School refusing access to exam results

[Rainbowstarssunlight]

My daughter is just about to finish year 2. A few weeks ago, she started coming home from school saying that they were doing exams. This went on for about two weeks and she told us that for four out of the five days they were doing exams and then having a rest on the fifth day. Obviously, I don’t know if this is true as kids can be unreliable when it comes to time!

I have asked the School for the results of these exams. I’ve been told that they are for internal monitoring only and not to be shared with parents.

I feel a little bit miffed about this. She seemed to spend a considerable time doing them without the School informing us and I don’t really see what the point was if we can’t use the results to help to support her learning at home.

I’ve always had a good relationship with the school and don’t want to upset the apple cart but I do feel that they’re being a little bit unreasonable. Do you agree or is it me?!

All I’ve got is some wishy washy ‘meets expectations’ / “exceeds expectations “ thing. Nothing I can actually use to help.

She doesn't need help! Why do you think she does?

It is a pity the school made such a meal of the tests that they disturbed the routine so much.

I think it's crazy you would be doing fractions over the summer instead of letting the child have some downtime!

If your mum taught KS1 ask her to look at work of you must but let your child be a child, especially in the summer holidays.

I lived in a grammar school area and remember kids having to do practice papers all summer and felt sorry for them then and they were 10 year olds.

If you're taking an interest as you go along surely any issues will be identified.

If for example she got all the fractions questions wrong then I would help her with fractions over the summer.

If that happened the teachers would use that information to decide the best teaching strategies for her and if they felt you needed to do anything they would tell you. They are teachers ... they teach!

Honestly let her have a wonderful childhood summer and forget academics!

You send kids to school and school do what they need to do - if you don’t like it homeschool

pick you battles here - and what makes you think you should “get a say” when they’re following the national curriculum- this is batshit behaviour

I wouldn’t even give this a second thought to be honest. Take a deep breath and breathe and relax. If they were concerned they’d tell you.

Bollocks. Sorry. You don’t have concerns about your child’s learning or attainment, else you’d have raised this before you found out there were tests.

You're curious like any other parents and are trying to use claut to get what you want.

If you are indeed from a family of teachers, I’m surprised you’re placing so much value on this, and can’t just trust the school to act on the results.

Your child is 7. Chill. I don’t believe for one second you want the results to sit at home and somehow work on what she needs help with (how would a mark even tell you this?!). You’re just nosey and throwing your toys out of the pram.

You don’t get marked exam papers at any point in their school lives. Schools do exams often from primary to secondary. It’s to judge how well kids are getting on and to identify where there are discrepancies that they could help with. It’s normal. I’ve never questioned or asked to be informed on the results. It’s internal in school. DD is now 14. There are SATS that you won’t see marked either.
As a PP said, you’ll get hit like a brick with it in secondary school if you carry on like this. There are yearly exams to test their skills and understanding in depth which can resort in being moved up or down a set. Shock horror OP you won’t get GSCE marked papers either when it comes to the time.
Your guideline is as you’ve said “meets expectations” and “exceeds expectations”. That’s not wishy washy, that is how your child is doing in school. And that’s a good result! If you’d have received a lesser expectation for your child then that is where you can step in at home to help them achieve higher. You need to understand school processes and what you yourself can help with at home if indicated.

What do you usually do to support her learning? The best thing you can do is read with her, encourage a love of reading, and get her to read more and more. That makes everything else easier.

Also saw your comment that they need to fit into a group. No they don’t. They are themselves and friendships can’t be forced just to make a group. At secondary it is extremely lucky if they can find their OWN group. Primary is eons away by then. If they can find their people and create a friendship group who are all into the same things and have the same values, that is incredibly important. Luckily you have all the time in the world to prepare for secondary right now. But you can’t control what happens there with friendship groups. It’d be a rollercoaster even trying that with primary kids! This is the system, adapt and accept and support your child as best your can, things like this are out of your control for a reason.

This made me laugh a bit because I know people who feel the same as you do, OP. Personally I would prefer more info from school in general, but that’s not the done thing here. You get the information that you get and are meant to support their learning by reading at home and taking them to museums. Oh also baking, that’s often mentioned.

We didn’t receive scores either but I didn’t bother asking. If your child is meeting expectations it’s not entirely wishy washy. You can find the standards online if you search for them.

