Upcoming SATS and constant testing of children

[cantfindamnnickname]

DS is 11 in year 6 - for the last half of last term and this term and presumably until the SATS the teacher is constantly giving them SATS papers to do, they are literally doing 2 or 3 tests every day and the pressure is immense.

I am not impressed and think its ridiculous - I have raised this issue with the Head and she agrees that its not the way to do it - she has only been there since January however and is making lots of changes to the school so I think she is reluctant to challenge this at the moment.

I do not want DS under this much pressure - is there any guidance from Ofsted about SATS or best practice so that i can go to head and force her to deal with the issue now?

Seeker - You aren't invisible. I said the same thing down thread, although now i come to think about it, nobody took any notice of me either.

Not all schools ignore SATs and even if they aren't the be all and end all, they are still part of the consideration. I am sure that secondaries are aware of which of their feeder schools cram for the SATs and which take a more measured response. They know from experience when they have found a big discrepancy between SATs and CATs.

On a different point, re passing exams and their relevance to the work place. For a start an exam isn't just about what you know but how you think. Can you think on your feet, can you assimulate information quickly and then apply it and all that type of thing? However my main point is that course work isn't all that realistic either when you are allowed to go and redo modules until you get the mark you want. How many employers are going to keep letting you have a go at your job until you get it right? Not very many I would suggest , particularly if you are losing them money whilst you try and get things right. Quite apart from that there is and always be the issue of how much the child really did for themselves and how much help they got? Who could resist reading through their child's course work and not point out a mistake. Very few of us I would suggest and even if some of us can there will be plenty who can't. Not really a measure of their abiilties is it?

"How many employers are going to keep letting you have a go at your job until you get it right?". Perhaps Tesco might get a bit fed up with you if you couldn't work a till, but I suspect the people who invented the IPad had a few goes before they launched it on the market. As far as I am aware, they still haven't got it quite right, because they seem to keep changing it...

Don't worry about the SATS and to be honest if the pressure for your child becomes too much then pull them out of doing the damn things!! There is no good reason for a child to be doing these things as most secondary schools have their own tests more or less as the children get there. The senior school my children went to ignored the SATs results because they felt that the children were 'coached' too much in just Science, Maths and English. They did all round tests to see how much the children really knew, intelligence and common sense!! My DS was gutted because he got 5 5 4 and not three 5's - he has just got the first of his GCSE results, Maths A*. My DD before him didn't have a cat in hell's chance of getting anything but maybe a 2 in the English SAT's at the end of year 6 - I told the school not to enter her for it or the other ones for that matter if they had to. She was stressed to hell about them!! She did her science one and her maths one but didn't sit the English papers - five years later she walked away with a raft of GCSE's grade B's and C's so stop worrying. Her English GCSE was a grade B - she caught up without too much stress and did well in her GCSE's, some children aren't ready for the pressure of exams at that age - they'll have enough pressure later in life without starting them in junior school!! And by the way there is no law that children HAVE to sit SAT's - if you're not comfortable with them then do what I did - pull them out of them - you're the parent not the school. When they are ready and much more able to cope with exams at the end of their school life then go for it!! Mine did and they have done alright!! Don't worry about them - if need be just shelve them!!

Yes but that is what you are supposed to do - do the design work and the changes and the prototypes and then launch it as a finished product. It is like doing the research and the drafts of a piece of course work. What they don't do is launch it and then have to produce a whole series of patches to correct a new model and if that happens people want to know why. The later models are newer designs with improvements not clearning up obvious mistakes. There is a difference.

As an accountant, if I had produced a set of accounts, sent them to the Revenue and then had them sent back because there were errors, my boss and the client wouldn't have been too pleased. If you were buying your house and your solicitor didn't do your conveyancing quite right, you wouldn't have said, it's OK have another go and see if you can do better next time, you'd have been livid and rightly so. A doctor who opened you up to operate on your heart but found he had the diagnosis wrong and it wasn't your heart at all but your stomach or something would be at risk of a law suit not told to keep trying.

I don't get this have another go at the module until you get the grade you want it - it isn't realistic at all. Besides you can still inflate the course work results just the same as the exams, probably even more easily at the Yr 6 level because not all of it will be externally moderated.

SATs are for the school not the child and far too much is made of them at primary - the school doesnt even have to participate in them

mumslife, I'm afraid you have got this completely wrong - schools MUST participate in them by law.

