Would you tell your KS1 child that Sats are coming up?

[MotleyCroup]

Had a letter from ds school explaining that Sats will be coming up (with date w/c).

Letter explained that the children had been doing various 'quizzes' which I presume are old Sats papers, to get them used to the test.

Would you explain to your child that Sats are coming up? Or would you just let them carry on (the wk of the Sats) without adding to their pressure and not tell them they'll be doing these tests?

I'm pretty sure ds knows they've been doing old Sats papers as he mentioned that they were Sats but he doesn't know that the real thing is coming up.

What do/have you done (if you knew about it beforehand).

DD is in y2 and the class have been told that they will be doing SATS in May. Was really surprised when she mentioned it a month or so ago. They have done practice papers and DD remember the Y2's doing it last year.

I just asked DS if he had done any booklets at school he said yes on Wednesday ...It was a maths booklet ...Didn't ask him anymore than that , just changed subject...Reading the info on pastsellbydate I think he also has done literacy...but who knows?

I've not talked to my Y2 DS about them. He had a practise paper in the Easter hols, but I just called them a reading task, a writing task and a maths task for homework, rather than mentioning tests.

Why do schools do this? [puzzled]

A baffling misunderstanding of KS1 assessment, an inability to teacher assess properly and poor teaching which leads to finding comfort in repeating ad nauseam what is supposed to be a one off test?

Feenie:

All that info is in one place - on the Ofsted dashboard, PSBD. Saves hopping about. You would need the middle link to find out the school's place in the league tables, but the dashboard ranks the school in quintiles against both all schools and similar schools.

Actually Feenie

No the data of the school dashboard and the 2012 data from the city council were different - in particular the performance of FSM pupils & council's mobility rating were tracked on the birmingham city council KS2 SATs results. www.education.gov.uk/schools/performance/download/pdf/330_ks2.pdf

Now why was this important.

Our all white highly Christian board of governors decided to explain the reason why only 62% of pupils succeeded in achieving NC L4+ was due to high mobility and high proportion of pupils with EAL.

EAL was relatively high 40% and was not specifically tracked against FSM - but knowing that that year was primarily Korean/ Chinese pupils many of whom went on to grammars - I seriously doubted EAL was an issue.

This form did allow me to explore whether the 38% failing to achieve NC L4 could be explained in other ways and indeed this is exactly equal to the number of FSM pupils who failed to achieve NC L4 (that raw number was recorded and simply dividing by total pupils in school low and behold 38% appeared - and indeed 0% FSM achieved NC L4 (which was recorded). This is a school which still refused to explain to parents what they do with the pupil premium. Being a faith school - they've asked us to take it on faith that they're using it as intended.

I also was able to demonstrate that no pupils moved into this school since Y4 - and in fact the city council rated the school as 0% mobility.

Now this is an area where Farage goes down very well with a certain local component and there is a definite town/ gown thing going on with University staff vs. local manual workers/ shop clerks. We also have a significant number of children of nurses & doctors, being very conveniently located to a large hospital.

I felt this statement from the governors was dangerously close to being racist, didn't reflect reality or the actual problem and put it to the HT & the governors that it should be retracted and the actual underlying reasons for poor performance - high absenteeism of staff/ on and off again homework/ lack of reading books coming home/ failure to provide regular access to school library/ lack of ambitious curriculum/ etc... needed to be seriously discussed for the sake of all pupils.

I've never had a reply from HT or governors.

So no Feenie - these two documents give slightly different information and the LEA KS2 result document gives hard raw numbers - so that you can interrogate the data - which I can assure you is necessary at some schools.

Feenie:

By the way I can't access 2012 Birmingham LEA KS2 results - just 2013 now - but you can see over the two pages (see headings) what data is tracked - and it is slightly different + includes raw numbers.

Fair enough, PSBD. Have you thought about being a governor? Sounds like they could really do with you - your stories about your dc's school never fail to astound me.

Feenie:

LOL about the governor thing. All governors are either teachers in other schools(often at local failing secondary schools, so kind of query their standards anyway and politically wouldn't dare to counter HT) or are married to members of staff (again for political reasons wouldn't dare to counter HT). Head of governors has always been unelected and hand-picked - indeed I witnessed HT asking former school secretary to ask her DH to be Head of Governors. A letter was sent claiming there was an unfilled vacancy and he had kindly agreed to fill it. About 3 weeks later it was declared he was unanimously voted Head of Governors. It is my understanding (although this is just rumour) he never attends meetings so HT chairs meetings. [Birmingham has a lot more troubles than Trojan Horse folks].

