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

SATS are all nonsense. DDs secondary school
tested them when they got there to work out which set they should be in. I really couldn’t get wound up by any of this.

This stuff about intensive practice annoys me as well. No one accuses secondary teachers of hot housing for GCSEs when they are running endless revision sessions and I applauded my son’s school when they did!

My dh is an A level teacher and similarly moans about hot housing. Meh.

It’s completely different. SATs are in primary schools, when the emphasis should be about fostering love for learning not practising the same boring stuff day in day out,

In that case, you really ought to know the difference between the recommendations and the rules of SATs administration! As well as understanding the difficulties of finding enough willing, available, DBS-checked adults to have more than one person per room in a school with 96 Year 6 children and a fairly high proportion of children with SEN, which necessitates using a large number of rooms.

The difference is that public exams might actually make a difference to a young person's life, while SATs are a monumental piece of nonsense that blights pupils' last months at school if they are in a primary that makes a song and dance about it.
Teachers do not need these tests to tell them their pupils' strengths and weaknesses; secondaries do not need them to establish how best to help each pupil ... they do their own informal assessments.
It is all complete nonsense.

I do. I also know that not all children have to do the SATs at the same time so would construct a timetable where more staff could be available.

I would never put my staff in a position where they alone were accountable without the support of another member of staff. If a child was taken ill/upset extra you have no give. We are all different, but no, for me it is a must.

It doesn’t matter whether SATS are nonsense, whether they ruin the last few months of pupils’ primary-school life, or how good the head’s motivations are! What is wrong with you lot?

Of course you must report it. It’s a flagrant breaking of the rules and a bloody awful example to set to children of how to behave. It also denigrates the seriousness of the exam, which is insulting to pupils, the class teacher, and parents. Finally, if the head is willing to do something like this openly, how do you think they’re operating when no one is watching?

I think it does matter that SATs are nonsense in this scenario.
I understand the principle about honesty, but there needs to be a sense of proportion here. A less than ideal action in relation to a piece of nonsense us different from one in relation to something of importance.
I think the OP should just let this go.

I agree, I can't see what it will actually achieve.
It will be the child's word against the Head's.

It will be horrible for them, the TA who was there, the OP etc and probably the Head will get away with it.
I'm not saying it's right, of course it isn't, but I can't see that reporting it is going to have a huge impact on anything.

The OP can obviously talk to their child about it but I think just let it go.
Tbh, I am still doubtful this particular incident actually happened - although cheating on SATS obviously does.

Well said

The example set to the children is that the head knows it is all nonsense and that they all need to chill.

The head did not tell the child the answers, just indicated that they needed to rethink their answer - it's called education.

I wish primary schools wouldn't do things which artificially inflate SATS grades. As a secondary teacher I am constantly beaten with the "but their target grade is an 8 why are they getting 5's" stick for kids who really are not grade 8 students. Op in terms of your concerns over your child's set at secondary, don't worry. Teachers in secondary are used are used to quickly working out when children are in the wrong set, they will also be used to taking the SATS scores with a pinch of salt and teaching the child in front of them. The sats are just a tool for league tables. I didn't even share the scores with my own kids.

I see the data after the event, I don't witness a physical act of cheating or have it reported/admitted to me.

I appreciate that. I just think statistically anomalous results ought to be a trigger for closer scrutiny of a school

Absolutely this.
SATS are an absolute nonsense. The whole rigmarole is an absolute farce.
And the massively dramatic overreaction of the OP isn't going to help the child move through life with a sense of perspective.

Exactly this!

I’m quite comfortable with teaching my child decent values, which include integrity and calling out unacceptable behaviour by people in positions of authority.

I’ve decided not to report it to STA, primarily because I can’t live with the whole year group having their scores voided. I will be expressing my opinion to the head, in the potentially naive hope that he sees this as a near miss and has a word with himself and changes his conduct in the future.

I’m now 41 and my primary school headteacher subtly told me to redo a grammar school entry test question back in the 90s. The school was allowed to host the exam in their own classrooms 😆

I’m pretty sure the education is supppsed to happen before the exam rather than during it….

ETA this was in response to @mischance

On my behalf of my school, my previous schools and other honest schools and colleagues in our country, I'm disappointed in your decision @Dilemmaramma

Education is ongoing ....

They wouldn’t need to be DBSed, as they wouldn’t be alone with children as a second invigilator.

Oh, and - you really ought to know that 😉

Yes, it should. But the current, crowded, overloaded primary curriculum and the performance measures we are judged by just don’t allow for that, unfortunately.

It was written into the curriculum before 2014. Now it isn’t. Read any Ofsted subject report - we are expected to run primary schools as mini secondaries with primary school teachers as subject specialists in 11 different subjects to a ridiculously high standard.