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?!

The exam scripts where answers are recorded by the pupils during exams and assessments (which is specifically what the OP wanted) are exempt from SAR disclosure. Schools are not obliged to hand them over.

OP has the right to ask for the raw results but I’m not sure what additional information that will give her when she’s been given her child’s actual books to look at.

Perhaps pity the poor 7 yo in their school setting rather than at home.
Their class teacher will doing the exactly the same - teaching to the assessment criteria every school day.
But instead of a one-to-one in a quiet, supportive enviroment, they are likely to be in a class of 30+ pupils, some of whom will be regularly disrupting lessons and some pupils will have significant SEND issues without the resources or staff to meet their needs.
Is it any wonder that any parent asks for more information than a generic report, and wants to know how their child is actually progressing?

Yes, the exam scripts are exempt.
But the raw data will almost certainly be entered into a detailed Class Data tracking system, which tracks individual progress of each child in each subject in granular detail against the published assessment data and progress statements.

That will provide very useful and detailed information about progress and trajectory objectives, and it's subject to disclosure in a SA request.

@LittleWhiteRabbit surely more useful for a teacher than a parent

It’s irrelevant who it is most useful for, the school will have an obligation under UK GDPR to give them to the OP

Yes but that wasn’t what OP requested. She wanted the exam scripts so she could look through to see which questions her DD got wrong so she can work on those areas over the Summer.

DD’s scores from each paper will be on a tracking document somewhere, and yes the parent is entitled to that. It will show trends and progress markers but won’t have a breakdown of different areas of learning which is what OP wants. There will not be a tracking document which says that her DD got the division questions all correct but struggled with one of the fractions questions because we don’t input data in that detail. Thankfully.

If OP really wants those test results I’m sure she can have them but I’m not quite sure how she’s going to use them to support her child in specific areas of learning. An informal conversation with the teacher where she asks those questions would be much more informative.

And that is fine if the OP wants to go that far, but at 7, unless your child is struggling, I really can't see the benefit for the child, and surely that is the most important person here.

All because you can doesn't mean you should

I honestly cannot believe this thread! That people would consider a SAR for some year 2 progress assessments is mind boggling! As if schools haven't got enough to bloody do! Yet another thread that reminds me I absolutely made the right choice in not becoming a teacher, some parents are insufferable!!

Yes - that might well be the case.

But I would say that's for the parent to decide once they have actually had chance to digest the information, not the school - and the SAR legislation would seem to support that view. Which brings me back to my point earlier - under UK law it is parents that are legally responsible for ensuring their child receives and efficient, full time education. They can't do that without the necessary data, context, and transparency. They might delegate that responsibility to the school, but they have a right to monitor it as they see fit within the legislative framework.

But to what end? What really is the point of giving people data that is of very limited use to them? The whole point of a school report is to distill down all the information a teacher has gathered about a child over the course of the year and to put it into a digestible format for parents to gain a good understanding of where their child is at.

I have children and I completely understand the desire to support them as much as possible and to do that you need some information. However you don’t need the same amount of information as a teacher if you’re not doing the day to day teaching of the child. There’s nothing secretive about that it’s just what seems practical.

I don't really see the point in the school being secret squirrel over this - if the OP wants the results give them to her. People do have the internet, they can google what things mean.

But I also agree that it's more useful to do things like visit the library and read books over the summer than swot up on fractions or whatever.

And how does a parent having that information, which won't actually give the detail which would help the OP supplement the child's learning actually help the child?

I’m a teacher and I suggested it. It might not be the best thing for her to do but it is a way to get it 🤷🏻‍♀️

that would be up to the OP to decide. I’m simply giving her a method to get those results which is what she was asking for

It might well be more useful to have an informal conversation with the teacher on how the OP could support her child.
But until the data is made available to her she won't know and can't make a judgement on it. My point is - the decision about which is more useful is one for her to make, not the school. She can't judge the value of the data until she has a full picture. And there's nothing to suggest she couldn't see the data and also have an informal discussion sometime afterwards. The fact that you, or the school think the data might not be useful is irrelevant - it is for her to make that judgement.
The school should not be attempting to act as a gatekeeper for information the OP has a legal right to request.

@aliceyyyy2654 and as a teacher I bet you will love it when a parent comes armed with the info and saying but it doesn't tell me what I want, what does it actually mean! But yes a school does have to give it, but I cannot see how it will benefit the 7yo

I rarely have those experience but I work in secondary so parents aren’t frequently in the school outside of parents evening.

Again, whether it is useful or relevant for the OP to see the grades isn’t up to us, it’s her right to see it and also decide what she wants to do with it

Wouldn't it be better still if parents could have the results in a way that they could understand? The law makes them responsible for their children's education after all.

@Easytoconfuse what would you want? How much time would you want the teacher to be spending on this?

But it is a snapshot. The report, discussion at parents evening and books give a much more thorough overview than one number from one test. Why, as a parent, is that number so important that you need staff to explain it to you rather than focus on all of their knowledge of your child?

They probably don’t want parents trying to teach fractions to their kids as you might use a different method and confuse them. Do age appropriate game type stuff, read books, do puzzles. She’s in Year 2!

Mind boggling?

I wonder if some of it arises from the fact that we aren’t given any numbers anywhere. At least not in my experience. Some parents might prefer a number to a paragraph.

@Ivyweb but a number might not tell a parent much. At 7 if you are told your child is at the standard expected at her age, that is good news. If a teacher would like you to do some work on a certain area, and that would usually be through play not workbooks, at home they would let you know. Some Primary schools will include blogs, sections on newsletter letting you know what each year has studied that week, so can always build on those skills.