Election ballot is always out of alphabetical order with obvious preference of HT at the top. Also notably spelling errors riddle biography blurb of other applicant but rarely are noticeable in 'preferred applicant'.

Governor election result is just reported - no total counts/ no independent observer (Heat of PTA/ Head of Governors/ Vicar of local church [my personal preference] etc...).

Have moved DD2 from school (thrilled with new school and its utter normalcy - board of governors is also 1/2 the size and regularly reports on what they're actually doing) and plan to set off fire crackers at CofE church at Y6 leavers service in celebration of DD1's escape from this educational cesspit. Last day of Y6 can't come fast enough for me.

Utter tragic farce of a primary education for DD1, but we got through it somehow.

By the way - new school for DD2 is 3x size of old school - so really interested why DD1's school has a board of governors with 21 members and DD2s school has a board of governors with 10 members + HT.

PSBD - don't become a Governor! You will find it a horrible experience if you are the only dissenting voice. Much better to lobby from the parent perspective and try and get other parents to articulate their concerns. Faith Governors stick together, believe me!

PSBD
I can't believe they can pass an inspection! That is outrageous.

21 Governors!!!! That is unbelievable. Even the largest secondary schools around here have only 19. They must have a lot of associate Governors.

6 members of staff (3 teachers/ care taker/ 2 TAs)/ 3 governors representing local area/ 1 governor from City council (never attends - usually vacant)/ 4 parent governors/ Head & Deputy Head of Governors/ Vicar + 3 others from church/ HT

I get a total of 21 - but to be honest there are always vacancies - Certainly Church is usually only represented by Vicar & maybe lay reader.

I think all of this reflects various attempts of certain interest groups to increase voting power - so at present there's a big push from church to have 4 people there at full meetings to counter staff votes. This meant for the first time the vicar had a say in who became the new HT (old HT is standing down - which I suspect foreshadows a dismal KS2 SATs result this year).

Oh an millymollymama - this is for a single form entry school.

But has expanded to two form intake - very political and ugly governors meetings for 3 years running up to & during this - lots of resignations and people moving children out of school.

I think the next 'issue' after HT appointment (which was a dandy) - will be becoming an academy. I know current HT had 'advisors' in about how to apply for academy status and was 'softening' parents about all this in the school newsletter with little pieces about exploring their future options as a school and whether academy status would give their highly trained professional staff more freedom to excel as teachers.

As I said - I'm so glad to be out of there in a few months...

You should be a governor at your dc's new school then - with your understanding of data and experience of how not to run a school you would be an asset.

Very good news that your youngest has moved.

Feenie -

sadly no emoticon for laughing hysterically at the notion of me being a governor at St. Mediocre.

Even the vicar doesn't want to be a governor - admitted he spends a lot of his personal prayer time seeking guidance on how to deal with school. He knows I'm a non-Christian - and had a good laugh when I said he's not alone. I've found myself frequently calling out to JC (not sure if spelling our name will violate MN rules) in relation to the school - although in a more explative kind of way.

Very pleased to be retiring from my active involvement supporting DD1 at her primary school and absolutely thrilled with the lovely school DD2 has found herself at in our new part of town. They're doing a fine job. So much so, I have just put in place a plan to see me return to full-time work gradually over next two years whilst DD2 finishes primary school. Couldn't be happier to be getting my life back.

I'm so glad you're on this board PSBD. You're so knowledgeable on these type of subjects and it's always good to read your extremely helpful replies.

Ds has recently changed schools (difficult decision) and he now attends a much bigger school. My worry is that he can't really be teacher assessed in this short period of time so these SATs tests might be even more important to him.

He was doing really well at his old school with L3 expected but this was obviously based on his old teachers assessment. We will see soon enough if his new teacher(s) come to the same conclusion.

We are still happy with our choice of new school but I wish they had kept these SATs tests even more low key to the point of not informing parents!

All data from his old school will be available to his new teacher