Who else is gearing up for SATS?

[milliways]

My DD13 is back at school tomorrow and has spent loads of these hols revising. Yr9 SATS start in May but mocks etc start straight away. I know options have to be chosen in next few months but the amount of homework this yr has already been minimum 2hrs per night - usually more. She is in a good state school and is very motivated but the pressure on them seems v.much worse than at YR6. Anyone else going through same?

[CarrieG]

ANOTHER teacher adding a 'Bllcks to SATS!' voice here - don't worry about them. Really, really don't. My (brightish & biddable) middle set Year 9 group ALL got Level 5s last year, except for a couple of persistent non-attenders & another 2 who should never have been in middle set. It's all a nonsense - I know what the mark scheme says they should've been able to do for that grade, & I know damn well that half of them weren't up to that standard.

As a department, we give one (similar to SATs) assessment per term at KS3. That's enough to ensure they are familiar with the format of the paper & don't fail to do themselves justice because they freak out when confronted by an 'exam' - anymore is unnecessary in my opinion. You don't fatten t'pig by weighing it, as one of my colleague's is fond of saying!

They are basically a means a) to beat up teachers & b) to enable the government to claim standards are rising year on year (but that's a whole different thread!).

Don't dignify the blasted things by worrying about them!

[aloha]

I told my stepdaughter not to worry about SATS as they weren't testing the children, just the teachers and the schools and they weren't important for her future. I think the amount of pressure on kids is just shocking.

[CarrieG]

The only thing I'd add (apart from 'aaaaargh, how did that apostrophe typo creep in!' ) is that many schools (ours included) use SATs as a starting point when setting groups for GCSEs.

It's worth being vigilant at THAT point in case your child winds up in the wrong set - which could mean 2 important years of being taught at the wrong level.

[JanH]

Carrie, do you happen to know when Level 5 became the standard for Y9? When SATs started, the target was supposed to be Level 2 in Y2, Level 4 in Y6 and Level 6 in Y9. Quite a lot of children seem to get Level 5 in Y6 too these days.

Has the requirement been lowered just to make sure they all hit it? Or is it that a Y6 child's Level 5 is different from a Y9 child's Level 5?

[CarrieG]

I don't know when they changed it Jan, no!

I do know there's absolutely NO correlation (in English at least) between the descriptors of Level 5 performance in secondary school students, & a Level 5 attained in Year 6 - as I explain to aggrieved parents of Year 7s every bloomin' year after the first assessed piece of work .

The whole thing's a mess. The grade descriptors are online somewhere...

[JanH]

That pretty much defeats the object then, doesn't it, Carrie? All the levels were supposed to be directly comparable so that value-added could be fairly measured? What a huge waste of time and effort and money and shredded nerves. Gah!

[CarrieG]

Yep! Total waste of time!

[CarrieG]

There's a report on 2004's Year 9 English test here if anyone is feeling strong enough to wade through it - this is sort of thing we're inflicting on them!

[JanH]

Well I did start reading it, but rapidly lost the will to live...how often do you get things like that? Are you supposed to read them all carefully?

[CarrieG]

READ them? We're supposed to have meetings where we go through them point by point!

You could try KS3 English for some light relief if you like...

[JanH]