Why is Sats at age 11 such a bad thing

[Coconutmummy]

I understand that passing exams is not the only way to effectively monitor progress. It is however a good objective way of measuring if our education system is delivering. Why object so strongly.

I think sats are for schools ofsted reports then parents to look at I live in a country with no Sats where children and schools manage fine without 3yearly testing

I find it confusing too. I don't have school age children but I remember taking SATs at age 11 myself just before moving up to secondary school and I didn't find it traumatic. The levels were used by the secondary school to gauge your ability.

Also - exams can test critical thinking and not just fact recall - it depends on the question.

This is why I truly don't understand why this year in particular it has caused such a stink?

The problem I noticed with SATS when my dc did them a few years ago was that they did not (as is supposed) test to see what children had learned by yr6.

It tests what they can unrealistically cram into children in the final 6 months, at levels far higher than they had previously been working to during the preceding 5 years,

That is not a demonstration of what you have learned or know or will even remember once it's over. It is just a trick, a memory test to regurgitate information which has no meaning or genuine understanding to pass a test. A horrible stressful high wire act with a drum roll.

In Kent children are still doing the 11+,and the secondary schools retest their new intake. So what do SATs contribute?
My children went to a village primary school,with very good results because of the area it was in and the families it catered to.Again,SATs not telling us much!And in a small school results varied widely according to the individual children in the class that year - both my DCs (dyslexic/ dyspraxia,needing additional support in the tests,scribing etc) were individually identifiable in the schools published results.
TBH the school would have been better off if they had both missed SATs!

There's an interesting perspective here:

www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2016/may/10/sats-the-dangerous-exam-thats-frying-our-childrens-brains

The cognitive ability to memorise data at a young age is a useful but not a sufficient determinant of career success. Measures that develop eg confidence, resilience and creativity are more important.

This government tends to opt for the most politically popular (with its core vote) but least educationally supported approach - bring back kings and queens, complex grammar etc, and has a record of consistently ignoring educational experts.

It is no wonder so many doubt the sense of the testing process, because the dept for education has lost so much credibility.

But grammar and maths tests don't only test memorisation - they're about the application of rules and critical thinking.

I also think that people are hugely underestimating the terrible effect that poor literacy and numeracy can have on a child's (and adult's) life. It IS important that schools which are failing students in this regard can be identified and it IS important that ALL children can be brought up to a minimum standard by the end of primary.

And I just don't buy the view that an exam in which all children can't do well is a waste of time. An exam that every child could pass with flying colours would be spectacularly pointless - of course there should be differentiation. But that's not to say that every child shouldn't be able to count their grade as an achievement.

mrsmugoo: This is why I truly don't understand why this year in particular it has caused such a stink?

There's always some objection to SATS (for reasons outlined above) but most schools and parents don't object to assessments as such. Indeed, all schools do their own assessments regularly.

This year there are two problems, as I understand it from a DH in Education. (1) the tests have been made harder - what was "above expectations" is now "at expected level". And (2) then new, harder curriculum has only been taught for about a year when really it needs about 3 before being tested.

Add to this leaked papers, no standardisation agreed on some papers, Govt Ministers unable to answer the questions 11 year olds are supposed to, and you can see why many are calling them to be scrapped - or the results not used for judgement - this year.

Thanks! Yes it does seem like a bit of a shit show.

"I also think that people are hugely underestimating the terrible effect that poor literacy and numeracy can have on a child's (and adult's) life. It IS important that schools which are failing students in this regard can be identified and it IS important that ALL children can be brought up to a minimum standard by the end of primary."

I get this, but a year of preparing for tests, and revising for tests, which they then fail is not going to actually help those failing students. They leave school in a couple of months, are the schools supposed to catch these kids up in that time so that they are at that minimum standard? Even if those children could be caught up, what impact has that failure had on their confidence?

That sounds like more confirmation that the SATs are more about testing the school than as one of many ways in which a child's progress is measured. And the teachers know that these aren't the best way of measuring progress, but they are under pressure to get the kids to pass them, to 'prove' that the school is good.

Sorry nobility, I misread your post a bit. I realise you meant future students of failing schools.

I'm going to stick the kettle on before re-engaging rant mode

I'd rather my kid knew how to write a really creative piece of writing, and how to structure a story, than deliver a piece of writing which is wooden and rigid but at least has the required number of exclamation marks in it.

This. The literacy questions are enough to drive you away from reading and writing for the rest of your life. They've also been gone through by many academics and experts and lots of questions are found to be either plain wrong or to have multiple options rather than one correct answer.

SATS in their current form are dreadful. My daughter is doing them right now - year six has been pretty miserable because of them. The other day she said, unprompted,"mummy I can't remember the last time I wrote anything interesting in school. We just do tests." She does more writing at home. Obviously this depends on the school it we have a head who places results above all else so it's stifling. Last year's y6 teacher reigned because the stress was too much.

Teaching to test isn't the best way of educating children. Rote learning doesn't make you a creative and problem solving adult.

Resigned not reigned! Tiny phone, fat fingers

Oh, where to start!

