxious about starting a new school, travelling to school on your own for the first time maybe, leaving old friends behind and making new ones, moving around a large building for your lessons instead of staying in one classroom, having lots of teachers and getting used to being a small fish in a big pond instead of top of the tree. And you have this resit (on stuff you have no real life context or need for) hanging over you and it marks you out as a failure. At the age of 10 or 11.

Really?

Seriously this is just life, change, moving on.

It also doesn't mark you out as a failure. It just doesn't.

Givepeace

Do you work in education? If not maybe listen to those that do.

"...it marks you out as a failure at 10 or 11..."

isn't this the reason why the 11+ was got rid of because evidence based research showed that some kids did feel they had been written off and disengaged from education?

So doom on you Year Six. What a mixed up, messed up end to your primary school career

Your post is just doom filled.

My DS2 is looking forward to the leavers assembly, the leavers hoodies, the leavers party and the year book. It just isn't all doom and gloom.

So no I'm not been deliberately obtuse becase the dramatics are bonkers

Yes I do know the answer mummymeister.

But you said that your children are older now.

Its all very well people saying that standards need to be raised. But if they actually look at what is being 'taught' now and tested. Well, its not raising standards at all is it?

This curriculum is certainly turning my kids off from wanting to go to school, wanting to learn and enjoying learning. I wouldn't mind if the new curriculum contained useful stuff. Some grammar is good. But this goes to ridiculous extremes.

Half of it, it seems, they've made up.

Givepeas. You are very English. We lie down and let them do what they want in this country. Trample all over us. This curriculum needs to be changed, and to be dramatic and fight for that is a good thing. Not something to be sneered at.

I'm guessing you are passive because you don't know what your child is actually spending his/her time doing all day. Not something I think you should be proud of. Why should parents who talk to their kids and find out what is going on in their lives be made to feel beneath you?

Littlemissspiders if these are the kind of people who work in education, then yes I am worried!

What a crock of doom.

Why are some posters missing the point that teachers are saying that these exams are DIFFERENT from past SATS? Kids are being tested to a much higher level with a lot less time to be taught what they needed to know. These unfair and more difficult exams are going to make a lit of kids stressed out and feel like failures - and for what benefit? If you can't see why teachers and parents are concerned about this - then i think the issues have sailed right over your head.

*Givepeas. You are very English. We lie down and let them do what they want in this country. Trample all over us. This curriculum needs to be changed, and to be dramatic and fight for that is a good thing. Not something to be sneered at.

I'm guessing you are passive because you don't know what your child is actually spending his/her time doing all day. Not something I think you should be proud of. Why should parents who talk to their kids and find out what is going on in their lives be made to feel beneath you? *

I am finding it fascinating the number of personal attacks on here because I don't agree with you

I know what is important in my child's life and it certainly isn't some crappy test aged 11 that is apparently going to tell him whether he's a failure or not. I am amazed that people would even take that "lying down"

People on here are not "finding out what is going on in their lives" they are over involved in minute irrelevant details in their lives that have no bearing on their futures. We have much more exciting challenges and projects going on than friggin SATs tests.

I agree with those making the point that it has a great deal to do with the school's approach. Glad to hear there are some schools who haven't spent the whole of Y6 in pointless drilling, but my strong sense is that they are very much the minority.

And on the comments about kids in independent schools doing exams and not getting stressed - state schools have regular tests in-school, too. It's not 'tests' as such that people are objecting to.

Givepeas, it's fairly clear that you don't really understand what is going on for some children.

As a family, we don't give a toss about SATs. In the past they've passed us by, my two older DC have breezed through them and shown great resilience (hurrah!)

Ds2 is now in a different school where their approach is different. There has been a drip feed of SATs SATs SATs since last June. This has created an environment that means that some (not all) of the children (including my own) are incredibly stressed. This has not been pressure led from home. We do not talk about SATs unless Ds is asking us questions. We have spent many nights over the last few weeks supporting Ds through some horrendous meltdowns due to his anxiety over SATs.
Don't get me wrong, we have meltdowns over other things, but lately they are worse and much more frequent.
School has not caused his ASD or anxiety, but their handling of SATs has exacerbated the anxiety felt by several children. We have not done this at home.

The stress of constantly supporting an angry/upset/violent child whose main trigger in the last few months has been immense, for him and for us. Our child is suicidal over them, he is lashing out at us all, he feels like a failure, he feels that he has no future. These are his own words here, not mine. I'm not dramatising the situation here, this is how it actually is.

Some posters on this thread seem completely baffled that children are different. They have different abilities, different stresses, some are academic, some are not, some can breeze easily through tests, some fall to pieces. It's incredibly rude to listen to other posters' accounts and dismiss them as histrionics.

givepeas

But your child is in school 6 hours a day. That's 30 hours a week.

Don't you care what he/she does in that time?

Is that really not at all important to you?

I don't have a problem with testing or SATs.

I don't have a problem with teaching to the test, not really.

I have a HUGE problem with what they are testing our children on, the shit they are teaching our children, the time they are wasting.

It's utterly fucking irrelevant, bears no relation to their secondary school curriculum and in my opinion, is a complete waste of their primary education.

Teach them how wonderful the English language is, not how to label it. Test them on that.

Understanding the molecular make-up of every ingredient does not teach children how to bake a cake. More importantly, it doesn't make them WANT to bake a cake.

The point of primary education is surely to make our children WANT to learn. When it's fun, it sinks in. When it's relevant, it sticks.

When it's stripping something glorious back it its constituent elements and labelling them by rote? Such a waste.

If my boy is stressed out by exams, I want them to be exams that I believe are important. It is important to me to feel that he is an effective communicator for his age, and can use language appropriately and to a decent standard. He should be able to construct sentences.

I don't give a shit if he can identify a fronted adverbial. I write for a living. Sentences that begin with a fronted adverbial sound wank anyway.

It's such a waste. Our children shouldn't be unduly stressed out by anything at 10 and 11 - but if they are, please God let it be over something meaningful.