So here we are- KS2 SATS Week...

[ampere]

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).

Could we stop the thread for 5 mins so we can all catch up

Not Fennie!

Oi, Fenny, sod orf!

Fanny , Feenie , I bet your a right larf when marking student work ! Red pen everywhere !

and they wouldn't have any league tables to beat teachers with and they wouldn't be able to juggle the figures to prove whatever they want to prove that year

Fanny. That was the best hoist-by-your-own-petard I've seen in a while

"It's Feenie not Feenie" Maybe it's in the pronounciation

poor teachers. I don't envy you one bit.

Whoopy - it's you're

and OFSTED wouldn't have any reason to convert us all into academies

I'm waiting for Feenie to correct me with her red pen !

A school could technically set targets however they choose, but individual teachers and schools are judged on levels of progress from KS2.

not that I'm cynical at all

Mrz- Q:"The government won't allow teachers to set their own targets because that would suggest they trust us to do our jobs."

To be honest, here, sadly the easiest reason Those In Power can give as to why 'teachers aren't trusted to do their job' is historical- you are all being tarred with a brush that has '1975' written on its handle.

My DB, now 51, is a fine example of what can happen if you leave (irresponsible, lazy) teachers to do all the assessing. Failed 11+ (an issue in itself as M&D were invited to the primary to discuss his future as he was 'borderline' . The primary should have insisted on Grammar and 'see how it goes'. They trusted the primary Head who thought 'maybe SM is right for him'. I passed the 11+ and had a stellar secondary education...); so off he went to SM where he was allegedly 'doing fine', from Y7-10, then suddenly- Oh! What went wrong? DB is suddenly 'failing! The class clown! Has completely changed his attitude to study!' etc. Came out with 2 low grade CSEs. My parents were naive. They accepted all this- til they compared notes with parents whose DC had left that school in the years clustered all around DB's leaving year- and guess what? exactly the same story. "All's well/no trouble/as you were"... til Y11. There was even talk of legal action against the school.

So it's your predecessors who muddied those waters for you!

Pheww ..all quiet on the SATS front for a minute Iwas loosing the plot then trying to catch up !!!!

SATs results - useful for basic ability grouping in first term of Year 7. They also mean we know which kids were disapplied (low ability) and will need support to cope in mainstream.
CATs tests in the first week are used to predict future 'potential'; but it takes a while to get these results back, and adjust sets after Christmas. Teachers should have a good grasp of where your child is at by then, and ever-so-frequent tests in class will keep track of where they are heading grades-wise for GCSE (or not!)
There's really no need to worry - the children suffering with SATs are just acclimatising rapidly for the rest of their school lives!!

I use green pen, actually

and do you think that the current system works ? because as a parent I can tell you it hasn't improved

Doh ! Feenie

What would you like me not to correct you about, Whoopydofoxpoo? I wasn't the only poster to tell you that you were incorrect regarding legal requirements and Y9 tests. Should I not have mentioned that you kept getting my name wrong?

I told DS2 the sole purpose of his SATS was to see if he could get better grades than his brother.

Blimey Feenie - chill please

ha ha Soup - that would certainly motivate DS2

at Feenie. Apparently!