How does anybody feel about more primary tests?

[learnandsay]

Is the education minister Liz Truss correct when she says that the slip in maths and science is linked to the removal of compulsory tests for 11 year olds? Higher up in the article it says that the science test is for 10 year olds. So I can't quite see how testing at age 11 would fix it.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20664752

Liz Truss is almost as stupid as that complete fuckwit gove. The pair of them should not have been let near the education department.

All testing like this does is ensures that schools teach to the test. It's all to do with manipulating stats and bugger all to do with learning anything.

At his primary school my bright DS was left to coast because the teacher was busy getting the other kids to KS 4 in Yr 6. Testing and league tables encourages this kind of approach to teaching.

But what is the alternative? As a person who attended a number of crap schools, relying on HMs to police themselves is not an option.

The alternative is that the parent can boost the child's education at home and the teacher, instead of letting the able child coast, can assist the parent to boost.

I think that science teaching is very poor in primaries.
I don't know if it's because of the national curriculum, teachers not knowing the subject or something else but my children have not learned anything in science. The expectations seem very low. My children knew stuff like plants soak up water through the roots in nursery and would happily learn more interesting/advanced stuff. They are not g&t pr anything, just curious. I know that someone will point out that not all kids will have parents who can/will explain basic science but if the government want to create world class scientists then they need to bring everyone up and not bring the highest down to meet the bottom.

My children have been suitably stretched in maths and literacy. I'm thinking of L4 ish literacy here but I don't think that writing in different styles is as important as basics like grammar, punctuation and spelling but it's a minor niggle really unlike the science issue which is a much bigger one.

More tests is not the answer. Testing could affect the league tables and statistics like that but is not how you create the next great scientists.

I don't think there was any science in the primary school curriculum when I was at school. But because we lived in rural Wales and we all came from farms I don't suppose it mattered that much.

My four year old loves planting fruit and veg and watering it. She also loves watching Dr Ranj on cbeebies. I think her interests in those things could be leveraged somewhat. I saw an animation on the bbc website in the children's science area which pushes a cartoon buggy along a railway track. The buggy can be pushed hard or softly and then there's a quiz about infant level physics. I'm not sure about other people's children but my daughter doesn't show any interest in infant level physics, so why would anyone try to teach it to her? I love the Royal Institution Christmas lectures. But I wouldn't expect my daughter to want to become a physicist because she'd seen two gloves in shoe boxes in the institution's explanation of quantum physics. I'm all for showing children all manner of things. But showing them things and trying to get them to learn them are different things.

Part of it is that a significant number of primary teachers don't know much about science at all.

In Y4, DS1 had ludicrous homework (in the solids, liquids and gases unit) asking whether it would be possible to drill to the centre of the earth. According to his teacher, the answer was 'no' because part of the earth's crust is a liquid. Bangs head on desk. I tried to explain that simply being a liquid is no problem for drilling (the liquid in the North Sea doesn't stop them drilling for oil and gas, does it?); it's the temperatures and pressures (and the huge distances involved wouldn't help).

I was annoyed because DS1 (who had been taught nothing of any consequence about the geology of the earth, and nothing at all about pressures or temperatures in the earth's core) had been marked wrong for a 'nonsensical' answer of 'yes, if you get a big enough drill' and been told total nonsense was the 'correct' answer. Given all he knew was that the earth was made up of solid parts and liquid parts (and nothing about the temperatures or pressures that produces these differen states), his answer was more blood sensible than the right one.

The blank look on the teachers's face when I tried to explain this said it all. All the physical geographers I spoke to about this thought it was hilarious. But it's hardly a solid grounding in science is it?

Also, infant level physics is stuff like sand and water play. You learn loads about the physical properties of materials (and how they interact with other materials) by pouring and piling and sieving and stuff like that. Same can be said for running cars down ramps, or building with blocks. Just because it doesn't involve equations and formulae, doesn't mean it isn't physics.

I'm trying to think of any instances where my daughter has volunteered to do anything like that. By the same token sliding down a slide, swinging and twirling around on a roundabout involve physics.

Actually, the explanation of why we don't slide down when a toddler is sitting at the foot of the slide I'd have thought would be a much more relevant and well remembered lesson in force than an animation of a buggy on a railway track.

On children's TV my daughter saw something about how oil was created millions of years ago when animals and plants fell into the sea. Her natural curiosity made her ask why the materials had to fall into the sea. And I told her that though the sea wasn't necessary they'd have had to end up somewhere where they could be preserved for millions of years, like a swamp. And then she asked what I thought was another good question which was where are the seas which the animals and plants fell into? All great and typical children's questions. But I'm sure nobody expects these children to remember anything about geology. They're just asking childish questions. I'm sure it's in one ear and out the other. But that's growing up. That's all natural and perfectly normal.

These tables aren't based on SATS, but on a separate test used in all participating countries. It's not taken by every school, but on a representative sample. This sort of testing for international tables isn't new. I did one as a pupil in the 1970s.

