Am I being unreasonable to think the teacher might be cheating in SATs

[mummybean84]

Our DS is currently sitting his SATs. He came home the first day and said the teacher when reading out the spelling list was pronouncing the silent letters, as an example saying something like “spell Thumb…. Th um b” and with words with double letters “spell Letter Let ter” (These are just examples not the actual words). And was confusing them by saying the words funny to hint at the spelling. Then in the English exam was walking around saying “theres something missing at the end of that sentence and you won’t get a point” when there was no full stop. He also told a pupil they had a maths answer wrong yesterday looking over their shoulder so they went back and checked the sum. Is this just normal is SATs? Or would you count it as cheating?

I disagree with the first part of this. ⬆️ Yes, some children are permitted extra time, a live scribe or their paper transcribing afterwards & teachers are allowed to read the questions in all but the reading paper but we absolutely are not permitted to re-phrase any questions or explain what any words mean. We're not even supposed to identify the operation involved when reading a maths reasoning question to them.

As a teacher I don't care whether it does or doesn't have an effect on the child's future or the school. It's not what should happen in an exam. This is why internal exams are unfair. The exam board I used was external but there were some boards that used exams marked internally by the learners' teacher. Their results were so much better than ours. Surprise, surprise.
Unless exams are created by one national exam board and overseen by independent invigilators, there can never be fairness in the system.

Its 100% cheating and very much against the guidelines given which all staff involved in SATs should be trained in. You should report this.

Results are not being published this year but things like this are so unfair to schools like mine which follow the rules. We look bad for having lower results but we do often think some neighbouring schools may have cheated.

It's also not fair to the children.

@BusyMum47 I was an invigilator and I agree. Our exam officer was very strict and keen. You can't even stress words when you read a question.
And I also disagree with this 'keeping your nose out' @HiJenny35. You might not agree with SATs but they are tests required by the education dept and it's wrong for results to be manipulated.
As for some children failing in comparison to their friends, that's inevitable. And in other things they'll be more successful than their friends. Should there be no art in school because some are naturally gifted and others, me for example, struggle to draw a stick man?

I hate how heavily examined children are in this country… I mean these are 10/11 year old kids, frankly I’ve always thought that putting them under the pressure of SATS tests at such a young age is kinda fucked up, particularly now when their education has been so disrupted in the last two years. I remember the KS1 tests I took as an infant in primary school, even then I knew we were being tested and felt anxious about it and I was only 7.

I teach secondary. I've had many kids tell me over the years how the primary teachers helped them in their tests. Then they end up with artificially high target grades. It's shit, but I understand why it happens

The Art comparison is not an accurate one as subjects like Art and Music have been pushed off the curriculum to accommodate the revison and year long preparation for SATs. Primary age children should experience a breadth of education to establish what they are good at but that doesn't happen anymore as the focus is specifically on passing tests!

We are so lucky at our state primary school as we have an amazing music department due to specific music teachers, they line up opportunities like performing at the O2 with the school choir and organise amazing concerts and shows. That level of opportunity is not across the board though and my DD's old primary school down the road from her current one had no such opportunities as they didn't have the calibre of music teachers. It is so hit and miss. Lots of my friends who live elsewhere in the country were in shock that my DD performed in the choir last week at the O2 as their children go to state primaries in different parts of the UK so London, Midlands and Yorkshire and had no such opportunities. It shouldn't be like this as it is now allowing children who do have talents that don't lie in the core subjects to shine, this has a knock on effect on their confidence and self esteem.

Shocking really. End of KS2 assessment is really useful, but SATS are not fit for purpose. You put in high stakes exams (for junior schools) and then put the people whose career is impacted by those exams in charge of them, bound to be schools cheating from time to time. Then the poor feeder secondary has KS4 progress benchmarked against those SAT marks.

They need to make them low stakes to remove the temptation.

So depressing to read about teachers not caring or understanding what an 'education' means, it is not purely about tests and it is so damaging to a child to be considered an educational failure at 10/11. You must lack an imagination to see the long term damage this has on a child's ability to learn due to the unnecessary knock to their confidence!

I think it's always been a thing but more so in some schools than others, from what I've gathered.

I do recall that one of DC1 friends burst into tears because the invigilating teacher advised her to look at one question again (which clearly she'd not got right?).

Wouldn't be surprised. I teach secondary school, and I've had more than one child put in top/middle set based on their SATs results, and then it became clear very quickly that they were below average ability and needed a lot more help than they were getting. One of them told me his teacher "told him what to write" in his SATs and it explained a lot.

And that's increadibly sad for everyone - it will knock the child's confidence, it makes the secondary look bad and it (justifiably) ruins the reputation of the original primary school. But the solution is to abandon this high stakes testing.

I do know there was a lot of movement in sets at my DDs' primary - they both started in middle sets and were in top sets by Yr 8. Students from other schools moved down. It was pretty clear which schools were playing it straight.

