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!

According to the OECD Ireland is slightly below England in literacy levels

Mrz

I dont dispute the OECD rankings but I believe Nicky Morgan was quoting PISA statistics yesterday

'In Ireland the proportion of functionally literate pupils aged 15 is more than 90% too, but in England it’s only 82%, and only 77% are functionally numerate'

Not that I firmly believe any of this stuff is entirely reliable, but if you are going to hold these countries up as dining examples why not look at how they do things?

*a shining

The OECD are the people responsible for PISA (which has been widely shown to be flawed)

as has Nicky Morgan's use/understanding of statistics

Do people really think that this paper is too hard for Year 2 children? www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/439447/Sample_ks1_EnglishGPS_paper2_questions.pdf

It's been scrapped because the DfE messed up

I know but that wasn't what I was asking.

Yes, I do. Just the reading and the concentration levels required to get through such a boring paper are a tall order for most children in this age group. And the sentence type stuff is ludicrous, particularly the requirement to use them in their own writing I now have several pieces of excellent writing ruined by wooden sounding silly false exclamation sentences like 'What a sunny day it was!' or 'How excited I felt!'

Stupid.

I think it's hard.

It demands a long period of concentration.

There is a lot to read.

In question 12, the word "running" is there purely to cause confusion.

In the question where they have to write the question in the speech bubble, it is unclear as to whether or not speech marks should be used. The convention is not to use them when writing in a speech bubble, so I would leave them out, but I suspect that the examiner expects them to be used.

The Maths Reasoning paper is 28 pages long, ffs. 28!

My January born son would not have found that too hard to read at the end of Y2. He would have had some difficulty with some of the answers because grammar in 2001 would not have been covered to the required standard. At the end of Y3, one of the cleverest boys in his year, he transferred to the independent sector. A school on a par with Westminster under school. He wasn't tutored to pass the entrance exam, the head's response was that his natural intelligence shone through but he would have ground to catch up. His maths was fine but his English was at least 12/18 months behind his independently educated from age four contemporaries.

I think it's a shame that the UK education system doesn't aim for the gold standard. That is why HE has to support literacy, including on the teacher training programmes and thus the cycle perpetuates. Picking this stuff up in Y3, 4, 5 and beyond is just too late.

I wonder how standards can be raised so that at 18 all young people are able to write a letter they are proud of, always using the correct tense, etc. My mother's generation could, even the majority who didn't matriculate. My generation was variable, 40 somethings are more variable, my children's generation was of concern.

At the end of Y2 there were half a dozen or more boys as bright as DS in his class. They gradually dropped away. The two who stayed in the state system, probably brighter than DS, went to Newcastle and Kent. One of the girls went to Oxford. 60 children, middle class area. The ten from the class who peeled off to the independent sector have maximised their potential and when I've heard they are at Bristol or KCL I've though, wow, they did well.

It has gar less to do with elitism, in my opinion, than with a failure in state schools to encourage and nurture the best minds, laying down secure foundations to support personal and overall social development so that everyone reaches their full potential. There needs also to be a great deal more done to nurture the non academic and equip them to play essential, vocational roles that we all need and value. State education seems to do far too little to encourage vocational trades that earn people good livings and that we all need. I value my hairdresser, mechanic, electrician, plumber but I can't remember the last time I heard a teacher be positive about roles like that.

I really think state ed in the UK needs to up its game to produce generations able to allow this country to compete economically on the world stage. I never can fathom why the teaching profession is always so anti reflection and achievement. I find I very sad

Ultimately, what's wrong with aiming high?

I've done my best to proof read but it's hard on my phone.

I fully support the points these parents are making.

My teens took SATS and one was above average in all areas but was pressured so much in year 6 that she ended up in hospital. A white board was in the classroom with a count down of days until SATS.

My next child wasn't phased by them but now in secondary school faces a constant battle as he was placed in sets based on his SATS results in yr6.

My yr2 child is now missing out on what the other children did in year 2, writing stories and perfecting their handwriting. No she isn't stressed as the school don't pass the pressure on to the children but my older children did brilliantly without the new SPAG tests.

I also have a child in yr5. I have had to go into the school several times this year as she worries about not being able to do everything in maths, despite being in top groups. The schools put more and more pressure on teachers and they are handing this down to the children.

I don't care about SATS or how the statistics make the schools look. I care about their happiness. These tests if they have to be done, should be low key and frankly the children shouldn't even need to know what they are. More and more parents are choosing to homeschool and it's something I would consider, certainly for yr6 if I felt my child was picking up too much stress.

To those parents saying their yr2 children are happy, that is down to the school. You may not feel the same when you receive their school reports this yr to find that your achieving child may now be below average.

I never can fathom why the teaching profession is always so anti reflection and achievement. I find I very sad

What an odd comment. On what evidence do you base this sweeping generalisation?

