Parents support teachers - Boycott Sats - Kids' Strike May 3rd

[SuzieAllkins]

I am hoping that parents have heard of the Kids' Strike on May 3rd which has been set up by an anonymous group of parents who say 'Enough is enough'?' Their campaign supports schools in trying to reach the Government with the message that we need to stop national testing and let teachers teach in the way that they know is best. As a former primary school teacher (who used to administer Year 6 SATs) and a parent of two young children I shall be fully supporting this campaign on 3rd May by taking my school aged child out of school for a fun day of learning. I do not want my children to become stressed and develop a negative attitude to learning. Although the school my eldest attends is wonderful in developing the 'whole child', the pressure is on the teachers to 'perform' and submit figures to reach unreachable targets. It is wonderful to see, on the Letthekidsbekids website that so many head teachers and teachers are supporting this campaign and are saying thank you to parents for helping their voice to be heard. Our children are too young to be put under pressure like this - the new curriculum's demands are bewildering to me! Children at the age of 6 and 10 years are expected to know grammatical knowledge which even scholars in the subject can't answer!! These are not skills which will set our children up for life. There are many around the country who are supporting this campaign. If you haven't heard about it, check out the website to see if you'd like to join in on Tuesday!

Y2s are also being assessed in ways different to the curriculum that they've been taught ie no number lines etc.

It is utterly crazy that my 6 year old is going to be expected to tick the adverbial phrase in a sentence, when his handwriting is still very much developing (left-handed).

Whether he is stressed or not, or whether the school is making a fuss about the tests (he's not and they're not) isn't very relevant (although I'm very glad that he isn't).

It is utterly crazy that my 6 year old is going to be expected to tick the adverbial phrase in a sentence

I think some parents are worrying over nothing though. So what if he doesn't tick the adverbial phrase in a sentence? It is of complete unimportance to him and to you as a parent. The only person who cares whether he gets it right or not is the teacher because it will reflect their teaching.

The grammar test has been scrapped for this year due to DFE error so this won't arise this year.

The teacher will care not because it reflects on their teaching but because it's a crazy expectation for a six year old.

I think you are wrong about the children not caring if they can't do the test. Our children are used to working on tasks that are matched to their ability ( with a slight challenge). In these tests, the children have to sit a paper that, for some, is far above what they are capable of doing. They may only be able to answer 3 or 4 questions out of 25. Do you really think they won't find that upsetting?

No I really don't think they will. If they are told that there will be lots of questions but they only have to answer the ones that they can, they will be fine with it.

No one cares what the results are and the children will never know anyway. You can tell them they did brilliantly if you want to,

No one cares what the results are so why put them through it?

Because they have to mrz and hopefully, when the vast majority fail, the government will realise they've set the bar too high.

Maybe you could tell that to the child who struggled on with the reading paper for 40 minutes under test conditions and only burst into tears at the very end because, in his words, he had done so badly.

But as you said yourself No one cares what the results are so why would they care if the bar is too high?
Nicky Morgan has said that they will "adjust" the figures anyway ...what a farce!

I can't believe that she has basically stood up and publicly admitted in front of a load of heads that they will fiddle the data! It's nuts.

To be fair we won't know if it works until they reach the age of 15 and can be compared with the other examples you used from Singapore and Ireland.

The examples I mentioned were quoted today by Nicky Morgan. I am pretty confident that the current system is not working and will not bring the rise in standards she keeps banging on about. Even if there is an increase in results it does not mean that making kids stressed and miserable is any more justified.

Data fiddling

And we are supposed to take her word for it that she has data showing how tests and academies improve outcomes for children

When I heard about this action, I asked DH (primary teacher) if he thought I should take part and keep DS home. He absolutely supports it. We see the utter shit that is poured on our schools by this bunch of Tory **s from both the side of the child and the teacher.
So I've penned the email to the school and DS will not be going in on Tuesday.
They are studying the Romans this year, so we are going to the National Roman Legion museum for the day

The plot has been well and truly lost by Nicky Morgan and the DFE.

Every utterance now is complete jibberish.

My 6 year old's school was one of the ones in which the children sat the SPAG test early (bench mark setting, I think?) Just a few days before it was scraped for this year.

So it really doesn't matter how he and his classemates did, except the teachers have been teaching this dross all year and the govt still required that the school mark the papers etc.

So in terms of teaching and learning it really does matter that these tests have been forced on schools ie they inhibit proper teaching and hence learning

This seems appropriate for this thread.

DC's school has been academised. Do academies have to adhere to the national curriculum?

I don't think fear of losing their job is the issue concerning teachers though.

SLTs don't agree with this nonsense anymore than anyone else.

It's the utter soul-destroying pointlessness of it all combined with the damaging effect that sitting in front of a sheet of questions that you can't answer and indeed can't use the resources like number lines that you've been using for the past 3 years of your schooling that teachers are objecting to, either by voicing it or leaving the profession in droves.

So if SATS are such a big part of 'raising standards' why do the majority of independent schools not participate?

FarAway - well quite. Dd has never taken any SATS at all. Yet her primary school achieved highly. The girls who went into state secondaries are all achieving highly too and pretty much in top sets for everything at their schools, again having done no SATS beforehand. And her independent secondary still achieves the high results in the city at GCSEs and A levels. Again despite no SATS needed.

So are SATS really brassy to maintain high standards? Of course not!

Why is the government so obsessed with using a country like Singapore as its benchmark? Yes t gets Hugh results but st what price?

The children there have less teaching hours than our children - it's often a two tier education with different children in at different times. The lowest section of society (for want of a better term) are not in school at all and not counted. The system of tutoring is huge; almost every child has an intensive tutor system going on at home. Parents have been similar situations beforehand and know how essential it is in their education system and they are all focuses on this with a totally different outlook and drive.
The curriculum is rigid - keep up, else it goes home and must be completed before the next day or else. There is no flexibility - every child is on the same page if a text book doing the same work. Every day. The creative side of the curriculum is limited. The focus is very much in the academics of maths and related subjects.
The children are often stressed and the rates of MH are high.

Our government seems to watch to pick and choose - they want the results but they also have a packed curriculum, and obviously don't have a selective Intake of children into schools.

You can't compare - we need primary schools where children learn a love of learning. Once that is in place the rest will often slot into place. And we need a flexible, varied and child friendly curriculum that can be adjusted for children of all stages in their education regardless of age.

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Hulababy

I agree that the obsession with comparisons to countries like Singapore is ridiculous. However, I posted yesterday that Nicky Morgan had also quoted higher literacy rates in Ireland. This is a country we can compare to socially and demographically, unlike Singapore-a they have shorter school days, longer holidays, a wider curriculum, no testing in primary and yet still out perform us

The inclusion of all the old level 6 questions on this year's test has done absolutely nothing for the self-confidence of my year 6 class. It's all very well saying just do the ones you can, but that means some of them give up far too quickly because they've now told themselves after years of us working on their confidence that they can't do it. They want to achieve to the best of their ability and the system is against them. I promise you, we do our very best to make them as literate and numerate as they possibly can be.

We were very clearly told when the new curriculum was introduced that it would be gradual and the new materials wouldn't be expected to be fully known until the first cohort had worked its way through school.

Something has to be done about this madness.