Education - SATS tests

[Fletch]

Re your advice to parents on SATs, the best advice you can give them is: "SATs are only important for heads to improve their standings in the government imposed league tables."
As a diagnostic tool for identifying children's sterngths or weaknesses they are virtually useless. So don't allow yourselves to get sucked into the pseudo-importance agenda encouraged by schools. It just puts more pressure on your kids.
The only time they may affect your child's future is in Y9. Many secondary schools use these Key Stage 3 results to group pupils in sets. So if you want your child to be in a "top" set, then encourage them to work hard for those SATs.
But in general the word is:"SATs suck!"

Kia sorry about the English comment I hadn't re-read the earlier comments and so didn't know about your son's dyslexicia. I feel that many schools including my own let down pupils with special needs especially when they are capable of getting round their problems.
I have/had a SPLD (spelling)and never gained any help except through the Dyslexia Association(?). Luckily, my parents were able to pay for lessons and I managed to 'get by' and gain a C grade English GCSE. I don't think that much has changed over the past 20 years if I'm honest. This is why I try hard with these pupils but as it was said before, in a class of 30 it is like trying to keep those plates spinning.
Also I agree with you about the manners of some teachers, I assume inflicting your will on 30 people all day has its side-affects. My Grandma said she hoped I would 'become a teacher not act like one'

Anyway on a lighter note what are you studying now?

Hi Kate71, thanks for all your comments, I'm sane and rational again now!! I'm so proud of my 15yr daughter today, she went to see the maths teacher - off her own bat - and told her she wasn't happy with the stream she's in and produced her work - all As - and asked why should she waste her time coming to the class if they weren't going to teach her something stretching?! They called in the head of Maths who gave her a short test and said he would be back on Thursday to tell her what he could do for her!! I was quite tearful when she called me at work to tell me her plans (if they don't move me up Mum, you can start writing your special letters!). I was studying for an MBA and gave up after the first exams. The subject matter wasn't a problem - verry strretching! But I really wasn't happy with the teaching or the lack of resources. Its a major committment and I wasn't happy that everyone else was up to their end of the bargain! So now I'm looking at learning online. I do alot of compliance stuff and spend hours on the net, so why not combine the two!

Kate71 & Snowy - how are you fixed for a big grovel?! I've just been back thru the boards to look for stuff on home schooling and I came across an old board, but I thought if I whispered that I'm seriously thinking of putting my money where my big mouth is and doing a couple of GCSE subjects with my kids at home, do you know of any good sites on home schooling for the UK? I'm just enquiring, not going mad, just looking - promise!! I've found the Govt sites, but I'm looking for the hometeaching version of mumsnet!

I know you weren't asking me, Kia, but here are some sites, that may be of use, though I haven't checked them out myself.
www.education-otherwise.org
www.choiceineducation.co.uk
www.heas.org.uk
www.weshome.demon.co.uk
www.free-range-education.co.uk

Thanks Chairmum! I looked at the top and the bottom sites on your list today and was quite amazed! Another world out there I never knew existed really. Many thanks again, I'm going to contact them and see what happens. I'm not looking to withdraw the kids from their school, I'm just concerned about the streaming for GCSEs at least when I took mine (yes there were dinosaurs then too!) it didn't matter what your level was everyone had the same chance on the day. A boy I was at school with wasn't expected to get anything at all and came away with 3 A grades at A level and went to Cambridge - that same boy today would be streamed into a pass grade no matter how well he did on the day. Yes, yes officer I'm coming now! stop ranting and go for a bath with the calming potions!!

Glad you found the sites useful. :-)

I don't know about home schooling, but what you do need to get hold of is info from the exam board.

1. Copy of syllabus
2. Copies of old papers
3. Copies of exam marking schemes
4. Reports on past exams

Passing exams is jumping though hoops, you need to know the exact size and height of the hoop.

Snowy, PC playing up so I missed your message, many thanks I'm doing the needful! However, faith restored!! Just come back from my son's options interview and very impressed by the teacher we spoke with tonight. Just when you think you're going to have to battle it out, along comes a teacher with experience and drive and ability! This teacher spoke directly to my son, called a spade a spade and I think it may have worked. I think I spent the whole interview with my jaw on the floor, I was so surprised!! So I'm actually quite positive today. I could run round the park shouting eureka-ka-ka-ka!!

My son has recently sat his 'mock' SATS he is 8 years old and will be 9 in December. His results have shown all 1s in English and 2c in Maths. I know that he should be attaining 2/3 and I am really worried about this. I know that he is very lazy and likes neither reading nor writing. Although I work full time, my mother is very supportive and tries to read or write with him every evening. What are your opinions on taking him for private tuition? At parents evenings the teachers have not expressed any major concerns, although they do accept that he is probably not concentrating or working as hard as he could. He is very bright and will chat happily and apply himself to things that interest him, but I have to constantly battle to get him to do any reading and I really don't want to get into this when I get home at 6pm and he and I are both tired. Any advice.

liu - first of all, SATs at age 9 (year 4) are not yet routine; schools are using them as end-of-year exams in Y4 but they are not yet part of the national curriculum. the SATs he will do at age 10/11 in year 6 are the next significant ones.

you are right that the target at year 4 would be level 3 (in between level 2 in Y2, and level 4 in Y6) but it doesn't really matter. what did he score in Y2?

many boys are very slow to get going in reading and writing. if his teachers are not concerned they probably think he will come round to it later. if he is generally bright he probably will. i wouldn't think of tutoring at this stage, though you could encourage him to read anything that appeals (eg comics, goosebumps, pokemon books - take him to woolworths or supermarkets or whsmiths and see if he is drawn to anything) and write anything you can think of - how about finding a penfriend, or getting him to copy out into a folder information that interests him - dinosaurs? trains? cars?

my son is the same age, he scored quite well in his Y2 SATs but he doesn't enjoy reading either, and neither did my older son but he reads quite a lot now.

don't panic!!!

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My 9 year old son was very slow to read. He is still uninterested in reading 'good' books (though he loves listening to tapes and being read to) but will devour the Dandy and the Beano and now loves going into secondhand bookshops to look for old annuals. I was amazed to find from his Yr 4 results that he has already reached the YR 6 target for reading.

I think the moral is to let boys read whatever takes their fancy for FUN - and not make reading something to fight over. Talk to him generally, watch intersting [factual] programmes together, make sure his general knowledge is good - and he may surprise you yet.