I am with mrz - how can you say that SATs are for the school, not the child, when a child's targets are set at secondary school using them?

And by the way there is no law that children HAVE to sit SAT's

Er...Bigboobiedbertha - yes, there is. It's a specific statutory requirement that heads and governors are legally bound by. Yes, parents can keep children off (as an unauthorised absence) but to say there is no law is nonsense.

Sorry where did I say that?

I know that they are a statutory requirement. You might want to look elsewhere for your culprit on that one.

And to think I was just about to post something agreeing with you too

It was bossboggle. I know we share a lot of 'b's but not the same opinion.

Ahem - many apologies, BigBoobiedBertha - my comments should of course have been addressed to BossBoggle. I have indeed got my Bs mixed up.

Feel free to agree with me now.

All I was going to say was SATs are indeed used and to assume they aren't wouldn't be wise. CAT tests aren't the same thing as SATs anyway. They measure different things and have different uses.

I suspect that if any secondary truly does say they don't use them it is necause they know their feeder schools are those that are guilty of the bad practices some have reported on here.

Bigboobiedbertha

To be fair I don't know much about re-taking GCSE modules - I did O-levels and my children are too young. However, there is nothing to stop somebody from re-taking a public exam and re-applying for a course the following year. That is why there are crammers - little Charlie has a wild old time in sixth form and then mummy and daddy pay for him to pass the exams the following year. It is also possible to re-take accountancy exams. Exams are just something you do to get from A to B.

My experience is also that there can be quite a lot of toing and froing before accounts are signed off. Oh for an accountancy exam where all the information is given to you in a few paragraphs...

Feenie

"how can you say that SATs are for the school, not the child, when a child's targets are set at secondary school using them?", except according to this thread many secondary schools ignore SATs, and for those that do, is it considered to be a good thing that some schools seem to forecast a child's whole career based on one exam on one day?

As I said before, isn't the point of having a teacher that an expert teaches an individual child, not an exam result.

There's passing exams and then there's receiving an education. They are not one and the same.

I totally agree, and in our school Y6 certainly aren't drilled, and receive the broad and balanced curriculum to which they are entitled.

However, even if secondary schools don't use the results to set, legally they must all use them to set targets. There they are all 'forecasting a child's whole career' - every single one of them. Because they have to!

Still think they are just about the primary school?

As a Year 6 teacher, we have just finished a week of 'mock' SATs tests and I have to say that most of the children have had a positive experience. That's not to say that all the children have enjoyed the week but there have been lots of opportunities for them to either see where they have made progress over the year and since the end of Year 5 or else they have been able to see where they can improve in actually showing off what they are capable of doing by working hard on the tests.

This is the third time they have taken an old SAT paper during their time in year 6. Beyond this we have been busy teaching NEW stuff all year and, as well as 'bringing up the bottom' we have had some fabulous times really extending the children beyond Level 5. The only other times we have used SATs papers or even SAT-type stuff is when we have looked at different types of genres in writing (and we will be one of the schools taking the writing SAT because we have been selected!)

I am rather sad to read that there seem to be children doing almost nothing but work their way through the tests.

We have also kept up with all the other curriculum areas although in the 4 weeks leading up to SATs week we have dropped back on topic work - so that we can give the children more time doing PE/games and running about (when the weather is kind to us!)

Yes, there is a lot of pressure on us, as teachers, to get the best out of the children and, we feel that by doing it in as stress-free (for the children) a way as possible, we are getting the best out of (most of) them!

"I am rather sad to read that there seem to be children doing almost nothing but work their way through the tests."

I do suspect they have been doing more than that. When DS was yr6 My friend was complaining to me that our DSs' class had done no history that term. I knew this was not true as my DS had bought home an A3 size diagram of a Motte and Bailey castle he had drawn a few weeks before.

My ds is in year 2. Hardly ever have homework. I have been very happy with the school. No talk of SATs. However, friend of mine told me that for weeks her dd being given SATs papers for home work. SATs results are better at her child's school [though possibly other reasons for this too]. BUT her dd feeling pressured and she is concerned. My ds oblivious and bouncing to school.
I don't know......

No stress at all at my DS's school - the Y6s have had a school trip this week, are playing in lots of sports tournaments, no more homework than usual ie: about 10 minutes a week . My DS says that they do a few practice tests a week but that seems to be it .......... perhaps he is just lucky or the teachers are just very laid back organised . I wouldn't mind if my DS had to go in to school earlier for Sats prep but it makes you wonder what those teachers have been doing all year if they are cramming it in at the end ?

