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.

they have had to spend all year since September cramming this stuff to all abilities.

this is the problem with sats. why are they cramming for an exam, that does them absolutely no good and is only a measurement tool for the government and ofsted?

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

But there is a massive difference between having a minimum standard that all children should reach and expecting children to be able to identify a subordinating conjunction or a modal verb at the age of 10 or 11. I would struggle to identify an adverb or an adjective (that's a 1970s education for you), yet I think I can write perfectly well and it certainly hasn't stopped me from having an academic related career at a prestigious institution.

I'd say they are a bit of a waste of time and all the time spent gearing up to them and doing them could be spent on teaching kids not to bully each other, and how to resolve conflict and make the world a better place! and that would be infinitely more useful.

And assessment should be ongoing through a wide variety of way, e.g. projects/portfolios of work/art/drama etc etc in ways that enables kids to be stretched (sometimes) but also to present and showcase their skills in ways which are actually suited to the individual child.

Children could even be engaged in a variety of peer activities and peer reviews in a genuinely caring environment this might actually teach children skills that they will use in the real world and in the work place.

It's not to say we should not have any exams but I think they should be a very small part of the ways children's work and learning and abilities are assessed.

My poor daughter had a breakdown during her SATS exam yesterday. She is a very able student, especially in English. She has no confidence in maths and despite years of very gentle encouragement, occasional unobtrusive tutoring, (here the tutor confirmed it wasn't her ability, it was that had has absolutely no faith at all that she can do it) this year has ruined any confidence she was working towards. She came home yesterday and told me she was a failure. She's ten for fuck's sake. This year's SATS are a total disgrace. She's entering secondary school in September with a view that she's not good enough. We put no pressure on her, I keep telling her I don't care about them but this year has ruined any hope of her ever enjoying that subject again because she feels stupid. She could always pull her confidence up by her ability in English - well thanks to the ridiculous grammar test, that's not the case any more. I despise what this government has done to primary education. Yes children have to leave secondary with a good grounding in the key subjects, but when a child who crafts incredible poetry, who writes books in her spare time and who can read a novel in one day leaves y6 feeling like a failure then things have gone very wrong.

Your daughter sounds like a high achieving perfectionist. If so, it is this that is the problem not the exam.

She needs to get used to not being brilliant at everything. Or she'll have a breakdown during GCSEs / A levels / university.

She is the one labelling herself a failure. Not you. Not her teacher. Not her tutor. Not the govt. only her.

Are you for real? She's ten - she's not a fucking perfectionist at all. She writes and reads because she loves it. She's NOT brilliant at everything, and thus she is fully aware that she can't be brilliant at everything. She IS an able student who is scared of maths and has little confidence In her abilities, apart from the fact she's good at English. But anyone who has to write with the grammar rules enforced by the new SATS would have the joy sucked out of that subject.

How do I know this? Because I really am I high achieving perfectionist and I'd recognise one in my own child. Luckily I'm bloody brilliant at what I do, so no breakdowns here. She isn't like me at all. She isn't a people pleaser and actually isn't bothered by what people think of her. But these exams HAVE left her feeling like a failure.

Thanks for the pseudo psychological profile. Now take your unsympathetic incorrect theory and shove it where your empathy module should be,

I hope she never comes across a teacher with your attitude, so quick to judge and label.

Chalk I thought I was unempathetic. Wow.

I think a lot of people saying that SATS are a good thing are talking about SATS in previous years.

The curriculum change for this year means that children are being tested in ways that are useless at best and harmful at worst. DS is in Y1, and his experience is completely different from that of his sister who is three years older. His spellings are really, really hard for someone who is still learning to read. Recently they have included words like quantity, professional, ceiling, expansion and management. These are not basic words which a five or six year old should be expected to spell.

I don't have a child in Y6, but what I have noticed is a drastic drop in the quality of the writing of the more able children. In previous years, they would produce good writing in plain and comprehensible English. They would use long words and complex sentence structures in situations where this would enhance their writing. Now, in order to get high marks, their writing has become florid and overly complicated.

I don't have a problem with testing at 11, kids have tests regularly to measure progress anyway and if testing at 11 was used purely to give secondary schools an idea of where they're starting with a kid then that would be advisable but the way they're used currently to pile on pressure for the kids to show how well the school is doing, is what's wrong.

Now, in order to get high marks, their writing has become florid and overly complicated

Big YY to this.

I have two pieces of writing from DD on my notice board. One is from the start of Year 6 where she'd written a news story about a break-in at the school. I thought it was fab; very clear, funny and cleverly written. It got her the 'writer of the week' prize and I really wasn't surprised.

