Parent petition supporting Primary SATs boycott

[padkin]

/link{https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/parents-support-sats-boycott-kids-strike-3rd-may?source=facebook-share-button&time=1459365428/Y2 parent petition
Would you keep your child/children home from school for a day to protest about over-testing in the UK Primary system?

/link{https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/parents-support-sats-boycott-kids-strike-3rd-may?source=facebook-share-button&time=1459365428/Y2 parent petition}
Another try at the link, which may or may not work.

Just interested, really, in general strength of opinion, and if you think boycotting school for a day is an appropriate protest.

Being off school on 3rd May won't stop year 2 SATs happening in a school.
So is this a gesture rather than actually stopping child doing SATs?
[Parent of year 2 and 6!!!].

No to boycott but I'm not anti SATs though DC moans about too much "work" in school at the mo.

Y2 parent.

My DD didn't even know she was doing SATs in y2.
They just did some 'special work' they had to do on their own.
Seemed the right approach to me.

Neither of mine have known they were doing says in year 2 either. I won't be protesting as I don't feel the right way to do it is to put a black mark against my child's education.

New tests introduced into Y2 this year are different teachers will be working very hard to keep it low key and follow the administration rules ...hope they succeed.

Year 2 papers tougher this year.
Consequently tougher to keep low key.
Hard not to notice you are sitting a 45 minute paper in silence at 6 or 7.....

Pondering Hard not to notice you are sitting a 45 minute paper in silence at 6 or 7.....

I agree. But that's not the same thing surely?

For DD2 in the run up they had a few sessions of doing 'special work' in silence. Children are used to doing all sorts of things that their teachers ask of them, this was just one of them. So when they did the 'real' SATs, it was just another few sessions of 'special work', no more pressure than the others.

It is a bit like the y1 phonics tests that some people get so fidgety about. Children are used to going off with adults and doing a bit of 1-1 work. No one needs to say 'this is a really important test'. They can just say 'come and do a bit of reading with me'.

So I really think that most stress on the children at y2 is due to the teachers/parents making a thing of it, and not intrinsic to the work. And if half the paper is impossible, don't they just need to say at the start 'some of this is quite difficult and we don't expect most of you to be able to do all of it, so just show us what you can do' or something like that?

Disclaimer: Unless Mrz comes back and says that due to new format / requirements keeping low key will be impossible.

(Much harder to keep y6 low key as children are more aware by then).

My year 2 not aware tests as such. However, don't think enjoys the 'special' work.

Headteachers must ensure that the integrity of the tests is maintained so that no pupil has an unfair advantage.

The test materials must be kept secure and treated as confidential from the point they are received in school until the end of May. Guidance about keeping test materials secure will be published later in the assessment cycle.

Test packs should be opened in the test room when the pupils are ready to start the test. The content of the tests must not be used to prepare pupils. This could lead to inaccurate results that do not represent the pupils’ unaided abilities.

Teachers and test administrators mustn’t discuss the content of the test papers with anyone or use question-specific information to prepare pupils for the test. In particular, specific content which could compromise the test must not be discussed on social media or published in blogs.

After the tests have been administered the test materials must be kept securely until the end of May. A breach of the security of the test materials or using the test content to prepare pupils could lead to a maladministration investigation at the school.

Example of this years instruction ...low key?

.

The biggest one I have a problem with is telling them it is the KS1 maths test. there doesn't seem to be any getting around that one does there?!

The others I would think could be worded reasonably, and if they have done some practices under similar conditions it would be OK, wouldn't it.

Sort of:
OK for this bit of work I need you to do it on your own which means we mustn't have any talking just like the one we did last week. We have about 40 minutes which is until 10 o'clock then we will go out to play. Don't worry if you can't do something, just miss it out and go on to the next one...

I guess what I'm saying is that I have faith in the competence and professionalism of teachers to do this in the lowest key possible.

y2 sats passed us by un noticed. this is very much NOT the case in y6. dd has been sent home with test papers to "revise the sats" 40 minutes a day. the whole year geared towards sats. i wont be keeping my dd home as it wont achieve anything. i am not forcing the homework but we are plodding through it. the lteracy stuff is ridiculous.

modal verb ??
determinants?

who cares

it is all about ofsted and league tables.

I wonder if the people who are saying 'well my child did y2 SATs and didn't even noticethey were taking them' have any idea of the changes to the tests this year?!

I think my ds will be 'working towards' after SATs this year 2.
Last year, think he would have been in 'working within'.
There has been a change.
My response is to relax actually and accept 'working towards' as far as ds concerned.
However, agree things have gone TOO FAR with year 2 and 6 this year.
Petition understandable....

Don't know if my DS's school will be administering them incorrectly then, but when we had a meeting about it they said that they would be doing them in small groups, that they could take their time over them and have little breaks, that everything except the reading could be read to them. It didn't sound very much like stressful exam conditions to me.

If my children were still of the relevant age I would boycott without a second thought.

Fedup I understand the change in the y6 ones, but not the y2.

However for y2, it is not the change in content it is the change in administration which would surely have the biggest effect on how stressed or otherwise the children get?

So if the rules for administration are such that it all seems hyper-formal then I can see a problem.

Y6 I have made a pact with my DD. We aren't worrying about the grammar paper. She does what she can and that's fine by me.

The content is tough in year 2 paper with ridiculously grown up language used in questions in both SPAG and maths....

Small groups is fine, according to the Test Administration guidance. It's all very OTT - clocks in view so children can pace themselves in untamed tests? Lazy copying and pasting from the KS2 guidance I reckon.