Booster groups in yr6 for Sat - why!

[BaBaSheep]

Booster groups seem to common in year 6 for pushing the borderline pupils to reach the next level e.g. from L3 to L4 or L4a to L5. But then many secondary schools and independent schools seem just distrust the sat results anyway so what's the point? I just begin to wonder whether these booster groups really provide long term sustainable education benefit / value in every child involved. Are booster groups focused on short term solutions for sat thus the league table? Or do these groups really provide a solid foundation to prepare the children's future learning or just a false achievement. May be it is a naïve questions?

Writing is teacher assessed, the remainder are test based-although teachers have to also submit teacher assessments too. For writing a child has to be consistently working at the given level, not just a one off piece of work.

At my dc's school they are doing booster sessions for a small group of y6 coaching them to put them in for level 6 SATs as well as the usual SATs - is this common practice?

Fraid so, we are also measured on the number of level 6's achieved. That too has to be above national average!!

At my dds school they have been running booster sessions since February half term for all of yr 6
They also do additional reading support in the afternoons for those who are level 3 in reading so they miss history/art/re lessons

Last year 11/56 got level 6 maths and they are very worried how parents will perceive results this year as they are only expecting 3/4 to achieve l6

However the progress scores should match last year's cohort

Similar problem, last year I had 25% level 6 maths, this year I will be lucky to get any. But some will achieve over 16 points progress and one is on target for 22!

Couple of points that may be of interest:

SATs are not going to exist in two years time.

The area I live in, SATs results won't help my DS get into a good secondary School (SW Herts Consortium). Only distance and 11 plus results will make a difference.

Once my DC gets into a local secondary (at the moment that is debatable as there are not enough school places to accommodate all applicants) the schools re-test to assess academic capability.

My DD is in year 1 and parents are using private tuition services to help boost SATs results in year 2. There is little to no point in doing this for the reasons I have stated above.

Interestingly, the school my DCs attend also uses PIPs (performance indicators for primary schools). Parents are not made aware of this and the results are used by the school to identify which children could benefit from extra support in various areas.

SATS won't exist but there will still be measures in place to monitor pupil progress and targets will still need to be met,we are just not quite sure what yet!
I too teach in a grammar area and agree, SATS are not used for entry to the grammars, although some of the non-grammars set on the basis of SATS results-but not all. SATS results are used in near miss appeals however.
Even though the secondary schools re-test, progress to GCSE is measured from SATS results, so targets are based on these.
There is certainly no need to tutor for KS1 SATS ( unless looking at moving to private schools which MIGHT be interested in high achievers) and little reason to tutor for KS2 UNLESS the local secondaries use the results for setting. Many parents locally want to ensure their children aren't placed in lower sets and support boosters if their child is "on the boundary"

SATS are a measure of the school, not the child. However as long as OFSTED judgements, and therefore parental perception, of a school are based on data, schools would be foolish not to do all they can to achieve the results demanded of them. And whilst teachers pay and continued employment depends on these results, they are under pressure to do everything THEY can too!

Spanieleyes, fully agree with you.

The point I was trying to make is that the importance of SATs results, at least for parents, depends on the area they are in. The area I am in, it appears that having a level 6 or a level 4 will make no difference in getting a school place. This comes from knowing a DC with level 6 who was on the waiting list for queens. Very few appeals are won in this area for any reason let along academic suitability.

I'm not convinced that being a level 5 rather than a level 6 will result in a child being in the bottom group. Additionally a number of schools in SW Hertz have mixed ability groups for some subjects.

I appreciate that SATs levels are more important to schools in terms of meeting targets set for them.

I know that DD2's secondary tests in the first week in Yr7 and uses those results alongside SATs for setting after autumn half term. It makes sense, since almost everyone is so heavily coached. DD2 has already been told by her class teacher that her secondary will likely treat her as a solid L5 even if she does get a L6 in the tests, and so she is seeing the L6 as a challenge for the fun of it, nothing more. They're doing everything they can to take the pressure off as much as they can.

When we first did the new level 6 tests a couple of years ago, we only entered the children who were working solidly at level 6 and who wanted to have a go. The results didn't count in league tables and were really just for fun!! Everyone who entered achieved the level 6. Now that results are reported and targets set, children who are not natural level 6's are being pushed in the hope that they will achieve level 6 on the test. Some of them might scrape a level 6 but many will not, but in order to achieve our targets we have to try! I don't like doing it, but have little choice!

Spanieleyes, as someone who seems to be bearing the brunt of the statistics & assessment obsessed politicians, what would be your ideal for moving forward with Education reform?

This is not a challenge but coming from a parent who is sick of being told what we need by ignorant/clueless politicians. I would like to hear from a teacher and someone with actual experience in education for once.

I do think there must be some form of target setting, we need to ensure children make progress and we need to be able to measure it! But I am concerned that statistics have become the be all and end all. I work in a small school where each child can often be 10% of the class, next year I have 2 statemented children yet am still required to achieve 85% level 4B, given that both children have been given statements because they are working so far behind age related expectations that they are unable to work with the rest of the class, it is absurd to then say that one of them has to achieve level 4!!
Perhaps the new system of banding ( whatever that eventually looks like) might look at children's progress rather than overall achievement. Perhaps Gove will realise that not all children can be above average! Perhaps the goalposts could stay still, even if only for a few years, rather than receeding into the distance every time you get close!

