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!

They are drilled, tested, levelled, targeted, inspected and ranked, yet they still perform worse than countries that do none of these things. So why oh why do we continue making our kids miserable if this is not working?

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.

To be fair we've had SATs since 1990 so know how ineffective they are. Making them even harder and introducing resits in Y7 isn't likely to be a successful strategy for making kids happier or raising self esteem

I agree mrz but we won't know the results for sure unless they see it through. The biggest problem is not the testing but the facts that teachers' jobs hinge on good results. That forces them to put pressure on the students and push them to achieve more in less time. It's all bound to come crashing down. I think letting the children fail might be the best way to change.

What about letting them succeed instead?

So stop making them do tests that they can 'fail', and focus on opening their minds to all the interesting things there are to learn.

There have always been tests that they can fail and there always will be. The year 2 children won't be told the results of the tests so they won't know they've failed.

Teachers jobs don't hinge on the results and with the announcement of universal academisation that threat is also pretty meaningless"

This year is the first year of pass or fail

How will the DofE know it's all been a total disaster if they don't even have the results?

I don't agree that it's acceptable to class a 6 year old as having 'failed'whether they are told or not.

The tests in both Y 2 and Y6 are different to previous years. Y6 pupils will, in future years, have to 'resit' tests in Y7 that don't correspond to the curriculum that they were taught in primary and has no relevance to their secondary school education.

Saying that children have always done tests doesn't, to me, justify this.

I don't agree that it's acceptable to class a 6 year old as having 'failed'whether they are told or not.

No different from the language used by teachers in internal assessment, though - how is the term "below expected level" any better than "fail"?

In any kind of objective measure of achievement, there are always going to be those pupils who perform less well than others. And language has to be used to describe and record that.

Unless there is no assessment at all.

Previously their parents were told they were a level 1, 2 or 3 not a success or failure (and some parents chose to stare that information others didn't)

Teachers are continually assessing, multiple times every single day it's how we plan for children's learning.

I thought rosebud was referring to the language used internally, not what was said to parents.

Yes, parents are told level 1,2 or 3 - but internally within the education system, that was converted to an assessment of whether the DC was attaining above, at, or below expected level. And compared to national averages, too.

Removing the assessment of pupils objectively against a fixed benchmark is an interesting proposal, though - are there any education models which do this?

Internally i would hope no teacher would tell a six year old they have failed. The language is that of the government

And no, Time, internally they weren't compared that was done externally.

Time, Sweden has compulsory tests in Y9 (not before). Finland has compulsory tests age 18 (not before) ...

mrz. I'm not sure what you mean by "internally, they weren't compared".

I understand that in schools there are regular pupil progress meetings, in which each pupils attainment and progress is evaluated against an objective measure? Discussions are had as to whether each pupil has made "expected" progress, and whether they are on track to achieve expected attainment at the next assessment point?

Even Nicky Morgan recognises that makingexpected progress doesn't relate to level achieved or passing or failing the new tests.

I've not read the entire thread, but to those with KS1 kids, please be aware that the Ks2 SATs are a whole different ball game. Mine were largely unaware of the yr2 tests when they did them. The yr6 SATs have been banged on and on about all year. The kids know exactly what is going on and we have had 2 letters so far and a specific meeting, all with staff stressing how incredibly important they are. I do not agree, and continue to downplay it. However, the kids are very very aware and it has been mentioned constantly since the autumn. It is such a shame. My ds can explain exactly the curriculum changes and issues. This is the same school, by the way, and the ks1 children remain largely unaware unless their parents are fussing.

Penguin things have changed

I still have a child in Ks1, though not doing SATS this yr. I have not seen any evidence from parents in the playground that a fuss is being made for yr2s.

Perhaps they haven't seen the instructions from the DfE which include seating children so they can't see another child's answers and escorting children to the toilet to ensure they don't cheat.

Time, the old 'levels' system did indeed have expectations for the end of KS1 and KS2, level 2 and level 4 respectively.

Children who achieved these levels were deemed to be 'working at the nationally expected level' (or higher than, of course). Children who hadn't achieved these levels were deemed to be (for example) 'working at level 1a'. Their current level would be compared with previous levels to see if they had made 'expected progress' or not. Their teachers would identify targets for them to work towards to continue to progress.

The language of 'pass' or ''fail' is new to SATS. It's particularly unhelpful that this years Y6 pupils will be judged to have 'failed' when assessed against a curriculum they haven't been fully taught.