I think this is quite a big thing. It penalises honest schools.
Plus I think it does effect the children. They know by year 6 that they haven't got it honestly, so it makes them nervous of being tested again.
Then you have their target grades/sets. Who cares, is what a lot of people are saying?
Having a child struggling in a set too hard for them, or being moved down may well be far more knocking to their confidence than scoring a few marks lower in SATS.
Ds' school uses target grades in doing internal tests. He's got a higher target than he's going to achieve in a lot of subjects (7). Often in internal tests they are aiming for no less than 2 grades below their target. So he'll come out indignant that he has to go back for a revision session because he scored a 4 in a subject that he'll be doing well to get a 5 in, and other children scored the same but don't have to go back because their target is a 6.

My dd was in the 2020 batch of GCSEs. Her school was pretty reasonably accurate on grades from what I've heard from her results and other parents. Other local schools were not, including one that predicted 9s across the board (when they normally have good but across the board grades).
DD points out that she is doubly disadvantaged: She didn't have inflated grades, but everyone assumes the grades were inflated.
But actually those who did get inflated grades have other issues. They didn't feel proud in the grades because they knew they were inflated. Some of them took A-level subjects that they have struggled immensely with. I know a number who have dropped a year to restart or are only taking 2 A-levels because they started with ones that they hoped to be able to do, and haven't coped. They're also extremely stressed about A-levels because they feel pressurised to live up to the grade they got, to prove it was right.
It may well help a number of them getting university places, but I think mentally it has been overall bad for them.
Yes GCSEs are bigger exams than SATS but the point is artificially inflating grades does not necessarily help the child.

I’m not convinced that SATS make any difference to secondary sets. My poor DD bombed out in her maths papers with a full on anxiety attack in the middle of one of the papers. She missed almost half of the questions. Another child in her class wrote his name on the front of an English paper and then chucked it on the floor, refusing to complete.

Both got to secondary and were in the top sets from the start. They did CATS about 6 weeks in I think, and I know there was some movement in sets after (DD was most put out that she ‘lost’ a friend in class as a result).

I think this years SATS were quite hard. I was a prompter this year (have previously been a reader and a scribe) and there were definitely some questions that made me look twice. Very few of our children completed all the papers, most missed the last page or two in all the tests. I’ll admit it was very hard not to help, watching my lad get more and more frustrated it was all I could do to keep him reading the papers. I can sympathise with someone tempted to help them along, not someone who would blatantly tell an answer, but a “maybe you should look at that one again” could be forgiven.

This has been going on for years, remember trying to let my daughter down gently by telling her "No, you definitly wont get to write that essay that you've been practising for weeks" in your Sats.
Day 1 of Sats, asked how it went, it was easy, we just wrote our story thst we've been practising.

This has always gone on. Some schools more prolific and hands on than others.

Things have gone on that to my mind were against the rules, other schools being told were totally OK. 🤷🏻

Some children struggling because they don't quite meet the threshold for support, other children getting a level 4 (a few years ago now) based on one sentence he'd memorised from somewhere and we were worried it would impact his special school placement. No idea what the marker was thinking.

At any rate, for the most part, I couldn't care less. SATs are utterly stupid.

If staff are literally telling children what to write or altering answering themselves, I might be more concerned but otherwise..

Yes, cheating and not all that uncommon. It definitely happened in a school I worked in.

No such test anymore as mental maths though so I'm not sure what multiple choice paper a PP is referencing? I have done many years of being an invigilator scribe or prompter in SATS and knowing how closely we stick to the rules it's depressing to learn all these cheating stories. It doesn't surprise me though: a couple of local church schools that are Ofsted outstanding are renowned for getting 100% of their pupils through SATS. It's just not possible with a varied cohort including children with a variety of SEN unless you're either cheating or keeping them out of the tests

Good I'm glad the teachers helping the children. Year 6 SATS can cause unnecessary stress on some children, which is sad to see especially when the tests are all repeated in year 7 to determine class sets.

The results make no difference to the children!

The whole system is massively flawed, and I can absolutely see why it happens. But it is wrong. There is a report published each year on maladministration allegations and investigations. The more people who report, the more it will become clear that there is no level playing field and that stats and individual school results should not be used for any high stakes purpose.

As part of ‘levelling up’, the government is going to require schools to achieve 90% of children passing reading, writing and maths in Y6 - up from around 70ish % at the moment. The 90% is apparently achievable because it’s what the top performing multi-academy trusts manage to get. But if those trusts include more of the cheating schools, then those results aren’t actually achievable.

The intense pressure to achieve the impossible is a big factor in both our retention crisis (teachers and headteachers) and children’s mental heath and well-being.

Of course it's cheating and I am shocked by the number of posters who don't think it doesn't matter. What a lesson to be teaching young people. Well done to the OP's son for realising that it was not right.

It’s cheating and it needs to be reported.

I agree. Happened at my ds's school too.

That is definitely cheating. The school should have made sure that the teachers understood the guidance. We had a meeting and discussed exactly what is and is not allowed. We also had two people in each room to ensure there could be no allegations. This is beyond stupid on the teacher's part. They may have been instructed to cheat by the head as some people are utterly bonkers about sats but it is wrong.