Readers, Writers and Extra Time in SATs exams are BAD for the kids

[IndigoBell]

But good for the school league tables.....

(With the exception of physical difficulties that stop a child writing, and a few other cases....)

They're bad for the kids because they stop the school pulling out all efforts to teach the kids, knowing instead that they can rely on readers and writers to boost their SAT grade.

They're bad for the kids because there are no 'readers, writers and extra time' in life. If you can't read or write an awful lot of opportunities are denied to you - no matter what qualifications you possess.

They're bad for the kids because they imply that it doesn't matter if you can't read or write.

They're bad for the kids because no employer is going to be happy if it takes you longer to do the same job as everyone else - no matter what qualifications you possess.

Kids like mine (with Aspergers, dyspraxia and dyslexia) are being given readers and writers instead of being taught properly :(

A reader should only read the questions aloud, not interpret, discuss or alter them in any way to help comprehension. Either the student understands the question or they don't - the reader cannot help.
A scribe should write only what the student says and is not allowed to alter, improve or interpret it in any way. A scribe should only be allowed if it's usual classroom practice.

I would add that a reader must also only be used if it's normal classroom practice.

There was a thread yesterday, which I presume is the one that got Indigobell thinking, which detailed some very dodgy practice, and some blatant cheating with regard to readers/prompters.

I can't help agreeing with you to a certain extent, Indigobell. I think perhaps a child who is fabulous in Maths but has poor reading skills and no reading help in a Maths SAT may suffer later on if the Maths SAT result is then used to set the child - but usually secondary schools use their own tests.

Round here, the only kids who get extra help with their SATS are the kind of people who would also get extra help with their university exams. And that includes people with severe dyslexia. Not sure yet whether it will include my ds who has severe writing difficulties due to joint trouble and tbh I don't care because the SATS are not about his performance and he knows it.

The grades they get at SATS are simply not there to help the kids; they're there to measure the school's performance. And you could argue that it would be unfair if a school's performance was skewed by disabilities, as that is not something within the teacher's control. The SATS have absolutely no impact on later life or how you'll be treated by an employer or anything like it, so seems pointless to discuss them in those terms.

But I do think it will be a waste of talent if ds doesn't get enough help later in life to overcome his disability. Or perhaps all disabled people just deserve to fail? Not how we see it at my Russell group university; we'd rather help people make the most of what they have.

If a child is to be allowed to fail, then logically they should be allowed to fail at all external exams - there's no reason to single out one set of SATS - if they can't do it like everyone else, they can't do it, and the outside world won't provide readers etc - all equally true of GCSE and A level etc.

The reason I'm talking about KS2 SATs and not GCSEs is because the primary school has the most chance to teach kids how to read and write. It is their job to. It is far harder for a sec school to do so if primary haven't been able to.

And I think pscychologically schools just don't try hard enough if they know they can use a reader or writer and boost their SAT results. Everyones time is limited and everyone has to prioritise and therefore teaching SEN kids to read and write gets slightly lower priority because school has this get out clause.

My DS only gets 10mins handwriting practice a day. He's in Y5 and his handwriting is not useable at all. He will not be able to take notes at sec school or write a cheque or fill in a job application or fill in a census.....

I think if school knew he'd fail his SATs instead of getting them level 5s they'd prioritise teaching him to physically write higher - and they'd succeed.

At the moment he thinks writing is not important. And school are reinforcing this belief - because it's not important to them either.

I think using compensating strategies in sec school are fine - but primary schools use compensating strategies far too early (from Y3). And they use compensating strategies instead of teaching to read and write.

So the kids go out for all sorts of great intervntions. Then they come back to class and ate allowed to use compendatingstrategis instead.

My eldest never had any help at primary or secondary school. His primary sats indicated he would not do well later. His GCSE results were very mixed predicted b grades got c d and e ect . He then went on to art subject a levels and media and got top grades!!!!! I argued with schools from the age of three. He went of to uni and has been diagnosed with severe dyslexia but an iq just under mens a level. Uni have said and psychologist that had he had extra time ect for his GCSE exams he could have got the results that reflected what he knew and how clever he is. I feel the school were negligent in the extreme and he now has to live with these results on his cv !!!! But looking to the future he will do well at uni ......youngest brother is also dyslexic and school not being helpful he has been referee to GOSH watch this space. Oh the other three dc have no issues

Oh so I guess after all that I would back all the help in exams they can get !!!! Duh

Having a reader or writer (or someone to keep them on task) during SATS allows the test to measure the child's performance in the subject being tested, without their disabilities effecting the marks.

