What do you think of primary SATs?

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Yes or No

have had children in educationi without primary SATS and with and am firmly

NO

Yawn!!!!!!!!!!!

There is nothing wrong with them in themselves - they are actually well-researched tests. I often use SATS questions in my own lessons.

The problem is how schools conduct them. When my DD was in Year 6 at a maintained school, she spent the whole year doing practice tests. Not good.

I know this sounds like a pushy precious parent, but bear with me...

DS was predicted Level 5 but only got 4c in recent assessments (Yr5). It definitely demotivated him (especially as his sister got the same level in her Yr3 tests!). Yes she is quite bright, but I reckon DS is brighter than the tests showed, too.

DS brought the tests home so I could look thru & see if he was making consistent mistakes that he could improve on. It struck me that there was no room for partial credit on most the questions either one mark (point) or none was the result. So sometimes he made a small arithmetic mistake or misread something, but had the right procedure yet only got a zero mark.

I felt that the marking was strict and not reflective of true ability does it come from a national standard about the way the tests are expected to be graded? Anyway, I am not a big fan of standardised testing, now not in primary schools, at least.

The lack of partial credit is a real problem. The mark schemes are very strict.

I don't have a problem with them in theory, but in practise, I have a real issue with how they are used. I teach secondary, and have never worked in a school that actually makes any significant use of them. Yet all the mums I know with KS2 have been fed this line that it will be important for their secondary schooling, what sets they will be put in and so on. Listening to some of them, it sounds like they think it'll be the end of the world if their child does not get their level 5/4/whatever. But the reality is, too often the SATs results reflect the school's attitude towards SATs more than it reflects the ability of the child. For example, I have had not so bright students from a pushy SATs school getting better SATs grades than brighter children with lower SATs from schools where SATs are not pushed as much. For that reason, the secondary schools I have worked in all use CATs and our initial assessments for setting students, and not SATs at all.

In theory, it should be a good idea - a simple assessment at the end of schooling which makes sure that the primary school has taught the children to an appropriate standard, and so that everyone can see that the child is getting a good education. Unfortunately though, that is not what we get. Instead we get some schools constantly pressurising children and parents with SATs, lying to them about the significance of SATs, and seriously limiting the year 6 curriculum as a result. This is madness (imvho!)

But if you had been given the teacher assessment, you'd have had an even more accurate reflection of his attainment and where he was academicallly for his age, instead the narrow snapshot that a SAT test provides.

Well as the teaching unions are voting on them I don't think this is a yawn topic at all - it's current

My experience is of teaching to test so each year they miss a term of broad curriculum pracitising to take worthless tests

And when they reach secondary the schools pay no heed anyway and re-test them

It is a yawn topic in as far as the unions voting against sats at their spring conferences. They do the same thing every year.

To be fair, no one has voted on a boycott for 16 years.

And the NAHT joining forces with the NUT is historically completely and utterly unheard of.

activate there are a huge number of teaching unions and only the NUT (and NAHT head teacher's union) are voting. As there isn't a single NUT member in my school it isn't going to have an impact even if the vote is for a boycott.

I agree - teacher assessments are recorded by teachers (and reported to parents in y2) as levels, giving you the information in the same grading system as SATs, but without the narrow focus. But legally schools are only obliged to report this in Y2 and Y6 - we tell parents the specific levelling in any year group if they ask, and we indicate on the annual report whether the assessment in each subject is above, at or below the expected grade for that year group.

It relies on several sources of evidence, not just one, and gives a fully rounded version of what a child can do, at say, level 3, instead of just being able to do the handful of questions required to achieve a level 3 in a test.

Mrz, isn't your Head in the NAHT?

Yes he is but as you know every headteacher is legally required to administer the SATs so still waiting to find out exactly what will happen. There was some suggestion that tests would go ahead but papers would bekept and marked internally ... jury's out

We were going to do that - whilst we agree with the boycott, the result of the ballot on 4th May will be so late. We asked the children want they wanted and they want to do a test, so we were going to use this year's papers and mark them internally. The children were much happier with that, and so were we after the past two year's marking debacle. But if we are boycotting the test, then we can't even open the packets or touch them at all. So we intend to use a past paper instead.

What they wanted, grr.

I don't have an issue with SATs in theory, but I dislike how they are used in practise. Our school isn't that bad, but I do dislike how the children lose lesson time to prepare for them. It seems to have gone from a way to assess how well the school is teaching to simply testing what the children know. I refused to send DS1 for after-school SATs lessons as I felt that was cheating tbh and against the principles of what they were set up for. DS1s SATs results have had no practical relevance to him whatsoever. His secondary school did its own testing to see what bands to put him in in Yr 7.

And that should be practice I think.

We don't actually spend a great deal of time preparing (cramming for SATs) last week the Y6 children have looked at an old Maths paper so they won't encounter a format they have never seen before and that's it.

I am not in a subject which uses SATS, but I see the pressure it puts pupils under! Even now some are continuous assessment instead of final exam, I regularly see year 9's getting stressed.

We need a system in this country which trusts teachers to make a judgement on the standard of their pupils. We also need exams to be something that 'just happens' rather than the horrible procedure of months of practising to the test. If private schools can have their own systems of testing and marking, surely it is not beyond the rest of us to do the same?

Tests- yes, years of prep to the test- NO.

Neither do we.

I don't have a problem with the tests - I do, however, have a massive issue with the way the results are used, and the woeful standard of external marking.

If the test was used as just one piece of evidence along with other sources to give a full picture of a child's attainment, as in KS1, that would be fine.

But it's used as the be all and end all of children's attainment, and as the most important part of assessment according to league tables, some prospective parents, LEAs and Ofsted.

And when it's all based on ropey marking that I end up appealing year after year, it's no wonder teachers get cross.

I think it would be more useful to do the SATs at the beginning of Y6 and to use the results to inform the following year's teaching alongside teacher's continuous assessment than at the end of the year.
Personally I don't have a problem with tests just with the purposes they have come to be used for.

Good idea - as long as they were marked accurately; internally, like KS1 would be fine, with regular moderation both inhouse and by the LEA.

I agree they should be internally marked and externally moderated. Putting test marking out to tender was never a good idea. I understand why the unions objected to internal marking because of increased workload but extra PPA should solve that issue