The second piece was written a few weeks ago. It is so full of descriptive phrases, similes and over flowery language that it makes it boring, hard to read, disjointed and too 'wordy'. Yet the teacher had written all over it how great it is . There is even a tick box at the bottom of all the SPaG objectives she'd competed in the piece.

Absolute tosh. If this keeps up we'll never see any decent authors from our cohort.

I believe a degree of standardisation of what children are taught - the National curriculum - is useful, and a process for monitoring that it is delivered fully is justifiable. I attended a number of primaries in the pre-NC days, and the difference in content / standards could not have been wider, to the extent that I was repeatedly moved up and down years in different schools to accommodate what I already knew or did not already know.

I also believe that it is reasonable to have a 'snapshot' view of the attainment of children at the point of transfer between primary and secondary, to inform the next school.

I believe that schools should be held accountable for the quality of the education that they provide to all children.

HOWEVER:

• The national curriculum should be age-appropriate. It is simply wrong to say that anyone falling below the current 'expected' standard for the end of Y6 is illiterate or innumerate. A child who does not use modal verbs is not illiterate. One who cannot do algebra or multiply fractions is not innumerate. At 11, I could do neither, but by 16 I could do both because they were absolutely age-appropriate at that point, and were relevant to my life.

• The 'snapshot view' should not be 'a judgement'. there should be n 'this is what is expected', or a 'pass/fail'. It should be an indication of exactly where a child is, and what they need to lean next, not a particular bar they must leap.

• The use of SATs as the main way to judge schools, both by Ofsted and in e.g. league tables, is wrong:

--SATs results are, primarily, a function of intake. --A school is not 'better' because it serves a privileged catchment with many bright pupils, or 'appalling' because it draws from a poor / deprived area or has many children with additional needs. --It is this unintelligent and lazy use of SATs results, both by the powers-that-be and by parents (who are complicit because they 'rate' schools by league table positions, or select the 'outstanding' school against the 'Good' one) that is at the root of most of the stress.

The national curriculum should be age-appropriate. It is simply wrong to say that anyone falling below the current 'expected' standard for the end of Y6 is illiterate or innumerate.

If you can't do that, I am not sure what the use of measuring either schools or children is. I'd think you'd want to identify the children who have fallen behind so you can help them.

-A school is not 'better' because it serves a privileged catchment with many bright pupils, or 'appalling' because it draws from a poor / deprived area or has many children with additional needs.

what we have found is that you don't want your child to be an outlier. If everyone is doing much better than your child or much worse, I think there will be a tendency to forget about that child.

I think the main problem is that sats don't measure what we think they measure. The trouble is they are predictable and timed, so you don't get a random snapshot. It likely tests how well students are drilled on the sats.

" I'd think you'd want to identify the children who have fallen behind so you can help them."

Absolutely this. You want to have an assessment that identifies what children have learned and understand, and where they have gaps or difficulties that can be addressed in their next stage of education - whether that be assessment in the form of marking after one lesson to show which children may need specific teaching or support in the next; in the form of a piece of work (e.g. some unaided writing) at the end of a unit to show what needs to be addressed in the next; in the form of an 'end of year' type test to inform the handover to the teacher in the next year group, showing what has been learned and retained; in the form of an 'end of primary' assessment to give an accurate starting point for the beginning of secondary.

SATs in their current form do not do this - because they are not reported in sufficient detail to show exactly where a child struggles; because they test and value inappropriate content; and because their dual use as part of the inspection / ranking regime for schools works against their use to provide an accurate assessment of a child's true performance.

SATs in their current form do not do this - because they are not reported in sufficient detail to show exactly where a child struggles; because they test and value inappropriate content; and because their dual use as part of the inspection / ranking regime for schools works against their use to provide an accurate assessment of a child's true performance.

My impression is that identifying students who are behind is definitely not one of the goals of the sats. they are to identify good and bad schools.

Chili,

My point is that they don't identify good and bad schools.

Primarily, they identify schools with 'good' intakes and 'bad' intakes, and to a somewhat lesser extent they identify which schools are prepared to sacrifice breadth of education to test preparation vs those who are not.

In older league tables - the measure has now been scrapped - it was possible to sort schools by 'contextual value added' rather than by absolute SATs results. The difference in positions of schools in the different versions was very informative!

In the context of another thread a couple of weeks ago, I sorted the GCSE tables on the DfE website by % of deprived pupils, and then looked at the Ofsted scores of those at the extreme ends of the table (I removed London schools, because one of the things I was trying to control for was funding, of which London schools receive up to twice as much per head as schools in counties elsewhere in the country). All those with the lowest % of deprived children were selective, and almost all were Outstanding. All those with the highest % of deprived children (70%+) were either requires Improvement or Inadequate, with the exception of a couple who were selective by faith (Roman Catholic).

