Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Original poster

SATs results today. I hate Gove!

99 replies

auntiezzzzz · 09/07/2013 23:39

OK this is going to sound like a stealth boast so I'll get it out of the way early - my DD is good at maths. I'm very proud of her but just so pissed off at how children are put through these ridiculous tests at such a young age.

DD came home today and told me she'd "failed" the maths paper. Of course I said she can't have failed. It's not that sort of test. Anyway turns out she got 30/50 on the L6 paper. The top mark in the school. Obviously a fantastic achievement and I am so proud of her.

But no - she thinks she failed because she didn't get the L6.

My issue is why the fucking fuck is my 11 yr old daughter getting upset about "failing" when it's the last two weeks of primary and she should be practising her sack race skills.

If these tests are for the schools, government etc then why do they have to even tell the kids and parents. And if they're for the kids / parents, shouldn't there be some sort of sliding scale for achievement. Not just a cliff-edge pass / fail mark.

Anyone else's DCs just miss out on the next threshold up? Are they upset by it, or are most kids not bothered?

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

IHeartKingThistle · 09/07/2013 23:51

Oh man, it's such a new thing to put Year 6s up for the L6 paper anyway, and it's so hard. She did brilliantly.

Last year I had a top set in Year 8 (English, so different, but still) and a good chunk of them were still not regularly achieving L6.

Fizzypop001 · 09/07/2013 23:54

why be upset by it a level 5 should be achieved by 13 year olds not 11 year olds so you should be proud of her. she has achieved what she should have achieved when she was 13 so no i don't think you should be upset by it at all. make it clear to her that she didnt fail and that she did really well and make her feel happy

NoComet · 10/07/2013 00:09

Tell your DD a very big well done from me too! Remind her this is the expected level for something like Y8/9 and primary schools are only entering DCs to keep Ofsted off their backs.

Since she's good at maths she might well see the stupidity of Ofsted/Gove, apparently wanting all schools to be better than average. Nothing more cheering to a DC than seeing adults being stupid.

Fortunately, DD2 was very level headed about this.

She did extra maths after school, so as to have a go at the L6 paper. I believe they upped the pass mark massively on the first year. Anyhow, she didn't get it.

I thought she'd be upset and cross, but she was very mature about it. DD2 is fantastically unpredictable, sometimes she's very grown up and sometimes she's about five.

But, why on earth should an11y have to be grown up about it. A simple percentage would suffice, no need to make them feel they've passed of failed at a level most DCs don't get to for several years.

northernlurker · 10/07/2013 00:12

Oh it's all bollocks isn't it OP. I'm fed up to the back teeth of this crap. My poor dd1 has been given A targets for all of her GCSEs. All of them. Meaning that either she gets the and is as expected or she in her mind fails. Last week we had melt down over a B she got in a test. In what crazy screwed up world is a B not good enough?

Bloody Gove!

Original poster

auntiezzzzz · 10/07/2013 00:15

Thanks all. Hoping a good night's sleep will make her forget all about it and we'll never have to give them a passing thought again.

StarBall - Your DD sounds great. Well done to her for putting in the extra work. My DD is also very unpredictable and can be like a little adult at times, but unfortunately tonight was not one of those times. They're so up and down at this age with hormones anyway that I never know what to expect.

Anyway as my mum said - at least we haven't been through the 11+. Now that's real pressure!

OP posts:

NoComet · 10/07/2013 00:16

And don't get me started on how unfair it is on secondary schools, being expected to make 3-4 levels of progress when primaries are cramming DCs after school and teaching purely to the test.

Had DD2 scrapped her L6, no way had she done enough variety of problems and practice to be securely at L6 after 4 weeks fun and the long summer holidays.

BeQuicksieorBeDead · 10/07/2013 00:17

Gove is the only man I have never met that I would cheerfully smack around the chops. Seriously.

There are loads of reasons to want to do him bodily harm.

NoComet · 10/07/2013 00:22

Her's hoping sunshine and end of term fun make them all Y6s forget the word SATs forever.

(DD2 certainly isn't always level headed, she failed her grade one piano, due to doing no practice and she wasn't level headed about that. She has refused to open a music book ever since).

prh47bridge · 10/07/2013 00:43

Why blame Gove for SATS? He didn't introduce them. Admittedly he hasn't withdrawn them but neither would Labour if they were in power.

BeQuicksieorBeDead · 10/07/2013 01:29

If I could pin the grassy knoll on him I would. He needs to be stopped before he completely wrecks the system.

NoComet · 10/07/2013 02:36

No Gove didn't introduce SATs nor invent ofsted, but he hasn't considered the effects these things have on DCs, parents or teachers.

I, think, they were both a necessary evil. My primary was pretty poor and my secondary had some truly awful teachers.

However, they have gone way beyond what was necessary to monitor and improve standards.

Most schools, now, are doing a pretty good job.

Ofsted are having to split hairs, to separate good from SM (DDs secondary school has gone from good, to satisfactory, to SM while the results have got better ) Their old primary has gone from satisfactory to good because results have improved (true, but the class sizes are tiny,no way are these results statistically valid)

Many primaries get 50%+ L5, so L6 was brought back just to show schools were still improving.

Much of this down grading and upgrading of schools and pushing age inappropriate SATs levels is just noise. Very stressful, damage causing noise and Gove encourags it.

