Headteachers have voted to boycott SATS....

[deaddei]

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

I test every half term and report to parents three times a year TheFallenMadonna do you report more often in secondary?

Long report - proper written comments for every subject - once a year. Short reports - assessment results and grades for effort, homework etc, plus comment if necessary - every half term.

tethersend - I know you are a teacher. I know you know all the protocols and procedures and quote all the acronyms and had all the training and I haven't.

Asking me ever more detailed questions proves nothing, but I am a parent. I am only interested in the oucome. You seem to have forgotten that. Schooling is not about what you want to do. It is about what parents and children need. That is what is wrong with the teaching unions and state education system.

I am perfectly well aware that most teachers only join the union for the professional insurance it offers but there is significant minority that agitate and disrupt children's education. They are only interested in playing politics with our kids and I am sick of it.

My children are in the hands of your colleagues. I want them to turn up and do the SATs tests and communicate the results to me in a way that is comprehensible and useful. I want teachers to do their job.

"SoupDragon says teachers dont need testing."

No I didn't. I said nothing about testing the teachers.

My child is learning nothing at the moment bar how to do SATS. This is of no benefit to him whatsoever and will show nothing bar how good the teacher is at producing performing monkeys.

I don't need tests to show me how my children are performing compared to others or compared to what is "expected". I am their parent, I know how they are performing at primary level. When they get to secondary I will need and will get more information but at primary? No. Testing is unnecessary and wasn't done when I was at primary yet we all still managed to learn to read, write and do algebra.

No, I am not a teacher, why would you think that?

But why can't your teacher just tell you the level your child is working at? His/her assessment will be much more accurate than one test taken on one day in May!

Hello op back!
LynnetteS- we have similar ds's!! Are you in SW lONDON too?
And no - no one's really answered my question- will each head decide in their own school what to do, or will there be a national decree from the union?
How will it work- SATS just not done, or completed, teacher marked but not handed in?

He can see me!

Great.

I have not asked you questions any more detailed than your opinions require knowledge of. You have made some wildly inaccurate sweeping statements on this thread, and now you are effectively admitting that you don't have a clue what you were talking about. I am disappointed you can't answer a single one of my questions, because they referred to issues which you brought up.

I think it's churlish for instance to rail about the low number of children leaving primary school able to read, when you don't know what that number is.

You feel very strongly about this issue; I suggest you learn something about it. You don't have to agree with me, just learn something about the issue.

Your children will probably (have) take(n) CATs tests, and you don't even know what they are. You think SATs are essential, but you don't know why they were discontinued for 14 yr olds. Not every parent knows this information, but not every parent posts on a thread about SATs saying how important they are, and how the unions are destroying education. You did.

"My children are in the hands of your colleagues. I want them to turn up and do the SATs tests and communicate the results to me in a way that is comprehensible and useful. I want teachers to do their job."

I just want you to know what SATs are.

Thanks, Primarymum & Feenie for explaining that. It will help in the explaining/discussion at home.

I thought it odd that the decision seemed to be so last minute, especially as teachers spend much of their working life planning and/or working to the plan. I can see that this is the result of HT not being listened to by the Dept of ED, or whatever it is now called, so industrial action is the only course to take.

Sorry to completely ignore your OP. I don;t know the answer. I have never taken industrial action. So much for needing to smash the unions...

Also, to answer the OP - won't a lot of schools just do last years English and maths SATS papers? That's what our school are planning to do re. science.

"My children are in the hands of your colleagues. I want them to turn up and do the SATs tests and communicate the results to me in a way that is comprehensible and useful. I want teachers to do their job."

I thought a teacher's job was to teach.

About time too.

Merle, some schools might do last years papers, others might just trust the Yr 6 teacher to know what his/her children can do!

BeenBeta- are you not happy with your school?
Presumably you're in the state system as private schools (I think) don't do Sats.
I am sick of ds's school doing test paper after test paper
-what did you do today?

• another comprehension.

Whoopy-doo.

BeenBeta actually it is the teacher's job to teach your child the head teacher is charged with administering the National Curriculum Tests.
Your child's teacher will still report an accurate NC level to you and will have evidence to prove the accuracy of those levels.
The action by heads is not disrupting anyone's education, children will still be taught and assessed. In fact more teaching will be possible without the disruption of a week of tests.

I really do trust the teacher, but I think I am so conditioned to expect SATS, that I can't relate to not getting a number at the end of the academic year!

Beta's children are at private schools. They do tests at a higher level than SATs, and they do them often.

You will get a number, Merle- and it is likely to be more accurate as it will have been assessed by your DCs teacher.

But we have to provide a teacher assessment level too, so children go onto secondary schools with two "numbers", one the level they manage to achieve in tests taken in May and one based on teacher assessments across the whole literacy,numeracy and science curriculums. Which one would YOU think more accurately reflects your child?

Oh well that's all right then

tethersend Snap!

I am amazed that any parent is in favour of up to three months of their child's school year being wasted in revising for a set of pretty unchallenging and tedious tests which are designed purely to assess the teacher's performance against a set of Government targets. The pressure put on children to do well in SATS is absolutely appalling given that nothing about them is for their benefit at all.

Tests are fine, necessary even, but they should be set by the school to the standards expected by the school and used purely to assess the progress and understanding of each individual child.

so please can someone tell me cos I havent got time to read all thread my DS due to sit sats in Y6 in May - are these no longer going to happen?

Depends on whether your headteacher supports the boycott, I guess.

Or a Y6 teacher could be an NUT member and a headteacher not in sympathy with the boycott could administer the tests using other staff.

Will make a right mess of the league tables next year