• SATs are a blunt instrument - much better that teachers are carefully monitoring progress and adapting their teaching accordingly to individual children.
• SATs test things that children do not need to know at that stage - e.g. grammar that is only needed much later if they decide to study modern languages or Latin.
• much of what they are being tested on is repeated in the first two years of secondary school - so why narrow the curriculum unnecessarily at this early stage?
• school life is being focused around the SATs now rather than a proper broad education.
• the tests are beyond most adults - including the politicians.
• micromanagement of school from central government is a political concern - ?fascist state looming. It is wrong in principle.
• ALL children in year 6 are presented with 3 levels of tests - one of which was formally only ever presented to the gifted and talented children. Now children with SEN have to try it - what do you think that does for their self-confidence and self-worth? Many of them will find it all completely beyond them, and lose interest in education, as will many more "average" children.
• teachers are being judged on the outcomes in their performance reviews (their increments depend on this), so if Teacher A works her tripe out and manages to progress brilliantly with a group of SEN pupils, but their results fall below a certain SATs standard she will be penalised in her salary; while Teacher B has a bright class and she can get them through with the minimum of effort will get her increment. How can that be right?
• these tests have been set without the proper involvement of the professionals teaching on the ground - another insult to professionals and a refusal to listen (see also Junior Doctors). This government is meddling in issues it does not understand, because it does not listen to those who really do know.

If my children were still school age under no circumstances would I allow them to sit the SATs. All power to those who are trying to sabotage them by leaking to the press.

Mishaps - fantastic post. It says absolutely everything. I wish there was a round of applause emoticon

Mishaps brilliant post.

I think it has a place in schools and I really can't understand the assertion that it should be abolished because it causes stress.

In 6-year-olds? You think 6yos should be stressed by having to do exams?

OP, do you have a child who has recently done SATs in Year 2 or Year 6? That may colour your judgement if you have.

Hear, hear, Mishaps!

Totally agree. Saves me typing out something similar (but not so eloquent).

Tests are not a problem. Most parents would say that weekly tests in spellings. time tables etc are positive. SATs are a political test for schools and teachers. There are no benefits to the kids what so ever.

It worries me that teachers and politicians talk about SATs in terms of pass/fail. If 100 is the national average (mean?) then 50% will be below that mark. It doesn't mean that they are failures. For example if a child was on the 25th percentile in Y2 and 50th percentile in Y6 then the child has made brilliant progress. However, the child will feel like a failure because during revision for this test, the raw score will seem low to them compared to children who have remained on a higher but more stable line. (I'm going through this with my y5 son at the moment.)

I agree tests should not be failable and that linking results to pay is wrong. I think it would be better if kids/parents did not actually learn their results.

I strongly disagree that the fact that a child is likely to get a lower mark, because of EAL or SN or low ability or because they've fallen behind, means there's no point trying to teach them the syllabus or that they are not going to get anything out of challenging material (I find that attitude pretty chilling actually). I disagree that getting a low mark or being challenged inevitably means feeling bad. I also disagree that grammar/literacy/numeracy are somehow opposed to creativity. You need to give people the building blocks for both critical and creative thought. I disagree that 10 year olds don't need to know grammar (or maths). Frankly I think modern languages and Latin would be wonderful for kids that age.

But do they need to know the depth of grammar that is currently being tested? Kids also need to learn science but it doesn't need to be nuclear physics just yet. If you look at the level of the grammar the kids are doing, they obviously need to spend a long time covering it. Which means something else has to give - there isn't an infinite amount of time in the school day. At the moment, arts and creativity is what is going to make room to cover the really in depth grammar. And again, our prime minister managed to get where he is without knowing that level of grammatical detail, so is it really necessary for every 11 year old to understand it fully?
Why is it challenging to learn something by rote you may never use again, rather than being challenging to produce a really imaginative piece of work, even if there's a question mark missing? its not about saying some kids don't deserve to have acces to parts of the curriculum, it is about saying that it's not realistic to expect that all kids can do the same thing, and to provide loads of variety which benefits those kids whose strength may not lie in rote learning, but also those kids who can memorise but need to be challenged in other ways.
At the moment, SATS just test the rote learning skills and to a ridiculous level.

I saw something going round on facebook over the weekend that was homework for those sitting their SATs this week, with loads of fun activities to do and a note that if they feel they 'have' to revise, then to only do an hour (I'm paraphrasing as I'm too lazy to go looking for it right now, I'm sure others have seen it).

Everyone was saying how amazing the teacher was but I couldn't help wondering why children would feel they had to revise, and what have they been doing in school that it is necessary to tell children to go and play at a weekend.

I know some kids will put pressure on themselves but I don't believe that's true for all of them.

I'm sure SATs were useful once, but when they become the main way of 'proving' whether a school is good enough or not, the inevitable teaching to the test renders them pointless.

I'd think they are bad because they don't even do the job they are supposed to. Since schools are judged based on them, there is an incentive to teach to the test, so you aren't measuring how well a school is teaching broadly, but how well they are teaching so you can pass the sats.

The objection is mainly to the 2016 new SATs (Y6 parent here)

Previously, the KS2 SATs weren't perfect but they were manageable. But now they have been made very much harder, which is utterly discouraging. As nobody knows the pass mark, they have had to spend all year since September cramming this stuff to all abilities. There has been limited time to teach the curriculum, but TBH I think some of it should not even have been in the curriculum.

The thing about the high-flying stuff is not just that it discourages the lower achievers failiing to answer questions in the test itself. They have been struggling with it all year in practice papers, or homework sheets or class sessions they never really got the hang of (Of which they never really got the hang?) So it has been drip drip drip of "I'm not good enough at this". If a child is wobbly on capital letters and full stops, trying to teach them stuff about clauses and determiners is not really going to help.

I'm all for good solid basic literacy and numeracy, believe me, and appropriate testing. But it's like they took away the cycling proficiency test and replaced it with a driving test. To "rigorously raise standards" .

Roll on tomorrow lunchtime!

I find the stress that children are under a bit confusing, is it teachers or parents that are stressing children? I've had one go through yr 6 and two go through yr 2 sats and they haven't commented and neither have I (I knew they were coming but didn't make an issue about it) they didn't get any extra homework or prep