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Original poster

So here we are- KS2 SATS Week...

849 replies

ampere · 14/05/2012 08:15

Feeling more nervous than DS2!

He's 'borderline', particularly in Literacy. He'll be so happy if he gets a 4 (as will I!) so off he went just now with me offering my last minute bon mots ('Read carefully! Most of the answers are in the text! If it doesn't make sense, you've not read it properly' etc).

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ampere · 15/05/2012 13:53

I was specifically responding to: 'and please make sure your kids don't think they are important', because I disagree. I think SATS are important.

They prevent schools from slacking, they give DC a tangible, measurable target to aim for and a level to celebrate or ponder. This is all important in the state educational society we have created where it's actually quite hard for a DC to actually know how well (or badly!) they're doing. They can make wild guesses (held up as gospel on MN when a Y2 announces which maths group she's in, cue mummy marching up to school to find they haven't be set in 'maths groups' at all for instance!)

Whilst I do not hanker for a classical, public school style education for my DSs, I fear the 'all shall have prizes' and the ongoing constant belief that everything a DC churns out is worthy of praise, and that the darlings mustn't be put under any stress because it doesn't matter... is damaging and not, basically, to coin a current issue, the way the 'posh boys' who get the best jobs are educated at all!

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Original poster
ampere · 15/05/2012 13:57

seeker, I 'believe' in coaching for SATS inasmuch as teaching DC 'exam technique', e.g. Don't spend 10 minutes on a 1 mark answer! READ it all thoroughly before ploughing in, SHOW your workings... plus some 'insider' knowledge about the sort of questions that will come up such as asking the DC to explain what is meanst be an expression. You don't know what that expression will be, of course, but you can encourage DC to take that on board in their own reading: ask if you don't understand 'dirt poor', for example.

I, too, see SATS as 'testing what they've learned in Maths, English and Science over the last few years', not as an alien subject.

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simbo · 15/05/2012 14:14

Our lot aren't doing the writing test for another 2 wks and, though it is being marked internally, it is still the same one. And now that we know the subject we'll all be itching to work balloon vocab etc into our conversations. A bit cheaty/inevitable?

simbo · 15/05/2012 14:16

Our lot aren't doing the writing test for another 2 wks and, though it is being marked internally, it is still the same one. And now that we know the subject we'll all be itching to work balloon vocab etc into our conversations. A bit cheaty/inevitable?

IndigoBell · 15/05/2012 14:19

simbo - it doesn't matter. If they score a level 5 on the test, but can only demonstrate a level 3 in their day to day work, then they can only be given a level 3.

So, it really won't particularly help them.

EllenJaneisnotmyname · 15/05/2012 14:34

Interesting. Our papers were not about a hot air balloon ride. One was a description and the other a persuasive piece. Hmm Are different schools doing different papers? Some will be doing the internally marked ones and some the externally marked ones. I assume they are different.

bizzey · 15/05/2012 14:40

Ellen....interesting..!!??? Wonder why,diff papers because of marking ???

simbo · 15/05/2012 14:48

Our lot aren't doing the writing test for another 2 wks and, though it is being marked internally, it is still the same one. And now that we know the subject we'll all be itching to work balloon vocab etc into our conversations. A bit cheaty/inevitable?

EllenJaneisnotmyname · 15/05/2012 14:50

The internally marked papers have been available to schools for a while and they can choose when to administer them, while our papers had to be done today, I think, and were opened today. Maybe they were worried that the subject of the externally marked ones might 'get out' and make the marking complicated? So two different papers? Just thinking out loud now.

simbo · 15/05/2012 14:51

Sorry, don't know why my messages keep coming through twice! I guess it is logical that the internal/external papers are different.

EllenJaneisnotmyname · 15/05/2012 14:52

Maybe the internally marked papers are the balloon ride and schools could choose to administer them this week to get the SATs out of the way?

CuriousMama · 15/05/2012 14:53

DS2 Yr 6 isn't worried at all about his SATS and he has Aspergers. He said he doesn't understand why dcs are stressed out? I said maybe their parents are stressing and it's passing on to them? I told ds2 just to do his best and not worry. He's come on so much lately and could get level 4s.

It's funny really as his brother is mega bright yet ds2 feels no pressure to compete. I have always stressed their strengths though. Put it this way, if I was lost in a jungle I know which of the 2 I'd be happier to be lost with and it aint ds1 Wink

bizzey · 15/05/2012 15:12

Going off now to find out if he went in a hot air balloon !!!

Original poster
ampere · 15/05/2012 15:22

OK, yesterday DS did the Great Plague, but today's was (long) about 'a famous person coimng to school'; and (short) about bird spotting!

IS it possible they've done external for yesterday and internal today?

The spellings were about Atlantis, apparently!

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HauntedLittleLunatic · 15/05/2012 15:26

I think they are all external except long writing which the school can choose internal or external.

I might be wrong tho.

Feenie · 15/05/2012 15:30

All papers are external except for the writing task which a sample of schools must have marked externally.

Feenie · 15/05/2012 15:31

Our lot aren't doing the writing test for another 2 wks and, though it is being marked internally, it is still the same one. And now that we know the subject we'll all be itching to work balloon vocab etc into our conversations. A bit cheaty/inevitable?

Since the mark given for writing will be a teacher assessment, using this piece and many others to give a best fit, it isn't 'cheaty' Grin

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 15/05/2012 15:44

Biography of Pip Davenport, anyone?

bigTillyMint · 15/05/2012 15:52

So am I right in thinking that if the school was getting the papers marked externally, then it was Hot Air Balloons, and if internally marked, it was about a famous person coming to the school?

EllenJaneisnotmyname · 15/05/2012 15:52

Pip Davenport. That was the 2008 long writing paper.

EllenJaneisnotmyname · 15/05/2012 15:53

BigTilly, I thought it was vice versa.

sphil · 15/05/2012 15:53

Well DS seems fairly OK about writing papers, though less ebullient than yesterday ( reading is a strength, writing not). His balloon ride was typically sensational - the 'anticipation' entry consisted of his best friend telling him not to go because the day before four balloon experts had been killed in an accident and the 'reflection' was from his hospital bed - the balloon had crashed into a lake because a ' stupid gruff man' pulled the rope at the wrong time, resulting in DS breaking his arm, leg and spine HmmGrin. I refrained from commenting that, in that case, the last thing he would have been doing was writing his diary...

The short write was apparently a report from a talent show - who knew all those hours watching BGT would count as SATs revision?

EllenJaneisnotmyname · 15/05/2012 15:54

Ampere, you had the same papers as we did. I thought ours were being marked externally?

bigTillyMint · 15/05/2012 15:55

DS just came - he said his was a hot air balloon and a talent show and thought he did OK

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 15/05/2012 15:57

Ours was Pip Davenport and A Memory From This Year At School. How weird!