At the end of Y2 there were half a dozen or more boys as bright as DS in his class.

But these are expectations for every Y2 child, not the brightest like your ds. Your ds might have been fine with it, but I am telling you, as an experienced teacher of this age group, that some of the concepts are beyond a typical 6/7 year old, and can actually undermine understanding by confusing children who are just not developmentally ready. And that's coming from a teacher with notoriously high expectations.

Still, if your ds can do it, that must make it well worth coming on to post and condemn an entire profession, mustn't it?

I find it interesting that you've decided to post in support of a testing system that you removed your ds from completely. Why don't private schools use SATs? Have a little think about that.

Why should the top third not be able to develop to their full potential when they ate ready? Why should they be held back because two thirds can"t?

I don't think the private schools my DC went to regarded SATs standards as high enough

At 8 my son received specialist EnGlish, Maths, History, Science, French, Latin, Geography teaching, led by teachers with degrees in those subjects. At the end of every term there was a full school report detailing achievement and performance compared to the average, mean and median in each subject. If he hadn't performed a less academic alternative would have been suggested. What didn't exist was this ninnying culture of "there, there, they will develop at their own pace" "they don"t need to know the rules yet", etc, "competition isn't healthy, the children mustn't fail, that's why we've stopped running races". That's why they were removed. To escape the dumbing down and failure to prepare for the real, big, tough world where most employees expect to be performance managed as a matter of routine.

My fundamental problem is the government is spotting an actual issue and applying a false solution. They say that not enough children who get level 4 get enough good GCSEs, and that compared with other wealthy countries we are lower in education rankings. Those two things are facts. However they are trying to solve that problem in a ridiculous way, by making the curriculum harder. If children's attainment fell away at secondary school how is making the primary school curriculum harder going to tackle that? How do you think independent schools get better results? They have tiny classes and they gently suggest to some parents that the school is not suitable for their child (if the kid won't pass muster). It's not because the teachers are better or purely because the curriculum is harder. They have largely children whose parents are invested in their education and who prioritise learning. It is completely stupid to assume that by taking one aspect only of independent schools - the challenging curriculum- you can graft that into state schools with a hugely different context and expect the same results. The loss of 'best fit' for leveling and the move to teaching of literacy by prescriptive lists of necessary 'bits of grammar' that will score you a point is absolutely not what good writing is. The huge emphasis on technical vocabulary over comprehension of concepts is indefensible and there is in my view cultural bias. For example a bright child joining school in year 4 with no English might be reasonably fluent by year 6. They might even have learned what an 'antonym' is. However the chances of them developing the sophisticated vocabulary required to link the antonyms in the sample year 6 paper is adding a whole new layer of analysis. They aren't only checking if the child has a concept of opposites and knows the 'proper' word, but requiring they can apply that concept to identify and match opposites of words like 'meandering', 'evade', 'sympathetic' and 'plausible'.

I have no faith at all in this education policy and I think they are, frankly, incompetent.

Beauglacons
Bully for you.

Provide identical conditions of small class sizes and highly invested parents into every state school and you might have a point. You can't say 'the only reasons independent schools get better results us because they expect more', you just can't. It's bollocks.

BTW I am paraphrasing the tone of your post, not quoting directly.

Start a petition to get it discussed in parliament, approach your local MP, lobby, etc. What's wrong with using the usual routes to change?

Since when did the Tories pay any attention to those 'usual routes to change'?!

How do you explain then the Level2/3 children at Y2 who went on to really good universities to read academic subjects having left the state sector at 7 or 8 compared to the level 3/4 children at 7 who stayed in the state system and are at Newcastle/Kent. I'd have expected those v clever children to have done better. It isn't all about small classes either. They aren't particularly small at the high performing London independents. The boys who did better than those who stayed in state ed didn't go to particularly high performing independents anyway.

I don't think the private schools my DC went to regarded SATs standards as high enough

Clearly, you have no idea what you're talking about, when level 6 at Y6 equates to a D grade at GCSE. The reason private schools don't use SATs is because they aren't statutory and, as one independent head teacher said, there is too much focus on just Maths and English leading to a narrowed curriculum.

Why should the top third not be able to develop to their full potential when they ate ready? Why should they be held back because two thirds can"t?

No one is being held back. But why make age related expectations so high that a significant percentage of children cannot possibly achieve them?

Fairenuff at age six did you know the difference between a coordinated and subordinated conjunction? I didn't and I'm old enough to have been taught daily grammar in primary school.

I thought the discussion was about KS1 not KS2. Why bring level six into it for Y2 children in their seventh and eigth years.

Independent school entrance isn't based on says anyway, it's based on their entrance exams.

poster BeauGlacons am I to assume from your post your child had passed English and Mathematics GCSEs by age SEVEN?

Unfortunately it doesn't matter how high a schools expectations a seven year old hasn't the maturity or life experiences of a sixteen year old to match curriculum content.