I really can't see the problem.

Also - if your child is receiving daily targeted support at handwriting, then I don't really think it is fair to accuse the school of having written them off. Although it was not long after that that my son's school and I discussed that if he was still unable to write legibly after 7 years of struggling with it, perhaps an alternative means of recording would be most appropriate. So many jobs today do not including writing at all - and even those which do can "get around" the necessity by using technology.

Why let a child's disability rob them of the opportunity to show the things they CAN do?

"affecting the marks"... grrr, hate it when I do tat!

I think your complaints are about your sons primary school. Although to be honest they don't sound to be doing that badly.
Every year a school will have a group of kids who find writing hard. Every few years, they will get one who is much much worse. To be honest, I have come to the conclusion that part of my sons difficulties were psychological not physical, he actually seemed to be scared of writing. At secondary he coped much better than I expected, and worked through the fear.

I would be surprised if any child able to have a scribe or reader, got all 5s. As for a start they can't have a reader for reading tests. They also will lose the handwriting and spelling marks automatically if they have a scribe, and will have to dictate grammatically correct sentences. (For GCSE they have to say if a word starts with a capital and dictate the punctuation, its quite a skill.)

They also will lose the handwriting and spelling marks automatically if they have a scribe

They don't, mummytime - the scribe is used in the same way for the spelling test and a compensatory mark of 2 out of 3 is awarded for handwriting.

I didn't think you could have amanuensis for the English paper?

Indigo, my ds was at the end of Y4 when I realised all his writing resembled spider poo at school. I felt terrible for not realising earlier. He moved schools and I kept more of an eye on him. His grammar school (boys only) has a handwriting club that a number of boys are "encouraged" to join - apparently ds's writing didn't stand out as poor because so many write badly! He can write neatly now, but is still slow, and confuses p/b though he self corrects despite being given strategies to remember.

There are quite a few children I know who have slipped through the net - Y2/3s who really can't read, write or hold a pencil correctly. I do some supply, and if there was just more time, or children got the help they needed in the first place life would be so so much easier for them. There are still some schools not teaching phonics very well. My personal bugbear is mixed year schools - too many children miss out and have too many gaps in their learning.

Yes actually, I do agree that schools do it to get the figures.

Maybe I should get ds's eyes retested - had it done years ago but now he's older it may help more. Thanks for the reminder.

I didn't think you could have amanuensis for the English paper?

They can if it's normal classroom practice or they have broken their arm - happens to lots of children in SATs week! We went through years of it not occurring at all, then had two kids out of 24 with a broken arm in that same week.

Statutory document on access arrangements may be found here

My personal bugbear is mixed year schools - too many children miss out and have too many gaps in their learning.

How so? We don't have mixed years, but if you are teaching a child's next steps then they shouldn't miss out on anything. The only things you need to be careful children don't miss out on are topics in History, etc, surely - or possibly in Science, which admittedly would be more of an issue.

I'm not sure about the argument that when they're adults they'll have to be able to physically write. Ds1 is 10 and has very poor handwriting, to the extent that he types his schoolwork.

He'll presumably be leaving school in 8 years time. When I think back to 8 years ago, being able to complete official forms online was something of a novelty. These days it's seen as odd or highly inconvenient if you can't just do something online. I imagine it will be seen as relatively old-fashioned in another 8yrs for people to do admin by hand.

Voice recognition software has also come a long way since then. Another 8 years and I would imagine it would be fairly reliable. Instead of a human scribe you would just dictate using a computer program.

Ds doesn't qualify for extra time and won't have a scribe in his SATS so I'm not sure how other schools can be getting away with obtaining help when it isn't needed. I think the only concession he'll have is to be able to use a computer for typing as that's what he does for the rest of the year.

If he types his schoolwork as part of normal classroom practice, then he is entitled to type it in the SATs, coppertop. See page 19

" He will not be able to take notes at sec school or write a cheque or fill in a job application or fill in a census....."

But it is possible for all of these to be done in other ways - census online, cheques being phased out anyway, and plenty of pupils use laptops as their main method of recording at secondary school.

