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

I'm sure those of you who say this is ok would have looked at the Ofsted report for the school they were planning to send their DC to. Even though they don't say it, the SATs results have a huge impact on the report. Any school that does not do well is likely to get a bad report and vice versa. That would be why the Head was cheating - to save their own skin.

Have read every reply, still hugely conflicted. I’m thinking of writing a letter to the head this weekend, and going to see them for a meeting next week.

They have clearly cheated. I’m not OK with that. But I’m worried about the implications for the children and the teaching staff of reporting it. Furious to have been put in this position, frankly.

You are entirely wrong and have zero understanding how this works.

Google it if you don’t believe the many people on this thread telling you otherwise.

You’re conflating what happened to your individual child with cohort level statistics. It is very apparent what level children are working at in secondary. Teachers do not put children struggling in middle/top sets for 5 years because of what their SAT score was.

Yeah the headteacher was not doing it to help the child. As if. They were doing it to help themselves- so their school would do better than it deserves too. I don't imagine for a moment that this was the only child they cheated with.
As for an independent school head PP condoning and excusing cheating, that is very disappointing behaviour.

Secondary base sets on a combination k SATs, CATs, teachers reports and a few other things. They also swap sets about all the time after actually getting to know the kids. So two answers isn't going to effect this

Note the word 'recommend', @Orangesinthebag and @DidStart. It's rather a crucial one.

Incorrect.

SATS are pointless.

SATS are not a clear indicator of how well a school performs.

Our school is a military school - sometimes 40% of the year group can be students that have only just arrived several months before. If the SATS results are low, that’s not an indication that the school is shit, which it isn’t.

That’s what I said. 😂

Erm- clearly not a member of SLT from a UK school then? Apart from the current hiatus, historically SATs data has been used-
schoolsweek.co.uk/no-school-progress-measure-for-next-two-years/

I’m not going to tell you to report or not report. However the headteacher at my kids junior school was sacked just after my eldest child started there for falsifying SATS results. She was otherwise a good headteacher and probably never worked in a school again.

Morally wrong, but SATS are not important to the child,only an indicator of school performance so think carefully about the life you will ruin and the reasons why before you do anything.

You can teach your own kids what she did wasn’t the norm and why it may be wrong without turning a world upside down.

Yes what you stated about secondary schools is correct. The government like SATa because jt helps to show progress, etc. Secondary are forced to use English and Maths SATs to predict GCSEs in all subjects like Languages, DT, Art, which is ridiculous.
But unfortunately students often show up to secondary with very high SATs that they never live up to. Repeatedly told they aren't making necessary levels of progress, underachieving or other equivalent wording. Students then struggle with confidence and motivation as they are still working hard but not able to match those gcse predictions.
Because, let's face it, lots of primary schools do exactly what your head did. They spoon feed/cheat/ support a bit too much. Which helps the kid in the moment, helps the primary school look like they have brought the progress of that child on so, so much... but long term it doesn't help the child.

We have the same issue with large changes in school demographic between and in-years so it’s not a ‘fair’ representation.

So completely understand your point, and I’m not arguing for SATs but you can also say that not all schools have the same level of transience.

The problem with this kind of prior attainment data is that it is pretty accurate if used to predict the GCSE scores of whole cohorts of students, but not individuals. There are too many variables about an individual student, and data can be skewed by cheating headteachers or various other things.

But once measuring methods like this became a thing, they were soon used as a stick to beat teachers with, rather than to inform schools and government about more general, cohort-wide trends, and the blunt instrument data began to be believed over the actual expertise and knowledge of their classes that teachers have. In education these days, everything must be measured and tracked. As someome once said, weighing your pig every day doesn't make it fatter.

Maybe people are getting confused between 'predict' and 'target'.

SATs are used for target grades against which the secondary school is measured in Progress8 on a cohort level.

Whether the secondary school choose to share those targets with the students & parents is another matter.
Schools will also predict grades for individuals based on actual progress and attainment.

Absolutely.

I just think that SATS are a complete and utter waste of time and the angst that some parents go through and put onto their children is ridiculous.

No one asks at a job interview how you did in your SATS.

Secondary schools move you around, do their own tests, find your place in your year group, not because of SATS.

The SATS are not a clear indicator of a school, when they aren’t a school that just has a September intake with no starters or influx of starters throughout a year.

So they are just not a fair representation of anything or anyone.

"Being kind"? Involving a child in cheating in a public examination, and teaching them that’s an acceptable thing to do, is "being kind"? Blimey.

Progress 8 doesn't measure pupils against target grades. Pupils may be assigned computer generated target grades from KS2 SATs results but they are nothing to do with how Progress 8 is calculated.

Progress 8 is measured after GCSE results are in and compares how students actually did in their GCSEs compared to other students who got the same score in their SATs. Progress 8 is a measure after the event, not a prediction before it and depends on how that cohort did in their GCSEs.

we have to use Baseline tests taken when a child is 4 or 5 to decide whether a child is making expected progress throughout primary. It’s crazy!

This happened back in 2012 at my DS's school. The school took the less academic kids into a separate room and just told them the answers. It's done to make the school look better.

I remember googling about this back then and it's honestly really common and I don't think Ofsted actually care.

"May be" wrong? How can cheating in a public examination (in a way specifically prohibited in the administration guidance) not be wrong?

Yes. In secondary I have seen a girl sobbing because she wasn't meeting her targets and the teacher very patiently explaining how they were set from SATs and were fairly meaningless to try and comfort her that she was doing her best and that is good enough.

Our local secondary has an intake into Year 7 where at least a third of the children come from independent schools. No SATS in indies, so does this mean they’re irrelevant to that state secondary? I don’t really understand the point of SATS if not everyone actually takes them. Would love someone to explain them to me!

Not commenting on your school or its circumstances. I don't know them. I'm commenting on the headteacher who IS cheating to falsely improve their school's published performance. That is why they are cheating. And any head who condones cheating in SATs is a disgrace. If your school has a genuine reason for lower performance then obviously it will be known and understood by those associated with the school. It's not a reason to condone cheating by a headteacher- or anyone in charge of educating children.

I agree. Some people are just strange. Ignore them, op.

So the Head only corrected your DC, no one else? Why on Earth would they do that