Poll - are your kids striking tomorrow?

[WalkingdeadWHAT]

Yes or no

If yes, what will you be doing with them?

I think my daughter will be going because I don't know anyone who is boycotting. But I am really torn and here's my thing: for me it isn't about them being tested or being too 'delicate' to be tested or any of those impatient things people say about people who express any concern about their children because we all had to do that, didn't we, didn't do us any harm. For me it's that I think the content of the tests, and the teaching of the tests, is all wrong. I really resent that my 8 year old will be learning about noun phrases, transitive verbs and fronted adverbials. Until I started reading about them in this context I did not know what any of these terms meant. The time my kids are spending being taught these (practically useless) grammatical terms is wasted time when they could be reading novels with their teacher and talking about them, or writing stories. So I would like to protest the SATs. I'd like teachers to be allowed to teach little kids to enjoy being at school, not to teach them to be assessed.

MrsKCastle, I maybe dim, but I still don't get it. SATs may help teachers to inform TA, but it is a small part of assessment, right? So teacher can decide the child has achieved "Expected " level of attainment, no matter how good or bad she/he performs on KS1 SATs, that is their attainment to be informed to LA, isn't it? So, even the child can't do work on SATs without apparatus, if they can do it with apparatus in daily work, they can be informed as at expected level, aren't they? Unless they have to assess child heavily with SATs results?

TheHunting Did you see my post above about the differences between this year's test and last year's?

Here's another one: to achieve the 'expected standard' in writing, children must include exclamation sentences in their independent writing. This are in a form like this: 'What a lovely day it is!' Or 'How happy I was.' (Admittedly, this is an example of TA rather than the SATs test, but it's all part of the assessment system). How many 6-7 year olds can use these types of sentences naturally? Does it improve their writing to do so?

It is still possible to be fairly low-key about the tests, but it's getting harder and harder. And every Y2 teacher that I've come across this year is finding a real conflict between government expectations and what we feel is best for the children we teach .

Thehunting

The tests have changed since last year. The children won't be sitting the same tests in the same environment this year.

irvineonahone Yes, you're right. If a child gets a particular question wrong in the tests, but I can prove that they understand it and can do it in a normal classroom situation, then I can still pass them at expected levels. So what's the point of the test? How exactly is it supposed to help me in my judgement?

I admit to not being clued-up on the changes

No problem, TheHunting, if it doesn't affect you directly, how would you know?

FWIW, my DD1 is now Y3 so did SATs last year. She was assessed at L3 and her Y3 teacher is very happy with her progress, she's a bright, confident little thing. But I know for a fact that if I got her literacy book today and assessed her against the current criteria, she would be 'below expected levels' a whole year on. It would take a fair bit of 'teaching to the test' to get her up to 'expected' let alone 'greater depth'.

Thank you, MrsKCastle. Same as your dd and TheHunting's dc, my ds did sats last year, so I am not as clued up as parents of YR2 and Yr6 children.
My ds is going to school tomorrow and I can't decide if I agree or disagree with strike tomorrow to be honest. But that doesn't mean I think it's pointless. I really admire parents acting on it. And I deeply care about children's education.

Yes. Den building.

quail I can pretty much guarantee my son will be the only one in his class missing school tomorrow and I felt quite self-conscious telling his teacher but her response was so positive I really feel I am doing the right thing regardless of other peoples' opposition, ignorance, confusion or apathy.

But Twig, I think a lot people just don't know about it. I never heard anything about it from other parents at my ds's school.

Yes

Nope.

I'm sure this has been said but anyone thinking "surely SATs weren't that big a deal" must look at this year's curriculum/papers. DS1 did his last year, comfortably got level 4 and a couple of 5c's, no stress. The material this year seems to have landed from outer space and is out of all recognition for 10 year olds or in fact anyone to understand. It is very different and whether or not the teachers had time to teach it properly, I think some of it is not even age appropriate. DS2 is a summer born and PP pupil, he is being set up to fail and he knows it.

irvineoneohone I totally get that. I only found out about it on Thursday and that was because I've been reading a lot about SATs and academisation recently. I do find it strange though that there are so many YR2 parents who are uninformed and unaware of the full impact of this year's SATs.

No (although DS is only in school nursery).

Twig, I think it's a good thing that a lot of YR2 parents are unaware. That means the school is managing it to be low key and less pressure for children!

It's also because no-one, from the DfE down, can actually explain the reasoning behind the new tests, so there isn't actually any sensible information to pass on to parents.

I hadn't heard about it other than on MN.

First other coverage I saw is this on BBC website today

I do think that a lot of how the pupils see tests is in the hands of their specific school and teachers.

I agree the changes to SATs this year are ridiculous, and will support any teacher strike action, but my Y2 ds currently enjoys school and is learning stuff (wasn't the case last year) so I'd be daft not to send him.

No idea how to persuade DfE that their fond memories of 1970s prep schools aren't the only way to teach 21st century kids...

Yes and it's planned for a non test day because it's not designed to disrupt the tests, but to show strength of feeling from parents. The fact that this supported by teachers and head teachers shows that there is a genuine problem, not parents with 'special snowflakes'. If you don't think this type of testing damages kids then you need to actually do some research.

2cats. How do you know that your teachers or Headteacher support this "strike"? Have they sent letters out asking parents to keep their kids out? Have they just said off the record that they support it? Or are you guessing or generalising?

Kind of. They're too little to be at school but we're going along to support our local action. Government education policy is doing a huge amount of damage to the educational system, and teachers, educationalists etc cannot fight it alone.

Mine are off. With the full support of our head and teachers who are so stressed by the whole fiasco. I have no problem with my DC being tested, but I do have an issue with these meaningless tests.

I've had a reply from our head to the absence letter.

She told us to have a good day