SATs 2023 English Questions - were they really difficult?

[BDutton]

The BBC just shared some questions from this year's English SATs. Do you think they were hard and/or misleading?
Should the answers be so dumbed down as to clearly offer just ONE OBVIOUS answer to a question?
Are the children meant to really KNOW facts, or infer information from the text, which clearly gives clues (such as Texas is the state, since the text mentions "the state of Texas" and "the city of Austin", etc.)
And finally, if the SATS purpose is to measure progress and identify areas of help, isn't it what they are doing?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-65624697

I asked my niece who just sat her SATs about this paper, she said it was fine.
She goes to a very popular academy primary school and said all the questions were similar to the stuff they'd been prepared for. The only thing she mentioned was there were more 3 markers than they'd expected in one of the English papers.

I think it’s the amount of reading that eat required to answer the questions. It exhausted the children by the time they got to the questions. The test is timed remember so the children have to read the text and answer the questions within the time allocated. The whole test is available online now. I thought the SPAG looked fair but the spellings were hard!

Also - the children who said it was fine IME actually struggled with it.

A paper that gives a question time of 29s ish which is about half the time GCSE students get. That’s the issue. Oh and the texts were not age appropriate.

Three should be a generic test of everyone’s ability not the top 10% - which this is what it was.

There is a huge whiff of privilege on this thread without understanding how children with less resilience or support at home may cope.

In other news, 48 year old Jonathon - English graduate says it was easy.

I mean only Y6 teachers who have been doing it years say it is more complex. What do they know?

Yep, my children said it was fine - looking over the shoulders of the ones I was worried about, I am pretty sure their results are screwed. Only by GD readers recognised that it was more difficult and were visibly shaken.

The texts were too long, and all 3 question sets were distinctly dyslexia unfriendly - too much scanning and too many times needing to go back and forward from question to text, looking for answers and jumping from para 5 to para 1 for example.

None of the children in our class had any idea what sheep rustling was - and didn’t want to choose that word, thinking it meant something completely different.

All 3 text were very ‘nature’ heavy - and quite boring for inner city kids who couldn’t relate at all. In one, a person stepped in a bog…you can imagine what they thought that meant.

@Feenie Exactly the same in my case. The weaker ones were unable to discriminate between previous tests because they found them all hard. The GD children were very aware, as were the border line and EAL who, on previous tests had just made it.

Yes - the GD had the awareness to know it was hard.

@Feenie Exactly the same in my case. The weaker ones were unable to discriminate between previous tests because they found them all hard. The GD children were very aware, as were the border line and EAL who, on previous tests, had just made it.

I don't know what you mean by "fairly marked" in this context, but I can tell you now the proportion of each grade will be the same as in 2019- that has already been decided. That does NOT mean that the same standard will have been reached to get e.g. an A or an 8.

I'd also add that a test for the whole population, which isn't accessible to the lower end is not very useful. Someone upthread compared to the 11 plus- but that's a very different kind of test, generally only sat by the more able. SATs (like GCSEs etc) need to be accessible to the whole population. In GCSEs for some subjects that means a foundation paper starting with some very easy questions which most 11yos could answer BUT that is the level some students are working on.

I know the range of students we get coming up to secondary in Y7, and some of them would have found these questions very challenging. They would also be thrown by long texts with lots of unfamiliar words/contexts.

Yes, obviously the test needs to test the upper end too, but it needs to do that in a fair way. It is distressing for my A-level students when they can't finish an exam paper, never mind 11yos.

In the BBC article it says to read both paragraphs. In the test, it didn't. Children had 35 seconds per question.

Anyway, these weren't the difficult questions that teachers are concerned about.

Feenie - fyi it isn’t a ‘stinking attitude’ it’s the truth re teachers snd why I left teaching in primary secondary and tertiary education - I will not be party to a system that restricts a person’s life chances 👍🏿☘️

Do you mean because of critical thinking not being encouraged etc? I would be interested to hear what concerned you.

She’s said already - it’s the thick teachers. I’m pleased to say as a Literacy Lead of nearly 30 years that none of the teachers I had led have been thick or uninterested in the English language.

FGS
In order to judge the difficulty of this test you need to
See the whole test and attempt it in the time allowed
Be an average 10 year old

Picking out a few simple retrieval questions and using this as a benchmark is ridiculous.

It might also be worth listening to teachers who have seen many tests over the years.

I think today's BBC article is really misleading. I asked DS (who at the time said the paper was harder than the practice tests, but not awful) and he said the questions referred to in the article were straightforward and definitely not the hardest or confusing ones.

DD did the whole test now (her idea, I didn't force her, I'm not that mean) and it took almost the whole hour and that was giving the answers verbally rather than writing them which would take longer and skipping the two longer questions so very much doubt she'd have done it in time.

Definitely seems harder than I remember from my sats but not as hard as the English extension paper.

Extension papers (level 6) were indeed rock hard and disappeared in 2015. There’s only one reading paper now.

I don't know why they chose those questions the as it doesn't help their arguement

Yes, I was rather shocked about that. If it's true it's an appalling reflection on the education level of the average teacher.

It's a test of comprehension. Children need to be able to understand and think about what they're reading. The answers to the questions are in the text it just requires a bit of thought to pick the correct answers.

Dumbing down helps no one.

You think the BBC wanted to portray the teachers’ arguments fairly here? Of course they didn’t. It’s crappy journalism and I hope the author reads this thread.

Do you think it would be better if they kept the extension papers (though not as hard as the old ones) and made the main paper easier?

There does seem a massive disconnect between the faux 'difficult questions' reported today and the widespread and apparently genuine concern raised by teachers and heads last week.

Given the fuss the BBC made about this last week, why on earth did today's article seemingly rely on the viewpoint of a single teacher? It's either very poor journalism or deliberate spin doctoring.

I preferred assessment and the curriculum before Gove got his sticky hands on them, yes.

I've just had a go - I don't have children so can't compare, but I finished with only 10 minutes left (maybe flicking between the paper and texts on my phone) so I wouldn't call it plenty of time. (Although I did have to go and tell Red Cross what I thought of them trying the door for the THIRD time today!)

Potentially tricky/unclear in my opinion were 4 (campsite not explicitly mentioned), 5a, 19 and 36

I found the texts interesting - would like to read more of the wolf one, are they real?