Yes, there are schools in between those extremes which are doing better or worse by a specific intake, but to a first approximation, results and hence Ofsted grading are highly linked to intake.

Primarily, they identify schools with 'good' intakes and 'bad' intakes, and to a somewhat lesser extent they identify which schools are prepared to sacrifice breadth of education to test preparation vs those who are not.

that's my point too. I think, however, they do celebrate schools who have improved (so bad intake but improved is good). but a lot of harm is done in the drilling for tests.

There are more issues with Sats this year compared to previous years because of many reasons. New curriculum which is tested for the first time in this year's exam is one reason, so the content has changed and is much, much more difficult than previous years. and also in the way the test is administered. For examples, in previous years, children all did a main test for English and more able students could take a more challenging test and aim for a higher 'level' (level six in old money). This year, the test includes more challenging questions to identify the 'level 6' kids, which all pupils have to answer, within a very short period of time (this has been very difficult especially for the reading comprehension test, loads of kids didn't finish it). In our borough, in last year's English exam, 0.5% of children achieved a level 6 in English. What does that tell you?

Dh is a primary school teacher and told me yesterday that he feels so sorry that our children have to go through learning this shit (his word, not mine) and if I can find a well paid job he would like to home educate the children (now in year 4 and 5) until secondary. Job hunting today!

Chili,

IME, an intelligent, experienced inspector is quite capable of identifying and celebrating a school where children make good progress from their starting points without the use of SATs data (I used to teach in a 3-tier county, and was inspected by an HMI - rather than an Ofsted contractor from an agency - in a school where the exit point was not a SATs point).

However, in the absence of sufficient inspectors of this type, it is easier to use the lazy route of SATs data.

And this year's test is surrounded by controversies. Here's another one: I
www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/sats-dfe-says-similarities-between-reading-paper-and-revision-guide

However, in the absence of sufficient inspectors of this type, it is easier to use the lazy route of SATs data.

indeed. that's the problem I think.

Maybe good inspectors are expensive, but sats can't be that cheap to administer. I'd say good inspectors are the way to go.

It can put huge amounts of pressure on kids, from schools who want them to do well to parents who pressurize them. Doing well is all fine, but not when it makes children lose interest in learning. As a pp, almost the whole of yr 6 is about SATS which means that for many kids, they are stressing about doing well and getting grades. This pressure shouldn't happen until GCSEs when kids are more able to handle it. Beside that, are the SATS actually as important as they're made out to be? Are they worth the stresses they cause for children? I don't think so.

Have the powers that be never heard the saying "if we judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will never e classed as intelligent?" Testing doesn't work for all children, I dare say it doesn't work for the majority of children and often does nothing but encourage a lack of interest in learning and make the children who don't do well think they are stupid. It can put a label on them as young as 11. It's less damaging than the 11+ definitely, and some schools/parents are fab at saying to just try your best and not stress over it... but for each one of those there is a child who is being given extra tuition to get the best grades possible and can then feel they are a failure if they're not able to achieve. Personally, I don't remember feeling stressed over my SATS, I just tried my best and did my homework but there was absolutely no pressure to revise from my parents. My best friend was totally different and worried herself sick over doing well because her mother kept telling her how important it was.

The amount of fb statuses I've read about children worrying/crying over tests and these aren't even at 11, some I've read about are crying over tests at 9. 9! What kind of world do we live in where children, whether they're 9, 11 or bloody 16 are crying over the stress of achieving good grades? The questions on SATS are ridiculous too. A friends dd (11) sbbed her heart out the night before SATS, and the parents had put no pressure on her - the questions on there for 11 year olds was the same as what used to be GCSE level maths in her parents day. So there's no wonder kids are stressed. Keep children children without the stresses of adulthood for as long as possible! I think the health and wellbeing of a child should come first - results are important to an extent but when you've you've got children crying over said results we're doing something wrong. Children should be happy, playing, enjoying because they learn through that, learning should be fun not stressful or tearful. Children WON'T learn if they're not enjoying and all we'll have is a bunch of kids who dislike learning and lose faith in their own ability which I think is disgraceful. Good grades should come second to happy children.

Achieving good numeracy and literacy skills is important yes, but why the need for tough exams? Make it fun ffs. And from personal experience the reason a lot of children don't have good numeracy/literacy skills and therefore qualifications, especially in poorer areas, isn't because they are stupid but because they just don't want to be there, they don't enjoy it. Attitudes towards education are formed in childhood, so if they're stressed at 10/11 often by age 14/15/16 this leads to truancy/not trying/lack of interest. So the testing system supposed to help these children actually makes things worse.

Sorry for the rant, shall get off my soapbox now. But let kids be kids!

A lot of well reasoned points to consider. Thanks for responding.