I don't mean to sound glib, far from it, and I would be horrified to think of a primary school 'giving up' on a pupil, although I don know that it can happen.

But surely if pupils are given no element of a level playing field for assessments such as the SATs, that's giving them a harsh lesson at a very sensitive age, and saying that everything is second to being able to read and write, which (IMHO) it isn't? How can we encourage pupils to recognise that they can have strengths despite weak literacy skills if we don't let them demonstrate those strengths?

Mind you, I don't like the SATs anyway so I'll just potter off now.....

sorry, 'I do know' obviously!

Looks like I'm in the minority thinking it's incredibly important for kids to leave primary school able to read and write.

Which I guess is good for me. If school ain't using their valuable resources teaching other kids to read and write, they'll have more resources left for mine.

Thanks everyone for replying. I understand now why school don't prioritise it highly - and now understand I'll have to keep talking to the SENCO and teacher to let them know that actually I do think it is more important that he learns to write than that he gets good SAT results.

I naively assumed teaching a child to write was considered important.

I deeply believe my children are capable of learning to read and write and I expect them to. Having low expectations of SEN kids can be the cause of them achieving low. In the unlikely event of my kids failing to learn to read and write at least I'll know it wasn't through lack of trying or through low expectations.

I'll know it was purely because of a lack of time.

Ah now Indigo I'm picking up your frustration here, and I feel for you really I do, but has anyone here really just said all those things that you attributed to us in your last post?

Like everyone else here (I suspect) I want all the pupils in our schools to have good literacy skills, but for those who find this really really hard - despite their and their schools' efforts - I don't want them to be prevented from showing what they can for in - for example - a Maths exam, not because they can't do the Maths but because they can't read the questions.

Thanks for the link, Feenie. :)

In ds1's case I honestly don't see what else his school could have done. he was flagged at pre-school age as havng difficulties with fine motor skills. I think at his assessment at 3yrs 8mths he was found to have the FM skills of a 12-18mth old. His school have done everything the OT suggested and more besides. Out of school he's also been learning an instrument (also suggested by the OT) to improve his co-ordination and dexterity.

His writing is just about legible if he prints it but it's incredibly slow. Two or three sentences would take around an hour. His joined-up writing is very difficult to read and tbh it's not much quicker.

Using other methods to record his work has been positive for him and his confidence. It's given him a chance to show what he can actually do rather than being limited to what his hands can do.

Of course I can only go on what ds' experience has been. I have no experience of things like dyslexia or even other primary schools. It would be naive of me to think that all schools are like ds1's.

Coppertop - Very glad to hear that you think your school has done everything they could for your DS. I think your DS falls into the 'physical disabilities' category - which my children (and most children) don't.

My DS has just taken up the piano as well. He's finding it incredibly hard, and ends most sessions yelling at his hands for not doing what he wants them to do ( He also complains that the music isn't symmetrical )

But I'm hoping a year of piano will help his fine motor skills enormously....

Feenie, I know mixed year groups can work well, but were a nightmare for us.

Dd1 (g and t, whatever that means, at primary and grammar school) - ended up in top sets for maths and English with her equally able but 2 years younger sister. Can't be appropriate for both of them.

Dd was in top group in school for 2 years - she definitely repeated work.

A friend's ds who spent 3 years in the top class and lost his spark for a long time.

2 boys in dd1's year who never made it into the Y5/6 class because they were not that bright and a bit naughty. Therefore moved to a large sec school having never moved above a Y3/4 class in a tiny rural school.

Ds - my dyslexic one - being given books about cats and hats at the age of 8 and in a reading group with much younger but non dyslexic children.

A friend's dd who is in Y2, in a class with the top few Y2s, all of Y3 (except the odd one the school has chosen to move down to Y1/2) and the lower ability Y4s. In a school of over 140 children this seems bonkers to me.

Maths is the big problem - either the Y2s or Y4s are missing out somewhere...

Children who are distraught because at the end of any year they may no longer with their friends/rest of cohort.

We moved schools to one where the class are kept together. The difference is amazing.

Can you honestly say as a teacher that these are good moves for children?

Obviously the situation my children were in was far worse than the one I sometimes work in where Y 3/4 and 5/6 are always kept together - obviously then proper 2 year planning can take place.

Too many obviously words obviously - it's been a long evening and I'm typing in the dark.