SATS ... useless poll .. answer yes or no please

[Twiglett]

Are SATS a good thing?

at year 2?
NO

at year 6?
NO

at year 9?
YES

Hmm. Am a secondary science teacher. And a KS3 SATs marker.

Before doing the marking I would have said no, no, yes.

Having done the marking, and having had to give marks for really poor science because it had the right words in it, and not give marks for better science because it didn't have the right words in it, I am now about the KS3 SATs too.

I agree with you on the mark scheme issues. I find the literacy requited of the KS3 sats means that fluent readers often do better than they really should in science, while less confident readers, who are actually better at science are penalised.

A better test would be more helpful, but I think that some form of standardised test is helpful at the end of KS3.

I wonder what the next Sats will be like when the new ks3 curriculum has rolled through?

It needs to be realised that there is a proportion of kids who don't do SATs. If a school thinks pupils are below the minimum level for the paper (level 4 in English at KS3), then they don't do the test. They then don't appear on league tables, so it's all very misleading.

pants

pants

pants

duchesse you're lucky
it all comes from the head
v few are that strong minded

No
No
No
I teach in year 6 at the mo. I know precisely what level all the children in my class are at now and also have a damn good idea what level they will be around SATs time. What's wrong with trusting the teaching profession and letting us submit a teacher assesment level at the end of each year with our own evidence?
It made me almost cry this week when I heard a school on the radio talking about a pancake race they were holding. I've so little time because of focusing on SATs that I don't even get the chance to read a story at the end of the day like I used to when I started teaching.
It's all wrong, primary school should be letting children explore the world and learning their strengths and weaknesses, not testing them and labelling them with a level every 3 or 4 years.

We are dealing with Yr6 sats at the moment.

No
No
Don't know yet

Yr 2 No

Yr 6 Yes - I got tested at 10(30 yrs ago) - it allowed us to be streamed when we got to Comp. Also you can see which children are still struggling with literacy and numeracy before they start secondary.

Yr 9 No - They are close to GCSE and tested enough for those.

A lot of secondary schools do their own CAT tests to assess children's abilities on entrance to the secondary school. SATs scores aren't always trusted.

We look at the KS2 SATs results but we don't set until we have given them our own test. The setting is done based on both the test results.

We find this gives a more even playing field. some local primaries do more 'Teaching to the test' than others, and the grades of children from some of these schools are rather adrift from the chilren's real abilities. BTW I'm not blaming primaries for doing this, the pressure of legue tables is massive

Yeh, go duchesse!
They are rubbish because:
I gave birth to a human being NOT a performing monkey
I do not want my child intensively reared...mine is free range
Tests show how good you are at passing tests
OR
Tests show whether Jocasta's mummy paid a tutor to turn said Jocasta into a performing monkey (with with NO NITS)
Creative bright children learn the answers and forget to be creative and have fun
No SAT anywhere asks "what good thing did you do today?" or "do you bring joy and compassion into the world?"

AND:
What is worse: being told you are "average", "below average" or "above average"...?

AND
SATs and education policy are set by a bunch of old blokes (or old women, same difference) who either don't have kids or if they do, let their wives employ nannies to bring them up...and send them to private schools who don't do SATs

QED

(Drowns in own bile...exit, pursued by a bear)

Yeh, go duchesse!

They ARE rubbish because:
I gave birth to a human being NOT a performing monkey
I do not want my child intensively reared...mine is free range
Tests show how good you are at passing tests
OR
Tests show whether Jocasta's mummy paid a tutor to turn said Jocasta into a performing monkey (with with NO NITS)
Creative bright children learn the answers and forget to be creative and have fun
No SAT anywhere asks "what good thing did you do today?" or "do you bring joy and compassion into the world?"

AND:
What is worse: being told you are "average", "below average" or "above average"...?

AND
SATs and education policy are set by a bunch of old blokes (or old women, same difference) who either don't have kids or if they do, let their wives employ nannies to bring them up...and send them to private schools who don't do SATs

QED

(Drowns in own bile...exit, pursued by a bear)

Love that post, Miggsie

As a teacher, I'd say that SATs don't really assess a child's academic progress, as their focus is often narrow, and teachers tend to have to spend lots of their time preparing kids for the exam, as opposed to teaching a wider and more stimulating curriculum. If you want to know whether your child can learn how to answer a particular type of question, then yes, SATs are great. But that is a very reductive sort of learning, if you ask me.

apologies on posting my message twice!
Obviously I would fail a SAT...
Oh, and I do believe children should reach their potential but not via endless testing...
When assessing primary schools one of the questions I asked are "what are the point of SATs" and chose on the basis of the answers I got...

no no and no

NO
NO
NO

no
no
no

at year 2? No - too young to mean anything

at year 6? - No - half the term is spent revising for them & getting them in a right old flap much better to generally assess over the course of the year

at year 9? = yes - good practice for 'proper' exams

No
No
No

They get in the way of children actually learning because all they do is prepare for SATS.

As benchmarks for general guidance, possibly.

As TESTS on children no no no.

No, No and No.

No, No and No.

NO
NO
NO

I never had them and I had a great education, I only got stressed right at the end with my main exams.