Resits for SATs? 😱

[mrz]

www.theguardian.com/education/2015/apr/07/tories-resits-pupils-fail-end-primary-school-exams-key-stage-2

Surely the focus should be on primary schools improving their teaching methods so that children make appropriate progress throughout the years before Year 6, rather than cramming in Year 6 as we know so many schools do? Secondary schools have enough to do already, and delegating further cramming to them is unlikely to improve matters. We know that many primary schools are not teaching phonics properly, so it is no surprise, on that basis alone, that many children are not passing SATS. But there is also evidence that more explicit teaching of vocabulary and general knowledge would help with reading comprehension, and that less reliance on group work and enquiry learning, could improve the maths results of lower-ability children in particular. See this blog, for example, re maths: www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/barry-garelick-math-education-being-outwitted-by-stupidity/

I have to disagree on the vocabulary/general knowledge point ... It's definitely a barrier for many of our pupils.

It's estimated that many children arrive at school already with a 10,000 word vocabulary deficit (IMHO this is s conservative estimate) add to this a general knowledge deficit ... Higher order comprehension and writing levels are out of reach.

Of course that should be agree ... I hate iPhones!

Resitting seems a bit pointless to me.

Surely the whole point of the y6 SATs is to see where they are at the end of primary?

The secondary schools will (should) be working hard to improve literacy and numeracy, but with the goal of end y11. Redoing the primary test seems to me to be a distraction.

And I thought SATs weren't a 'pass' or 'fail' anyway - more a reach desired standard?

If we had the American system of holding back a year then that might make more sense ( not that I am advocating that).

It contradicts the idea that SATs are just for the school ...
Many posters have said secondaries ignore SAT results ... What now?

Children who enter Year 7 not having attained the necessary levels attract a premium of £500 which the secondary school is supposed to use to 'top them up'

No amount of funding is going to make any difference if the Secondary schools use it on ineffective interventions. And resits aren't going to make any differenceif the intervention is rubbish. I think they'll just make an already demoralised child feel even more demoralised.

Effective secondaries already track and closely monitor their pupils from day 1. Then they use effective interventions and high expectations to bring the children on.

I agree that SATs aren't just for primary schools tiggytape but it us one of those beliefs often repeated on MN.

Given the ENORMOUS amount of effort many schools already put in to get Y6s to the 'magic' L4, including a wide variety of interventions, I cannot see how a secondary school is going to make a huge difference within a short time.

I mean, many children's Year 6 levels, from many schools, are already 'maximums', rather than 'normal working levels'. For a secondary school, from scratch, to take those children from where they 'really' are to a L4 equivalent in a few months seems a very big ask ... unless the powers that be think that primaries are not very good at their job and a secondary, despite doing less english and less maths each day than at primary, can suddenly wave a magic wand?

Internal marking of what will become a very high stakes assessment could also mean .. well, to put it politely, quite a significant level of moderation....

This is definitely to see whether the secondary school are making appropriate use of the £500 they are getting for each pupil that is not at level 4 when they take the SATs test in year 6.
I would hope that the people at the DfE realise that the majority of these pupils are not going to reach level 4 after 9 months at the secondary school but what they are hoping to see is an appropriate level of progress. If they do not and the politicians are blinded by the pass/ fail mentality then this is going to become a real problem for secondary schools. I desperately hope that this mainly press hype and sense will be applied. I cannot think of anything worse than pupils who are at the lower end of the attainment levels being forced to take and retake this test just to get to a level 4. It is bonkers and for many of those pupils completely a waste of time and will only lead to more frustration for the pupils.

Well, actually, admission we used to get a good number of children with L3 English up to L4 at the end of Y7. Many of them were only low because of their reading (and, incidentally, the £500 is for children with a L3 or below in reading. Funnily enough, we seemed to get quite a few children with on over all L3 in English but their Reading component was L4. So, no extra funding for children who did really need it). I find it a bit worrying that you think it can't be done.

When exactly will these year 7 interventions take place for these 'failures'? If it's during maths and English, won't they fall behind in crucial y7 maths and English stuff?

Or will they be just taken out of music and PE and other subjects they might enjoy or excell at because those subjects 'don't matter'?

I think the impact on the self-esteem of the children that have 'failed' is going to be horrible :(

I think it should also be noted that there won't be levels next year so the measure will be different.

Rollon

The self esteem of children in the bottom sets has been shit for years. What annoys me is that there is no research before ideas are rolled out en mass. Nicky Morgan has no idea what it is like to be in a school with low achieving children. Inspite of having no professional training or experience in schools her ideas are put into practice.

Surely leaving year 6 with a piece of paper saying they've failed is going to make things worse though?!

There are inevitably children who 'fail' the Y1 phonics test, and resit in Y2. If they fail again, they are destined for more intervention groups, extra classes, after school tuition (i.e. hard, hard graft) for the rest of their primary years. These same children will, in all likelihood, be those who 'fail' the Y6 tests (in whatever guise), which will mean more intervention before resits in Y7. As they near GCSEs, there will be more pushing and shoving - more targets not met.

What educational incentives are we giving to the less able? Our politicians need to learn about empathy.

There is a plan for a new phonics screening check at the end if Y3

Have you got a link mrz.

I feel frustrated by the sheer number of formal tests. I would not mind so much if children took the tests when ready. My five year old got 40/40 on a mock test for the year 1 phonics test, but she is still going to waste a term on alien words. What is shocking is that she knew she was being tested at five.

Why are schools doing mock phonics screening! Sorry totally unbelievable that schools are so ill informed

I will see if I can find the link it's something I read last week but can't recall where.

Was it in Nick Gibbs RRF speech mrz? Think I read it there but it could have been something else I read on the rrf forum.

Isn't this part of the problem though? The govt adds a test and it gets responded to by teaching to that test. There is no need for any practice or mock phonics test with alien words if you just teach phonics.

The same thing happens in year 6 with some schools clearing their year 6 curriculum and mostly just doing maths and English. If the same thing happens in year 7 rather than effective intervention then those children have lost 2 years on cramming for the test not just one. I can see what they are trying to achieve but not sure this is a great way to achieve it.

Mrz my daughters svhool has lost the plot. It is what happens when a school is obsessed by data and forget the children.

School is going to be a miserable experience for non academic children. I suppose this is what happens when decision makers attend selective private schools.

I think it's partly obsession with data and partly poor subject knowledge in the case of the PSC.

Anyone who knew what they were doing wouldn't try to improve the psc results by teaching using alien words. The fact that they are might suggest there could be an issue with their initial teaching, which could in turn explain why they need to improve their psc results. It's a bit of a catch 22.

@Really Tired

How did your 5 year old know that she was being tested? Did the teacher tell the class?

And I agree with everyone who has said that learning 'alien words' is a completely useless exercise. What really annoys me is that children might really be switched off by a diet of 'alien words' when they should be putting their phonic knowledge to use, and getting invaluable practice, in reading proper text. And of course, 'phonics' will be to blame for the switch off.

Are some teachers really so completely dim that they can't understand that 6 y olds are going to encounter 100s & 1,00s of unknown (alien?) words over the course of their school lives (and possibly beyond) and it just isn't necessary to deliberately make them read made up ones. As long as they know their correspondences and can decode and blend they'll be fine.