Head teacher bans SATs

[Feenie]

www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/education/headteacher-bans-ridiculous-sats-tests-1-8550659

Good for her. They'll sack her, of course, but she's retiring anyway,I believe. What a way to go - at least she's protected one cohort of Y6s.

I know the area - the school will have a diverse intake, with higher than average pupils with English as a second language and pupils with free school meals. She made the right call for her pupils and school, and she's backed by parents and governors.

Ridiculous.

DD's school manages exceptional SATs results year after year (even since the changes) despite 80% EAL and over 70% FSM. She did the Y2 SATs last year without even knowing it.

None of the children or teachers seem overly stressed and they don't stop doing other kinds of teaching for months to concentrate on them.

I imagine it's the poor set of expected results that caused the boycott and the HT should examine why they are performing so badly - there are plenty of schools in less than leafy areas who get great results.

I feel sorry for those children who have been denied the chance to achieve what they have worked towards. This can easily translate into problems at secondary where they won't be given the help to get the A* they might achieve at GCSE because they have no SAT score and so a C will do just fine. She has done her pupils a huge disservice - I would be very, very unhappy if I was one of the parents.

And does your dd's school have very high levels on SEN and a behavioural unit as well?

She consulted with parents and governors beforehand and has their full backing.

The school in question has very low SEN according to info I've seen?

I was going on what their latest Ofsted stated.

Someone posted their 2016 data with less than 1% SEN

Did they? Where?

Twitter

Just tried to find it but I am pretty useless with Twitter!

Good for her!

SATs cause such pressure because they are used to judge the school and not to assess a child's progress and tailor their future learning in an appropriate way. The teachers are put under pressure because they know the results will influence the OfSted.

Feenie, even HT consulted with parents and governors beforehand, and had their backing, it can't be 100% of parents agreed, I'm sure?
I won't be happy in that situation, if what elfon says is true, and I've seen that comment on secondary threads by secondary teachers.

Those who think that children should learn to deal with these pressures miss the point that education (especially at the primary stage) is about opening young minds to the joy of learning not force feeding them stuff (some of it irrelevant to their future lives) for the sake of assessing the school. It benefits them not at all; and everything they do in school should be for their benefit.

I can't see her going ahead if it wasn't, Irvine, and I haven't seen anything but positive comments from parents in the commenting section of the local press. She's very well-respected locally.

Many of the children sitting their GCSEs in 2015 had no targets because of the 2010 boycott - no one died.

And when we boycotted in 2010, not a single parent complained. And they weren't anywhere re near as ridiculous then.