This is the norm. In my kids school every class does 'exams' (they are end of year assessment papers, not that formal and a normal part of learning so no need for a big announcement - they aren't meant to be seen as an exam, and usually explained to children that they will be doing a paper that shows teachers what they know so they can help them on things they don't so don't worry if there is something they aren't sure about). They never go home, they stay in school and as you can see help write the reports and identify where they are in terms of expected learning. If your child is expected/exceeds expectations you don't have anything to worry about and not sure why you want to spend a summer pushing your child when they already are succeeding.

You also mention all the books have come home so if you look through those you will be able to see any areas of weakness (schools generally mark in one colour and children correct in another colour).

If you did want to push your child over the summer the main things to do are to ensure they enjoy learning - reading books from the library they choose (and maybe you read to them rather than forcing phonics onto them), basic maths around the house - telling them you are going to go out at 10.30, can they tell you when the clock shows this time? If they enjoy writing then keep a diary of things they do over the summer.

Its standard practice, the only odd thing is your reaction.

OP, Delete the word exam - they are assessments to inform the school report

Sorry but I do think it’s strange to not tell parents.

I remember when I did Y2 sats, or any sort of assessment, the results were shared with parents. Doing assessments in secret and not telling the parents the results is a strange thing to do.

OP - What you need to do is to ask school 'If we were to do any maths/English over the summer to keep skills up, is there any area in particular we need to focus on?'

If they say Fractions or using Capitals at the start of sentences then you know, otherwise you can see what she has done over the year and just do bits.

A holiday diary is always good for keeping up skills.

I agree with you OP. I am a teacher and there is no way I would blindly trust the school. However, I also think it is better to support them in different ways outside school with clubs, reading and activities that support their learning in the subjects they are interested in. The curriculum and assessments in school are not the be all and end all.

But wasn't that down to the parents as well. My own parents had little or in my dad's case, no education, but they both kept an eye on what work is was doing, how i was compared to my peers. That was the 1970s and with technology it is so much easier to do that now.

Once they realised I was doing ok they left me to it as education wasn't seen as important in our community/family.

This ^^
Reading is probably the most important thing you can do with your child. Not just books at bedtime, but information notices, road signs, recipes ( also good for maths). You can find ‘education’ in any area of life- how things are made, how they work, weather, nature. Encourage curiosity in the world. Music uses both sides of the brain. Etc.
I presume there’ll be a parents evening? That’s when you can ask questions.

We did get my year 2 daughters tests sent home, but just as part of a bundle of all her books.

In year 3 you should get (or at least we got) test results every term with a summary of results and areas to work on. Up to year 2 learning is still semi play based, and then there is a big jump into year 3.

They’re tests, to check progress, not exams. You are being so weird OP!

So did it say something like-
working below expected
working towards expected
working at expected
working at greater depth

Working at expected means she is working at what is expected of a 7 year old child nationally. Towards means she’s almost there but not quite so is slightly behind national average. Greater depth is higher than expected at her age.
in yr 6 sats scores are out of 120. Below 90 is working below. 90-100 is working towards. 100-110 is working at expected and 110+ is greater depth. So if they did yr2 sats testing that’s roughly what she scored.

I thought this thread was going to be about A level results on the 13th August! Not Year 2.

No it’s not - it’s how most schools work! And I bet they didn’t use the word ‘exams’ because that’s not what they are, they’re assessments used to support a teacher’s judgement on how a child is progressing against the Standards of achievement within a particular year group.
If a child’s report states ‘expected’ it means they are working at exactly the Standard they should be for that year group. Nothing at all wish washy about it. I’m surprised that as a parent so invested in your Dcs education you didn’t already know this?

This is standard in every school. It's end of year assessments. I doubt very much it was for an entire 2 weeks either, it's usually over a few days. Teaching staff use the assessments to write the end of term reports. If you want to know more, then ask the teacher if there's any areas that you can help your daughter in at home. I'm sure they'll be happy to give feedback.

My son's secondary school has end of unit assessments every 6 weeks! These aren't shared with parents. It helps the school see where a student may need more support.

You do need to stop expecting every piece of information to be shared with you, because it simply won't be.

Well I'd want complete transparency.

I found parents at primary school horrendously competitive. If they released test results there would be a flurry of "so proud of my exceptionally talented child" posts on social media. If you want ho know how to best support your child, have a word with the teacher.