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).

Whoopydofoxpoo He wore his dressing gown over his clothes and kept it on all day, apparently, apart from when they did "mini-Olympics trials" in the afternoon. Really, his school is a mystery to me. His reasoning was that Einstein and other great thinkers do unusual things to help their thinking. It's a a non-uniform school and the only reaction he reported was a teacher said he was creative. tbh I was just glad he was going to school without a fight. And probably so were they.

And he had the plague questions not the Ring a Roses ones so I can't add anything to the italics debate.

TheFallenMadonna, see section 1.6

Sounds an interesting school !

Bizarre.

What is point of nationally timetabling exams, and then allowing them to be taken on another day?

seahouses both answers could be right as it was a two part question, just depends which part she was answering! Not happy to hear your dd's teacher made her rub out an answer. It's definitely cheating, and I say that as somebody who pushes acceptable practice to its limits when it comes to sats!

What do you mean, "push acceptable practice to its limits"?

TFM, they are not equivalent to GCSEs. GCSEs are designed primarily to test the child and say something about what they know. They may have a secondary purpose of making judgements about schools, but that is not what they were designed to do.

SATs were created to test how well schools were doing. Their primary purpose is to test the school. As such, they were never designed to be an accurate measure of a child's ability to perform in secondary school.

GCSE results can be used as a way of excluding people from A level study in various subjects or certain jobs, so in some ways can be used as a formative assessment. But that is irrelevant as an analogy to SATs because we don't exclude anybody in mainstream primary from the KS3 curriculum. As everybody who sat KS2 SATs is going on to KS3, there is no reason for KS3 teachers not to use more appropriate forms of testing.

Ring a ring of posies was on the plague one!

Dd says part one of the question was about her feeling chilly, and part two makes this obvious as it asks 'why might people in our own time understand this question differently?' or something like that.

They might not be an accurate measure, but they are used as the ONLY measure when judging the performance of secondary teachers and schools. Our sole aim has to be to make three levels of progress on KS2. If they weren't introduced to be that, then they are now.

Hmm just asked my DC about the italics question and the answer I got was 'what are italics?'...this does not bode well...

Doh! Yes just realised the plague question and the Ring a Roses question must be the same. Just as well i wasn't doing it myself.

I wonder what they'll get for breakfast tomorrow?

I'm not sure what that has got to do with using KS2 results as a way of setting children. Are you saying that you set children based on KS2 results, because it is more important that you set children to make the 'right' amount of progress from KS2 to GCSE, regardless of the child's ability?

So, for example, if a child gets a 3A but is actually really able, it is more important to make sure the child who came in with a 4A who is actually not that able comes out with the higher GCSE results, because otherwise they wouldn't make the 'right' amount of progress for the league tables?

As some one said earlier.....cant wait for maths tomorow !!!

It's not Maths tomorrow - it's writing

Ampere - its not the tests my DS is 'sensitive' to - in previous years when optional SATs have just happened in the summer term he has actively enjoyed them, as he likes the quiet and structure of exams. It's the relentless cramming, the haranguing of those with 'disappointing' marks on the practice tests and the squeezing out of other curriculum areas that have made him unhappy. Of course the skills needed have to be taught, but ( as some of the posts on here have shown) it is perfectly possible to do this in a way that doesn't result in bored, frustrated children.

HUUH... i was under the impression by ds and other mns mental meths tom ???

My timetable says Maths Wednesday & Thursday .

OH who cares ...he is in bed asleep and by my thread ..I am on the "meths" tomorrow

My ds has just had a fit of the giggles because he has remembered that the shop in the reading test was called "The Sugared Plum"

No SeaHouses, I outlined in my earlier post the measures we use both to set, and more importantly (because setting is a broad brush and unsatisfactory at the edges) to monitor and plan for progress for each student.

I was responding to the idea that SATs are not designed to measure a child's potential performance in secondary school by saying that is exactly how they are used to judge the performance of a secondary school and secondary school teachers, by outside bodies. So I think their purpose must therefore have changed since their introduction.

Therefore, in your example, the less able child with the higher level would be judged against a higher final grade than the more able child with the lower level, yes. No matter how unsatisfactory that might be.

That is not necessarily how we set the students, or teach them, but it is ulimately how we are judged.

Thanks TFM, that makes a lot of sense. I also think that assumption by whoever does the judging that children should make this set amount of progress in each stage is rather flawed, although I appreciate that schools have to abide by it, as that judgement will fall on them.

SeaHouses - Just asked DD about the "cool" question. Apparently it was asking what the meaning of cool was in the context. DD said it must have meant cold because the following question asked why it might be misunderstood by someone reading in modern times.

Hope that helps?!

I asked mine about the "cool" question and he said he left it out because he didn't know any other meaning of the word apart from fashionable! Bizarre!

The statutory timetable is on page 15 so, yes, writing and spelling tomorrow for those schools that are doing it, and Maths A and mental maths Wed and Maths B, (calculator) Thurs.

Thanks Jennywren. I've asked DD and she says she has put that it meant the girl was cold as the answer to A. Her teacher tapped her on the head, shook his head and pointed to her answer. She then rubbed it out, put in that it meant the girl looked good, and the teacher smiled and nodded his head. She then put no answer to part B.

I think I've pretty much accepted at this point that the whole thing is a farce and that DD is going to end up in a low stream at (a failing) secondary school.