Headteachers have voted to boycott SATS....

[deaddei]

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

Crossposts, pixie and mrz

I was quoting AtillaTheMeerkat's figures and answering her question. No idea if these figures are right

Trends in standards of literacy in the United Kingdom
National Foundation for Educational Research
Summary

1. Surveys of literacy attainment have been going on in the UK since 1948.
2. The main finding is that literacy standards have changed very little in that time. Among 8-year-olds (children in Year 3) in England and Wales, however, standards fell slightly in the late 1980s, and then recovered in the early 1990s.
3. The few international comparisons available seem to show some slippage in the position of Britain's 9-year-olds between the 1970s and the 1990s, and a 'trailing edge' of underachievement.
4. Very few school-leavers and adults can be described as illiterate, but a significant percentage have limited literacy skills. For many people, literacy skills are insufficient to meet the demands of life, work and citizenship.
5. The British educational system has been generally successful in maintaining the standard of achievement in literacy. The international evidence shows that the levels achieved by middling and high performers are comparable to the best in the world.
6. But international evidence and adult literacy surveys also show that there is a significant proportion of the population who have poor or very poor literacy skills; and this pattern seems to have persisted for many decades.

Whatever the real truth is behind the figures (and thank you all for responding), we still have children who leave Y6 without attaining the required standard in both maths and english. My son won't get a level 4 in English but he has still been given a "Achieve level 4" SATS english book by school!.

According to Government statistics, a fifth of youngsters leaving primary school can't read and write properly. That means they have not reached the benchmark reading age of an 11-year-old and are unlikely to be able to follow lessons when they go to secondary school.

I now ask this. What are we as a society going to do about that problem?.

excellent question. It is a scandal.

According to "statistics" generated by last year's results we had 1 child who did not achieve a level 4. What those statistics don't show is the child was in Ireland the day the he should have taken the test...
so even the 1-5 figure is highly questionable.

My son will never get a level 4 this May for English unless I sit the wretched paper for him!. As it is more analytical maths is a better subject for him but DS still panics in test situations.

At least I did receive one good piece of news in that his school have scrapped this year's science SAT paper.

I am wondering why he and the rest of his set 5 English set (and I have a great deal of respect for the other children who are in there) were given this particular "Achieve level 4" book to start with. With their overall level of learning disability within that set it's an uphill struggle for them.

Mrz, Last year one of our potential level 5's threw up all over the second maths paper, so he became a level 3!

Exactly but statistics show him/her as a "failure"!!

Attilla - the Science SATs paper has been scrapped for all schools - it was announced, with a spectacular lack of tact, about two days before last year's year 6 had to sit theirs!
They were furious, but Ed Balls got a personal preview of our Year 6's skills at writing a letter of complaint - all 56 of them....

Hi rustybear,

I made comment on the SATS science paper as my DS's school had some left over papers from last year and were going to use those this time around!. Thankfully they eventually saw sense.

Oh, I see - yes, that would have been a bit pointless, I think.

I can see both sides here. I was not happy that when my daughter ws in year six in a state primary that all she did was sats practice. I pulled my younger children out of state schools at this point.

As an indepedent school teacher, i use sats papers for end of year exams and questions for interim asssessmemts. They are very well constructed.

MmeBlueberry I agree it isn't the tests it's the purpose they have been used for that has created schools that spend the final year teaching to the test.

Oh come off it, MmeBlueberry - I also use sample questions to enhance my lessons and teacher assessment, but don't sit there and tell me they are 'very well constructed' as 'end of year exams', fgs. They give an ridiculously narrow view of a child's attainment.

Come of it? I thought my post was fairly neutral.

Too many points to answer sensibly on the thread since I last looked in but looks like a good debate on all sides.

pixie - one of the reasons we are leaving is the UK education system. It is not certain though and DS1 would have to take 11+ if we stay.

mrz - I will check out the NCEA problems in New Zealand but the outcomes in PISA scores are still far better than the UK. The present National (conservative) Govt of NZ has only been in power 18 months so is obviously concerned enough to do a review and will hopefully be making changes to NCEA and willbe facing down the unions too as I think we should do in the UK.

tethersend - I have read the CAT test information and it does not do the job of testing knowledge acquired that I want. It seems like a test of innate intelligence. I have read what cadders1 suggested but still seems to involve teacher assessment and moderation. That is not independent or transparent or simple. It is very costly as well.

I have read the entire thread again and I strongly think that regular multi choice 7+ 11+ 13+ type test papers would achive most of the external independently verifiable testing I want. It could be done every term online by schools and the papers marked automaticaly with the data also recorded and diseminated automatically. Teachers would have no marking to do but have a good quality data set and analysis to look at through time with weaknesses identfied automatically for each pupil. As it would be taken through time, it would not all hang on one exam. It would make life easier for teachers, be easily explainable to parents, be cheap and independent.

It is one of the reasons. Not the reason.

But you still haven't answered the question of how writing could be assessed - very difficult through online multiple choice questions?!!

I disagree, therefore, that this would give good quality data, or identify weaknesses for each pupil. I can do that through my lessons every day, thanks.

BeenBeta I'm sure you are also aware that Finland constantly tops the PISA ratings and yet children there are not tested until upper secondary, they attend fewer hours per day and there is no "setting" or "streaming" or indeed a Gifted and Talented register.

We have "assessed" a number of commercially produced digital assessment (MCQ)programmes and have found all give inflated/inaccurate results.