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!

Fair enough, mrz - of course, objective targets and "age expected" attainment does eliminate the risk of subjective headteacher assessment when determining the effectiveness of teachers and the awarding of pay increments.

I've heard the "weighing a pig" analogy several times; and the counter argument, which is that it's too late to fatten the pig if you discover after it has been slaughtered that it hasn't put on any weight.

And of course in the new national curriculum every school is free to make up their own method for years 1,3,4 and 5.

But why would they, mrz? If it's not mandatory, what benefit is there to the school to set a objective assessment system?
Why not leave it to class teachers to assess each DC individually, without comparisons to other DCs or against an arbitrary scale?

Making tests harder will not magically improve standards or make children super clever.

Of course schools have to have effective assessment systems what they don't have to have is rigid linear progress targets.

Who do you think assesses every child Time?

The teaching assistants

What if you don't have one?

I know teachers assess DCs, mrz. - also know that they are moderated against an objective measure to ensure that there is consistency across schools, clusters, MATs and LAs. Yes, it's a damn sight more tricky now that there is no single objective measure.

In terms of progress targets - I do understand that learning isn't linear. However, by breaking down the progress DCs needs to make across a multi year key stage into manageable, equal chunks, it becomes easier to target resources and support, surely?

If, for instance, a pupil has made no progress in the first two terms of KS1, the task of achieving what thar pupil is "expected" to achieve by the end of KS1 becomes harder for both the teacher and the pupil. If, on the other hand, the teacher can say "I'm worried about pupil x, she has not made any progress in the last 6 weeks" during the first pupil progress meeting, and school policies require interventions to be put in place, then the task becomes "easier" for pupil and teacher. The pupil may catch up naturally in term 3 without support, but is more likely to catch up sooner if interventions are put in place earlier.

They are moderated at the end of each Key Stage not in Years 1,3,4 & 5

By breaking it down into manageable equal chunks you are setting children up to fail. It might make someones job slightly easier but children aren't cars or cakes and education isn't an assembly line.

The teacher is assessing lesson by lesson to plan for what the child needs to learn in order to progress they don't wait two terms.

mrz. Apologises, I wasn't clear - I wasn't referring to external moderation of teachers assessment.

The schools I am familiar with moderate all staff assessments of all year groups - both internally, formally and informally, and within geographical clusters of schools. This might take place during development days, staff meetings, pupil progress meetings or during supervision.

The LA School Improvement teams locally also moderate staff assessments and provided a comprehensive training package for staff who wish to become external moderators which includes internally moderating other school staff as part of the programme.

The teacher is assessing lesson by lesson to plan for what the child needs to learn in order to progress they don't wait two terms.

I would hope not. But in a resource limited environment, a HT has to make decisions about how to target resources. Without an objective measure as to which DCs need the additional resource, how can the teacher put forward a convincing case for support for one pupil over another?

In the school policies I've seen, the provision of interventions, and additional classroom resource to assist the teacher in delivering what the DCs need is based on a measure of progress against an objective standard. All teachers want the best for their pupils; but SLT have to ensure that resource is targeted at those pupils who need it most.

By breaking it down into manageable equal chunks you are setting children up to fail.

I think it's the opposite. By breaking it down into manageable equal chunks, you get "early warning" of those DCs who are at risk of falling behind. Leave them to it and they might catch up without additional support (in addition to what is provided in the classroom), but they may not. Better to give all DCs who aren't progressing linearly the extra support than leave it until formal assessments identify a problem.

"I would hope not. But in a resource limited environment, a HT has to make decisions about how to target resources. Without an objective measure as to which DCs need the additional resource, how can the teacher put forward a convincing case for support for one pupil over another?"

It's why we are professionals we are trained to teach all of the children in our care and why we assess our pupils not leave it up to a TA.

That's not really an answer, mrz - I'm sure all teaching staff are very professional and capable of assessing their Pupils needs.

But if all 12 teaching staff in a small primary are seeking additional classroom resource to support the DCs that they have assessed as needing it, because those DCs are not making the progress the teacher expects, how does the HT prioritise? And how does the HT know that teacher A in yr 1 is assessing in the same way as teacher B in the other year 1 class without comparing those assessments?

The targets have to be small, achievable and realistic for individual children not large, equal parts that are manageable for the teacher, that's the difference.

you don't work in a school do you Time

It may sound radical but teachers actually talk to each other and as SENCO staff make me aware of pupils who might need support. We sit down and plan based on the teachers knowledge of the child.

mrz no, I'm not on a school staff.

Given how adeptly you are avoiding my question, I wonder whether you are either!

If you need additional resource to support individual children in your class make progress, how does your school allocate that? Do you always get everything you ask for? Does your HT provide you with everything you say you need? How does your SLT decide which colleague misses out in order for the pupils in your class to have what you say they need?
Or, Is your school so well resourced that there is no need to prioritise?

If I need additional resources I wouldn't use manageable.equal chunks to decide.
I would measure reading and spelling age. I would check the child's ability to decode and encode and manipulate sounds within a word aurally . I would check visual and auditory memory and a host of other things depending on the difficulty and then I'd sit down with the class teacher to come up with a plan and SMART targets.

I'm really not sure what you mean by missing out ...

Are you a teaching assistant?

Who me, bumblebee? - no, as I said, I'm not a member of school staff.

I have read a lot school policies, though, and none of them refer to the kind of subjective decision making that mrz states is commonplace.

Objective, standardised, expected levels of progress seem to be used as a measure in many schools across all year groups - it hadn't occurred to me that it wasn't beneficial to the DCs.