SATS cheating - by the Head!

[Dilemmaramma]

In my DC’s final SATS exam yesterday, the headteacher was overseeing and they picked up DC’s paper, DURING the exam, flicked through it, then rubbed out one of the answers and told DC to try again. They also pointed out another wrong answer and indicated DC should re-do that question.

This is clear cut cheating, right?

YABU - don’t report it, the whole year group could get their SATS voided and they’ll be devastated
YANBU - this is appalling and the Head needs to be investigated

What would you achieve by reporting it?

Why on earth would you want to report it when he's helped your own child?! As an independent school headteacher, I believe sats are totally and utterly abhorrent - putting 10 & 11 year olds through such pressure for something that secondary schools will likely ignore anyway when they start!

I mean.. in the long run; is cheating on DS SATS test going to affect his overall quality of life, will it damage his choice of career one day? Or will it just means he might potentially get put into a slightly higher set in secondary school (though with two questions cheated I doubt it)

I would hope that reporting it would result in procedures being put in place so that this wouldn’t ever happen again.

But why has it affected you this greatly?

The head wouldn’t be on their own in the room, there would be other staff present. Did DC notice anyone else watching this? Or it’s just her word against the head. Personally I wouldn’t report tbh.

I would report it but then when I worked in primary school the integrity of the SATs was taken extremely seriously. Schools cheating are being very unfair to those that don't.

You’re right, it’s cheating. Objectively you should report it, subjectively I could understand why you may decide not to.

My understanding is that some secondary schools assign sets based on SATS scores, and they’re also used to predict GCSE grades. So if a child has scored higher than they should have, it’s not particularly helpful really, as they may be placed in the ‘wrong’ set, or be under pressure to attain unrealistic grades. I don’t see this as having ‘helped’ my child at all.

Is this another Friday night wine induced fantasy thread? It wouldn't be the first or the last

Because cheating is unethical

What a bizarre comment.

It's a bizarre post

But don’t you also think that this is all a placebo affect? In that the kids only predicted lower grades due to their SATS score will never be motivated to try hard enough, or be taught well enough to exceeed their predicted grades?

this is moral decision obviously. The fact it had helped my child would have no influence for me as SATs are literally about the primary school and them proving their worth by achieving good results. I think for that reason I would report it because if the headteacher is doing that for everyone they’re over-inflating the progress and achievement of the school. It could be hiding a larger problem that the headteacher feels they need to do that.

did they actuallly give your child any correct answers? Or just gently suggest they have another go? If the latter, your child will have only subsequently got it right if they were capable of answering it independently and the head has just helped them to dive deep and find the method or answer within themselves.

That is really poor behaviour by the head. I think you should report it to be honest because I work in a school and it makes me wonder what else the head is upto. I know it's not gcses but that's not really the point the head is cheating and that's a terrible example to set.

SATs are just rubbish. So much weight placed on schools based on (quite challenging) tests taken by 10 and 11 year olds, which therefore puts unnecessary pressure on those 10 & 11 year olds.

What the head did didn’t follow the administration guidance. But it also didn’t give your dc the answers. If they got them right as a result, that’s still something your dc is capable of achieving. Personally this is one I’d let go.

There was a TA in the room too. DC was mortified, hasn’t mentioned whether others saw the rubbing out, but other children definitely saw/heard the Head telling DC one of the answers was wrong and which times table to write out to help them re-do it - because a couple of them commented to DC afterwards about it

@Dilemmaramma right there lies the problem with state education at the minute- some tests sat at the age of 10 are used to predict what a child will achieve at 16. Talk about putting a ceiling on a child or writing them off...

SATS are info for the school to prepare your child for secondary. While this would be irregular, it is not going to affect your child’s future. Also as a person in education in a school that has just had SATS week, with staff deployed from all areas to assist, I’m having a hard time believing this actually happened.

Still cheating.

Sorry SATS are used as predictions for GCSEs that take place 5 years later.
That's crazy, if true.

Well, yeah, if it means he's projected to get 7s-9s at GCSE when really he's going to need intensive support to get 4s-5s, it's not going to be great for him.

It's an annual irritation when looking at CAT4 data to see kids with low raw ability scores and spiky profiles combined with higher SATs from some primaries - it's also harder to argue that there is evidence of SEND affecting performance when KS2 data claims that there's nothing to see here, too.

ETA: we'd like to ignore SATs altogether as a result, but unfortunately, we're not able to because it's how progress and the 'quality of teaching' is judged externally.

Headteachers regularly lose their jobs for doing this. Such cheating is very likely to have happened at a few schools this week. Some HTs will even look at a paper beforehand and decide to do a quick revision lesson before the test.

It’s very unfair on the other schools in the OP’s area. Plus… it’s morally wrong.