Headteachers have voted to boycott SATS....

[deaddei]

but in RL what will that mean?
Will some schools not do them?

Sorry. I know there are lot of teachers on here but the teaching unions have to be smashed. They do this every year. Disrupting exams is just a despicable way of holding children parents and Govt to ransom.

The NAHT are traditionally moderate. It is a mark of how damaging the profession believes KS2 SATs are to children that they have chosen to work together with the NUT.

The NUT only ballotted Heads, Deputies and Assistant Heads bescause they are the people who have legal responsibility to administer the tests - this is no left wing bunch of teachers holding anyone to ransom, it's a group of respected school managers who firmly believe it's the right thing to do.

This exam is not important for students - something schools often don't tell you. It is supposed to measure how well schools do. Kids will still get a teacher grade, which most secondaries take far more seriously. Also if they have been doing APP (you don't need to know) they will have plenty of evidence of the progress pupils have been making.
Most secondaries retest pupils in September October anyhow.

BetaBeta are you american, because the UK unions are doing this because our kids are the most over tested in the world.

BeenBeta not sure where you got your information from but it is more than 20 years (1987) since teaching unions took action. The NUT staged one day action in April 2008 (not during exams).

BeenBeta, leaving aside your slightly questionable assertion that the teaching unions must be smashed , how do you feel about the SATs having already been scrapped for 14 yr olds? Does this not give you an indication of the educational value of SATs?

No I am not American but this threat of disrupting exams of one form or another is always issued at this time of year. It was A levels a few years ago.

If teachers dont like the education system then either leave the profession or by all means persuade Govt and parents but don't just boycot exams. It is not on.

It is a straw in the wind of what is to come. I have no doubt at all that if a Tory Govt is elected the teaching unions will start random strikes to disrupt the economy. The Tory Govt has to be ready for that - with so many families no having two parents working a day of school strikes causes huge numbers of people to be forced to take a day off work. The economy cannot afford to have that happen.

I am all for unions doing ther proper job of protecting employees and representing them if employers treat them badly. This strike is not about that. It is about politics pure and simple.

Any teacher who goes on strike over this issue or disrupts exams should be sacked. I had a full end of term exam every single term I was at state Primary school some 40 years ago plus a lot of random tests every week. Tests are not a new thing - kids are no more tested now than they were when I was a kid. Exams are far easier now but that is another issue.

I would shake any teacher who boycotted SATs by the hand.

After standing up and applauding them.

Please answer my question about the scrapping of the SATs at 14 and what bearing this has on their validity as a form of summative assessment please, BeenBeta.

I want the answer so much I said 'please' twice

BeenBeta I can't remember doing an exam/test in all my years in primary school apart from the 11 plus in my final year.
So now you are saying that teachers "threaten" to disrupt exams rather than your earlier assertion that they did indeed disrupt exams?
Boycotting the exams won't mean schools are closed so your childcare worries are unfounded.

SATS are all about the government and not about the child. Our school has never boycotted them but they are so low key that the children and parents aren't aware at a local level that they happen.

Why were SATs for 14 year old scrapped?

I also had a full set of end of term exams every singe term at the private secondary school I went to. Ever wondered why private school kids do better in exams - they are used to doing them. Kids need testing to spot those who are struggling and identify bad teachers.

I wants SATs for every single year and I WANT them more rigorous. I want them published every single year. I want the disgraceful state of our school system exposed. I want shoddy teachers exposed. I get the strong feeling teachers don't like SATs because they themselves dont like to have their own performance monitored.

BeenBeta as a teacher I haven't got a problem with SATs ( technically they haven't existed since 1991).
Most primary schools do administer tests every year and report the results to parents and LAs.

Yes, because that's the only way our performance is monitored, of course.

Never mind Ofsted inspections, observations by several senior managers, performance management.

You clearly have no clue what you are talking about. Compassionate, caring people who are devoted to their jobs are telling you there are much better ad more accurate ways to assess primary school childen - but you obviously know much better.

You should work for the Daily Mail.

"Why were SATs for 14 year old scrapped?"

If you don't know the answer to this question, perhaps you should go and find out before posting on this thread.

On the off chance your woefully misinformed opinions are real, perhaps you should think about training as a teacher since you seem to know what education needs- or perhaps you are well qualified already, having been to school and all

What do you think about the current measures in place to measure teachers' performance?

I want my children educated, not trained to perform for one particular test.

It's the use that the SATs are put to that most teachers object to, not the tests themselves ( oh, and teachers have their performance monitored every year!)

BeenBeta, how do you rate the efficacy of KS2 SATs as a GCSE performance indicator against CATs for example?

BeenBeta, You say; "I want the disgraceful state of our school system exposed."

What makes you think our school system is disgraceful?

i think the issue of SATs is not that the kids should be tested, but that they seem to be so important WRT the government seeing the improvement figures that they think are so vital, that children seem to be spending a lot of learning time learning how to pass the exams. not learning stuff, but learning how to do SAT-type tests.
that's not a good grounding for life.

there is absolutely nothing wrong with exams: it's just that they shouldn't have soo much emphasis that the whole point of learning has been lost.

when i was at junior school we had internal exams every year to assess our progress. they were used as a tool to enable the teachers to get the best out of us for what we were good at/bad at. not so that the government can say "oh, look, we're great because this many schools got 1% more this year than last"

BeenBeta - I agree that the students should be tested, and I would like to see end of year exams in all subjects, so that the students get used to exams and exam conditions, and thus it is easier in Year 10.

However, SATS don't test right across the curriculum, but just in 3 subjects. When a child came into my classroom, I didn't look at the SATs data, which only tells me how they performed that day, but at their GLA; how well they could read was key for me as the subjects I taught in secondary were text heavy.

The other reason I want SATs scrapped is that they stifle learning. DS did them, and spent from Oct 06 to May 07, when his school did SATs, doing nothing much but practice papers and being drilled for the exam. This is a term wasted when they could have be doing a much broader curriculum.

Teacher assessment will tell you much more about progress than SATs will.

Not all UK schools are disgraceful but the number of children leavng primary school not able to read is too high. That is why it is a disgrace.

In my village primary (in 1970) not one chld left unable to read. We had a 60 yr old Headmaster who used traditonal methods including regular tests. He never went on strike either!

scaryteacher "SATs" only test 2 subjects now .

If 'sats' were used correctly (to inform teachers of children's strengths and weaknesses as a summative tool)not as a dubious measure of a school's success then no one would have a problem.

What is the percentage of children leaving primary school unable to read, BeenBeta?

How many children were excluded from your village primary?

And please answer my previous question about the efficacy of SATs as a GCSE performance indicator compared to CATs.