I'd like to see progress measured more often, I guess what I mean is that I'd like a better learning to occur before they hit Year 6. My dcs are dreading the Sats, they are worried about embarrassing themselves with poor results, the school seem to talk about levels constantly...this does not feel like improved learning, it feels like cramming....skid marks were left behind to the love of learning, god I was so bloody idealistic....it all started off so well, learning through play....whoosh....to Sats drilling.

Spanieleyes, it sounds like there should be some form of weighting/standardisation (for want of a better word) to allow for SEN etc.

Slackgardener, frequency of assessment is often school specific. My DS does SATs at the end of each year. He was also assessed again in January this year. Have you spoken to your DCs teacher / HT & Governors to highlight how pressured they are feeling about it all?

How relevant are the SATs to them getting a place at secondary school? If the SATs results play little or no role in which secondary school they are allocated and only partially contributes to the setting in that school, perhaps you can highlight this to them to reassure them that their performance on that one day will not have a detrimental affect on them moving forward.

We too do "optional" sats every year and each class has its own targets to reach. The difficulty is that, if there is any slippage at all its in year 6 that it HAS to be caught up!

Slackgardener, teachers need to work VERY hard to ensure that the children should not become stressed, apart from the fact that it is unneccessary, it is also self defeating. The children will not be able to do their best if they feel stressed ( being stressed is my job, not theirs!!) We have developed a very healthy cynicism, my class are determined to show "the Government" just what they can do!!

I have reassured my dcs constantly that grades in Sats don't count - the secondary don't use them and I have spoken to their teachers about how they are feeling...they are both sensitive, they take things seriously and when the teachers say they will have to work their butts off that is what they expect to do! The teachers may feel they are not giving off stressed vibes but my dcs pick it up, I hear it in their everyday conversations. I just want them to get through it now, it's shitty but that's our system! They'll survive but they won't look back at it with fondness!

To reiterate what many have said:
Schools are judged to be 'outstanding' or 'good' or 'requires improvement' or 'inadequate' based upon their 'dashboard data'. OFSTED like to see not only are children meeting the required level (level 4+) at the end of Y6 but also that children are making good+ progress from Y2. That means if a child acheived level 3 in Y2, they 'should' be achieving level 5 in Y6.
If children didn't attend these booster classes, schools WILL be judged to be failing pupils and graded as 'RI' or worse, 'inadequate'.

In my experience, it is the parents who groan that their child is being 'made' to do booster classes after school, during school or during school holidays but then also the same parents who moan and groan when the school is judged to be 'RI' or 'inadequate'.

Yes, these booster classes are for school purposes because sadly that is what the government and OFSTED have now made schools to be; not about the child but about league tables that should have no place in education and should be left to sport like football!!!

Junkfoodaddict, not forgetting that many parents themselves use the 'dashboard data' when selecting a primary school for their child.

Hard for me to moan about the SATs when I used that data myself when looking at the various options available to me.

The whole education system is being forced into a boxed solution. This will never work as there are too many variables, when dealing with individuals, to take a one size fits all approach. Politicians seem to be moving towards running the education system like a commercial, profit making organisation (everything has to be measurable to demonstrate ROI), which smacks of a run up to privatisation. Academies and free schools are the first step on the road IMVHO.

Slackgardener, be thankful you don't live in SW Herts. 7 out of 9 schools require the 11 plus. Those 7 schools are semi-selective with only 19(ish) places offered on location and the remainder going to academic achievement, music or siblings (very few places are left after these criteria).

In this situation you can imagine the pressure the children are placed under at the very beginning of year 6. These exams do matter as they are needed to get a place at a secondary school (there are not enough places available to take the chance on the two non selectives in the area).

These exams are sat in large school halls filled with literally hundreds of children, under strict exam conditions. The whole experience is so intimidating that many cry on the way into the exam and some throughout the exam. Some children wet themselves or throw up in fear.

I would imagine it is due to this experience that the majority of the children at my DSs school are not too fussed by the SATs, nor are the parents (from what I can tell) for that matter.

Mumtryingherbest - I went through the grammar school system and it is why we moved from a grammar school, independent with entrance exams area, to an area with non selective but nevertheless excellent comprehensives. It was our very deliberate choice to move to an area whose educational arrangements did not put pressure on the dcs at primary level...it just didn't work out that way!

Junkfood I choose a school that was satisfactory but had a lovely caring environment, supportive and caring rather than pushy - fast forward 4 years and a change of HT, the school has changed, their emphasis has changed, the teachers are under pressure, unsurprisingly their stress levels are spilling over - they may not think they are letting it show but they are, kids aren't stupid.

Slackgardener, I think you will find that it was not just the change of HT that has brought about the increasing pressure.

Look at how many changes are being made to the educational system on the whole. I think you will find these changes and the way they are being rolled out are a major factor in stress levels in local school. Combine this with the increasing levels of paper work and assessments/testing and you have an environment that many sales professionals would refuse to work in.