Silverstar2 · 10/07/2013 07:57

My DD got a 4 in maths, and was one point away from a 5! This is great for her as she entered year 6 a 3a, and maths is not her strongest subject, so we are very proud. I know how hard she found it, and how hard she has tried. The school say they are sending her paper off to be remarked to see if they can 'find that extra point' but really, what will that prove? Hardly a secure L5.

We are happy with our almost-5 :-)

SS2

BoysAreLikeDogs · 10/07/2013 08:03

How do you know what your children achieved? A letter, word of mouth from your child, a print out? Nowt here. Our kid doesn't know.

JugglingFromHereToThere · 10/07/2013 08:09

My DS was put in for the L6 Maths too (and some of the English - how does that work ?) - but he's away on a residential this week so not getting results just yet I guess. Actually, that's another thing, won't they be giving us, the parents, the results ? DD(14) also got to see her report before me this year as it was online (generally we either look at it together or I have a quick read first)
Anyway, DS is very level headed so think it's very unlikely he'd look on it as "failing" anything. We certainly wouldn't be giving him that impression at all, and would be very annoyed if anyone else did.
If you come top in the school you can't really have failed can you ?

Silverstar2 · 10/07/2013 08:12

At our school each child was told individually yesterday, and given the results on a sheet to bring home - they were told not to talk to anyone else about them, not sure if they managed to keep quiet all day though.

DD came rushing out with clutching a piece of paper to tell me. I think they should know before parents, they did the tests after all.

SS2

lljkk · 10/07/2013 08:16

Um... I dunno. DD tried very hard in the SATs & she will be gutted if she doesn't get what she wanted. But to me that's an opportunity. You know, to learn life's lesson about dusting yourself off, get up and go back and try again.

Now this sounds stupid but the secondary that DD has chosen (I might not have chosen) is very ambitious. At induction evening the other night the HT went on about this quite a bit. That Achievement was about trying your hardest, giving it your best, and therefore that failure was a huge part of the process. So he didn't want kids to think in terms of success or failure, he wanted them to think in terms of giving their All. (he said all this much better than me).

(Damn that man is charismatic & inspirational).

The hall completely lapped it up. Cheesy as this is to admit, he was spot on.

sanam2010 · 10/07/2013 08:17

Don't blame Mr Gove, blame the teacher or yourself for not explaining her what the paper is about correctly. What does he have to do with your daughter thinking she failed?

I think the SATS are fantastic by the way, I come from a country with ZERO transparency on results and I think it is brilliant that I can see such detailed results for all my local schools.

JugglingFromHereToThere · 10/07/2013 08:18

Well, I remember we were meant to hand our reports to our parents un-opened throughout secondary years (back in the Edwardian age !) - then you could open them if they said so. Even if it didn't always work quite like that, I'd like to see results in an envelope addressed to parents at primary school I think.
Am I very old-fashioned ?

Ragwort · 10/07/2013 08:20

I agree with Boys - how do you know the results? Isn't it the fault of the primary school for telling the children? My DS has been at 3 different primary schools, none of them has made any 'fuss' over Sats, no extra tuition needed, no playground stress, no competitive 'boasting' amongst parent.

I sometimes wonder if there is a parallel world on Mumsnet? .

Secondary schools will do their own 'grading', just chill out about Sats. .

lljkk · 10/07/2013 08:27

I sometimes wonder if there is a parallel world on Mumsnet?

I conclude that daily! On every topic.

Original poster

auntiezzzzz · 10/07/2013 08:28

Well she's all smiles this morning so clearly it's all forgotten now. Yes whoever said it's part of life's lesson. I think you're spot on and I think she'll benefit from the experience.

That's really interesting about how other schools handle it. Yes all DCs were told yesterday in class together. They already knew their maths % marks last week, so she had the glory last week of coming top. Yesterday's news was just the threshold which is why I think it came as bad news not good.

I can assure you that she absolutely hasn't heard that it's a failure from me. The school is a total SATs factory so I'm pretty sure I know where she's got the message from.

And yes - point taken about Gove. He didn't introduce them and I guess he's an easy hate figure at the moment. I still hate him though!

OP posts:

Original poster

auntiezzzzz · 10/07/2013 08:29

Should have added DD said three of her classmates cried when results were given out as they hadn't hit their targets. Perhaps I should be reconsidering where my anger is directed!

OP posts:

JugglingFromHereToThere · 10/07/2013 08:39

Glad it's all blown over somewhat this morning AuntieZzz

I think I'd just focus on telling her she came top in the school - maybe give her some little reward/prize for that ?! And tell her school sometimes gets a bit crazy about these things, but you are very proud !

FadedSapphire · 10/07/2013 09:28

Sanam- the problem with published SATs results is they do not give a clear picture of the school. The bottom line does not tell you how many children with EAL started in year 4 or 5, children joining or leaving the school close to SATs, the background or ability of the cohort.
Please be wary of judging a school just on the blunt instrument of reported SATs results.

curlew · 10/07/2013 09:34

I have to say that I would be seriously pissed off that the school put her in for the level 6 at all. They don't have to- they should only put in the ones who are as close to a certainty as possible. If 30/50 was the highest mark then I don't think the school should have put any in for the level 6 test.

Flip

1 2 3 4