Re-doing a sat-type test to get a better mark

[dalziel1]

DS's primary school gives the children SATS type test in May each year. They are used, in combination with the teacher's assessments, to define the NC level each child has attained in the year. They are what is put in the school reports.

Anyway, DS's year 5 class did all their tests last week. They got back all the results this week, except for writing. Today DS has come home telling me that the teacher said today that she is delaying giving everyone back their results because one child (whom the teacher named) didn't get a good enough mark, so has to re-do the test.

Does that make sense?!

I would be skeptical that is actually what the teacher said. Was the child away, or taken ill in the middle fo the test, or had some reason (eg grandmother died that morning) for not doin a proper test.

On the basis it's optional SATS it's not worth getting worked up about anyway.

It's not my ds's school is it?

He sat for 45 mins & didn't put pen to paper. He has difficulties with creative writing. I've got a thread about it.

Teacher is going to give him another chance after half term

No, its definitely not your DS or his school, Picturesinthefirelight.

My post was just asking these questions:-

1. Its not ok for a teacher to name a child like that, is it?
2. Does anyone know why all the other children have to wait for their grades because one child has to re-sit?
3. Is the teacher game-playing in some way to artificially enhance her own performance?

I'd promised DS a half-term treat if he got a certain grade or better (he needs these sort of carrots just to apply himself). I wish we knew what he'd got because its inconvenient to have to try to fit the treat in next term. TBH I don't see why everyone has to wait for one child to re-do hers as it makes no difference to everyone else what this one child will finally get. (And it makes o difference to that child what everyone else gets)

Always staggers me how people assume the worst about teachers. It's perfectly normal practice. Some children, like in any lesson, in a test style situation may have an off day, not try their best, be slightly ill etc. if their test result is a large difference to their ongoing daily assessment level they may do the paper again. We do not take a single rest result to determine their grade. A child is asked to try again on the grounds of promoting the ethos to always try your best - some just rush to complete the paper, or they are just not themselves on the day. As teachers we KNOW when a test result is completely uncharacteristic for a certain pupil - hence we will look into them improving their work. Just like we would any lesson work. It has nothing at all to do with a performance grade we need them to get for our own targets. After a week of tests it may take 2 weeks to mark papers across 5 subjects. Then it takes hours to write up a table of assessment results. Then we may have an assessment meeting with the head to discuss each child's progress. Then we fill out a formal letter for each child o issue to parents regarding levels and or progress. All of this has to be in place before issuing levels. If a child needs to redo anything, due to holidays, illness, under performing on the original paper the daily timetable is squeezed. Until each child has done every test the meetings with management can't happen.

And the writing papers take the longest to mark - possibly 10 hours for 30 papers if you were very experienced and did them thoroughly. Even that is pushing it. I'd be grateful to get any results back before half term since most teachers use half term to mark the papers anyway.