[only for people in Scotland] Has your child sat the new tests? Do you know anything about the results or whatever?

[Arkadia]

Already posted on Scotnet some weeks ago, but hardly anyone seems to go there.

Anyway, I am talking about the spanking new standardized tests to be done in P1, P4, P7 and S3.
I thought there would be a mention in the school report, but nothing.
I have asked the HT and was told that they have to attend a training course first, so we may get something at the end of August.

Has anyone got any first hand information?

The test results highlight questions that the child has performed well in and question types that they got wrong. I'm not sure how useful the information would be as part of a report card, it was not meant to be a means of comparing schools etc like the English SATS.

@meala, have you actually seen it?

meala that sounds like very useful information for parents (in theory at least!) whereas the 'comparing schools' type of info in English SATS is not really useful for parents at all, but creates competitiveness and pressure. The Scottish measures seems to provide detailed info on which areas a child needs support in, rather than a pretty pointless 'meets/doesn't meet expectations in maths' that doesn't tell you anything at all.

Arkadia if your school usually shares useful info on which areas your children are struggling/doing well (somehow I am doubtful), then I would assume they will have no trouble sharing these results with you too... But if they usually prefer to remain vague and guard your children's books like state secrets and refer your questions to parents' evening only, then I can see why they would need 'training' before sharing potentially detailed and useful test results as meala describes.

Well, let's not get carried away, @brill. AFAIK the comment section is machine generated and you don't even get to see the questions because the assessment is done online and nobody sees the questions, but the pupil.
I am surprised that nobody seems to know/interested. Perhaps there has been so little press about it that very few realize the tests are indeed happening. Also, as my dd's teacher put it, the Scottish Government will try their utmost to make it as incomprehensible as possible to make them look as good as possible.
The tests were something like 3 years in the making and I fail to see what is so difficult in a few questions and answers that you cannot share it automatically, and instead you need extra training.
We shall see.
In the meantime I will keep hoping that someone will come up with some insight to share on the matter.

It did sound too good to be true, Arkadia :)

But when meala said
The test results highlight questions that the child has performed well in and question types that they got wrong. and that they therefore would not be useful to parents, in contrast to a means of comparing schools etc like the English SATS where supposedly therefore it is useful for parents to know how their child did, I felt compelled to point out that (in theory) the opposite is true.

As a teacher, it is my understanding that the SNSA results are not to appear on end of year reports.

@stargirl, where then? (I am not fussy, anywhere/anything will do ;) )

Tbh, nowhere. The test is just one assessment tool. Even if the child did poorly on the test on the day, the teacher's judgement is the key factor. She can chose to ignore that one thread and make her own judgement of the child's progress using her own assessment tools and observations.

@stargirl, in all honesty, the "just one assessment tool" to me is complete TOSH. Even if it is "just one assessment tool" and "the child did badly on the day", must I be treated like a child and not been shown the result of a NATIONAL test all the kids of a certain age sat, because unable to understand? How patronising is that?

Maybe they should rename the "CfE" more aptly CaD, '"cloak and dagger".

I can't really comment on that.

There will be more info about SNSA policy on the council website and on the Education Scotland website.

Arkadia, in fairness, KS1 SATS results (the tests) in England are not published anywhere either (not even collected). Teachers use them as evidence to inform their assessment (which is reported, collected, statistically analysed and published).

Many schools do not tell parents the test results, though parents do have the right to them - but they have to request them.

But nobody (well, nearly nobody) gets to see the actual tests/to see which questions were answered correctly and which weren't. We just get a number; x points, translates into y scaled score.

Sounds like in these new Scottish tests a numerical result such as this would be pretty meaningless, no? As that is not what the test is intended for... if I understand this right, the test is intended to differentiate between areas of strength and weakness. So for any results to be meaningful, you would have to have rather detailed area-by-area results, rather than just a headline score for maths and English.

Yes indeed. If you cannot make a comparison the test would be meaningless.
We can only wait and see... I will be interested in seeing how the older children fared.
The POTENTIAL problem is how the government will want to tackle it (why they don't know already is another matter); if you think that in England it is always difficult to talk about education, in Scotland it is totally toxic...

Next year's P7 cohort have been given homework for every holiday from John Swinney. I'm sure he hopes they do better than this year's P7 cohort.

Huh?

There isn't one test, it is all computerised and changes for each child so there's no actual test to see. There's also no test questions available for teachers to see.
I would be very unhappy if teachers were basing judgements on a child solely based on results of a test that was not studied for and with no access to the questions answered. As a pp said, it should be used as one piece of evidence, alongside others, to help teacher judgement of a child's progress.

There's loads of information here

standardisedassessment.gov.scot/parents-and-carers/

@meala, I had seen that link, but it doesn't give you much that is actionable.
In any case if nobody has access to the questions asked (and that link doesn't seem to support it), then the computer generated feedback is not worth the paper is printed on for individuals. Even at school level it would be difficult to make sense of it as there is very little, if anything at all, it can teach you. :(

What did you think the purpose of the SNSA was? It was very hurriedly introduced after the last round of PISA.

It replaced the SSLN which was a sample based assessment which was never reported on to parents.

Nobody does have access to the questions asked.

Yes, I knew about the SSLN fiasco (on more than one front).

I was hoping the tests would offer a window on what happens in the school, but not to be, it seems. No doubt in the future the questions will start to circulate, so when that happens we (poor parents in the dark) might get some insight.

I got some feedback from a few teacher friends, 1 headteacher.

“Waste of bloody time the whole thing”

Your child’s score is their information so you can ask for it (or they can if 12 or over). If the school doesn’t want to hand it over, do a SAR (subject access request) - they get 28 days to respond to this, including school holidays.

The way it is set up, they don’t just answer x number of questions; if you get an answer right you get a harder question next, or if wrong an easier question.

@moss, but without the actual questions the computer generated individual feedback is meaningless.
It is still interesting to see how the population behaves, but that is an altogether different matter.
Shame that we will have to wait for a good few years before we can detect a trend as Scotland has pulled out from (all?) the other tests.

I am pretty sure only feedback you get is a score of where they are relative their age group in Scotland. The teachers should know where their areas of difficulty are - that is not what this test is for —which is to hide the fact the snp are managing education so badly.—

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