Learning about physics does start with stuff like learning that you slide down a slide rather than up it. Or at least, it takes very little effort to go down, but you have to put in a lot of effort to slide up one. Then, as you go through school, you learn to use the tools/concepts we more easily associate with physics to understand this. So, yes, sliding down the slide at the park does teach about physics - because physics is just a way of understanding how the world works. Without this kind of background knowledge and experience it's an awful lot harder to learn about forces and such like.

OP, so there's no point answering a child's question then? Or teaching them anything because they won't remember it?

In my experience primary school science is reasonably well taught. Where I think children come to a grinding halt is lack of practical experience. My son's teacher has worked hard to make her science lessons interesting.

YY- practical experience makes science much more interesting. My children (sons and daughter) have loved going on mini beast hunts, growing mould, melting, mixing...

At the start of the summer holidays I actually asked for suggestions for books with experiments and they went down a storm- particularly with ds2 who was about to go into Y2 and had missed the play component of Reception.

Learnandsay- Science in rural Wales- I would have thought it was perfect for a Forest School. Hope the children these days are benefitting.

It's a bit worrying when an education minister isn't aware that 11 year olds still have compulsory tests in maths and science (although only a sample of schools are selected to administer the science tests each year, no school knows if they will be one of those chosen so they can't risk not covering the curriculum ...just in case )

sorry I should correct that as the present government aren't sampling science next year but will be in 2014

the slip in maths and science is linked to the removal of compulsory tests for 11 year olds

Well she has this wrong as there are still compulsory tests in Maths! A bit worrying if she is an education minister...

But not at all surprising

Primary Science is very patchy because primary teachers are generalists...some are clued up and enthusiastic, and some have strengths in other areas (being charitable).

I volunteer in a primary school and have seen children being taught utter rubbish - that the sun is the biggest star in the universe, that the earth is 'thousands of years old', that all rocks are made of sand. Sadly I could go on, but those were the stand-out ones that most 4yo children could refute.

So I would say that any fall in standards could be stopped by recruiting teachers who have a minimum standard of scientific knowledge (not the GCSE Grade C that they have to have now).

My son's present teacher has a very good knowledge of science. She has A-level biology. The difficulty that many teachers have is how to extend the more able child. They don't want to teach what the child is going to learn in year 7 and not sure how to extend sideways.

"So I would say that any fall in standards could be stopped by recruiting teachers who have a minimum standard of scientific knowledge (not the GCSE Grade C that they have to have now). "

I don't think that is realistic or even desirable. There are lots of fab teachers who don't have more than grade C GCSE science. Anyway many BEd courses teach science to patch up any holes in teachers knowledge.

Yes I have recent experience of BEd science - it was rubbish.

In one session the tutor said "if I filled a balloon with water and weighed it, and then froze it and weighed it, would the water-filled balloon or the ice-filled balloon be heaviest?'. About half the group said the ice-filled balloon would be heavier. After an explanation, two or three students still thought the ice-filled balloon would be heavier.

Once a year students had a 'science-y' essay to write - generally about teaching methods rather than concepts.

We always get the line 'some of the best teachers...etc etc' but there's nothing endearing about general ignorance, no matter how inspirational and entertaining you are. Either we want children to be taught core subjects by people that know their stuff, or we want to muddle on with some teachers knowing less than a bright Y6.

It's not realistic because if we wanted trainee teachers to have grade As at GCSE, or core subjects to A level, we'd recruit about 2 pa. and staffrooms would be empty, but enthusiastic teaching by knowledgeable people would improve results IMO.

No, having knowledge of science does not make someone a good teacher. I was told by a PGCE tutor that my subject knowledge was excellent. However I know from bitter experience I am not cut out for teaching. I struggled to understand why a child found Physics difficult.

I dropped out of a secondary PGCE course after a term. However subject knowledge was assessed. I had to get a grade A at GCSE in all the three sciences and a grade A in one of those sciences at A-level. The university I went to gave trainee teachers past papers to test subject knowledge.

There are gifted and talented work shops for more able scientists at primary school level. An exceptional year 6 may well know more than a primary school teacher about dinosaurs an area of science. A lot depends on how obcessed keen they are.

Knowledge of science doesn't make someone a good teacher, but a good teacher with scientific knowledge is better than a good teacher without it.

However, your teacher training sounds rigorous, let's just make al TTPs like that.

Ah just noticed you were secondary.

I'm not sure what the qualificationalists (if there could be such a word) would like. There are so many different sciences one couldn't reasonably expect a teacher to have a firm grounding in them all. And then there are so many other subjects. I'd prefer a primary teacher to have some reliable teaching materials and a good book to teach from than to be an expert in seismology or marine biology. I can buy a wall chart from WH Smiths and borrow some great books from the library without knowing a thing about how the tectonic plates were formed or precisely when they were formed, (or even from what.)