It always makes me smile when I see British parents complain about the level of testing. In Belgium they have tests pretty much every day (so learning for tests plus a lot of homework is par for the course) and exams twice a year from the age of six. The marks from the tests and exams all go into their report and if they get below 60% they have to redo the year. There is a lot of learning by rote and the level expected of them is high. I dream about my dd having the level of homework and learning for tests she would get if she were at school in the UK (I have a dn of the same age and he gets hardly any homework compared to her). Apart from one hour of art and one hour of technology in the first two years of secondary, there are no non-academic lessons, Latin is compulsory for the first year of secondary and the choices going through the school pretty much consist of more or less science, more or less maths, more of less Latin and/or Greek or economics. Most subjects are compulsory until they are 18.

Not that I agree with the SATS testing if it's causing stress. My three dcs have been stressed for years and it's not nice.

'......but it makes you wonder what those teachers have been doing all year if they are cramming it in at the end.'

I think that is the issue really. SATs are doing their job in a sense by highlighting those schools who aren't organised and then have to teach to the test because they seem to suddenly realise that the children haven't made the progress they are supposed to have done. That is what we should be getting cross about not the tests themselves. The problem is that it isn't highlighting the poor teaching to anybody that can do something about it, only the children and their parents. There are several good teachers on this thread who haven't had to force fed children past papers and drill them for hours on end and who have found the children well able to deal with a week of exams and even to find it an enjoyable challenge. That is how is should be but instead some schools appear to be letting down the children by not making sure that the children are working towards the SATs and their targets in a measured way from the minute they start yr 3 so that they are never put under too much pressure at the last minute.

And what would happen if there were no SATs? At least with the SATs there is something in place that makes sure that the children do the work they are supposed to but if there were no SATs, would those schools even bother to cover the syllabus without the incentive of the tests? You do have to wonder what they have been doing all year and for the previous 3 years too.

I have a gd daughter who goes to school in Paris who visits me every holiday. I get a regular reality check about children being under stress, amount of homework and testing!

seeker, :) and :(

My DCs attend a small state primary (and I'm a parent governor). The current Y6 consists of 11 children. The school did exceptionally well last year (some bright kids plus high value added score as in a 'deprived' area) with a similar sized group. They already know the results will be wildly different this year as they are a 'weaker' group (school's word, not mine). They have some they know will achieve 4 or 5, some they know won't, and one child, with ADHD, who could go either way depending on what kind of day he's having.

The school isn't doing anything different to what they were doing last year, yet the league tables will say that standards have dropped. Yes, there needs to be some measure of teacher performance, and secondaries need some idea of prior attainment, but how is this telling anyone anything useful?!?

I have no issue with testing.
Lot sof small tests, little and often, is often a very good way to learn something. IMVHO it is the best way to become proficient in MFLs.

I'm also unconvinced that DC should be getting so stressed. Shouldn't we be bringing them up to be a tad more robust than that? A bad result just means you have to try harder. A good result just means you're on track.

My main issue with SATS is the way that some schools let them take over year six. I know they want/need good results for the league tables but it must be very boring for the pupils to endlessly go over essentially three subjects.
Catch 22 though. Parents choose the schools due to good SATs but don't like the school's method of getting them.

I must say the regular mental maths tests dd has been having this year have dramatically improved her quick recall etc. Spelling tests I'm never convinced about - yes, you remembered how to spelll accomodation this week, but I bet you don't know next week - but the maths stuff has been really good.

I'm a secondary (state) school English teacher. The pupils' targets for GCSE are indeed determined by their KS2 SATS marks. These targets are externally set (by the Fisher Family Trust) and used to judge individual teachers and also, by OFSTED, the school as a whole. It is frustrating when some / many of our new intake of Year 7s are not actually working at the level they appear to have achieved in the SATS, but (apart from primaries 'cheating') that could be because they've been doing fun stuff at school since the exams in May and have forgotten a lot of what they learned? The Fisher Family Trust statistics are worked out nationally so should account for some primaries teaching to the test, over-inflated marks etc, but for some of my students the targets are definitely unachievable (L5 at KS2, target A, seem to be working hard but only working at a C) and I do wonder if one system fits all successfully or if there's a better way? But what?!