Teachers helping in Sats test

[Lindy360]

My DS is about to take his Ks2 Sats and he's really getting stressed about it. I have just been talking to a friend and her DS who sat his Sats last year at the same primary school and they informed me that it is standard practise for the school staff to sit one to two/three pupils and guide them through the test - telling them which answers they've got it wrong and telling them which operations to use to solve the reasoning questions. Surely this cannot be true! While I really want DS to do well, I can't see how this will help him later in life. Even if they don't tell the children the answers it sounds like cheating to me. My friend is adamant that this has happened with all three of her offspring.

It might be true. It shouldn't happen of course but some heads do respond to the pressure of the school needing to achieve highly by instructing the staff to help more than they should. There was a recent article about it in, I think, The Guardian.

Are you sure they don't just have a reader or scribe?

Unlikely as described to be honest, they would need 10-15 staff per class!! Can't see that happening.

No they read every question and pass them erasers to signal the answer is wrong.

At my daughter's school, the teacher gave them extra time in English!

Apparently all TAs from across school are brought in. The Head, Deputy Head, Assistant Head and year 5 & 6 teachers. Higher ability children are left to their own devices but all others have staff sat at the side of them.

My ds had a reader and a scribe and there are very explicit rules on how they get a reader/scribe and how the reader/scribe behaves. Ds and his TA worked together over the whole of year 6 to get used to it. What you are describing is certainly not allowed - how does your friend know?

I'm a Year 6 teacher and I can categorically tell you that this is cheating and is absolutely not allowed. That school needs to be reported as it makes a mockery of the process for the rest of us who follow the rules. Children can have questions read to them in tests other than the reading or have a scribe etc if such measures have been requested and approved. If that school gets caught their results will be null and void and there will be consequences for all involved as such rule breaking practices are taken very seriously.

My friend says her children have told her and she’s heard it from other parents. I’m going to speak to some parents of last years year 6 to find out how true this is.

Completely cheating and not allowed. This has a knock-on effect for secondary too - right up to GCSE target grades.

I work in a primary school and have been involved in the recent practice papers.
If the class of 30 has an adult per 1-3 children I’d say they are massively over staffed!
There were 4 members of staff for our class of 30 year six children for the maths reasoning practice paper, we could only read one the questions exactly as they were written and being careful not to emphasise certain words or rephrase the question and we could only do that if the child specifically asked us to read that question.
Although the sats papers are done internally a moderator can turn up at any school without prior warning and sit in on the test. I have heard of a school bending the rules with regards to helping the children and a moderator arriving a few minutes into the test and the children really struggling because they hadn’t been prepared to sit the test without help.

That's cheating. Pure and simple.

I'd report the school.

If this is true the school is doing a massive disservice to pupils. SATS are often seen as a mark of how good the school is and sadly this is where the pressure comes from. While I think this is bollocks (my kids school has very average SATS results and is a fantastic school) if they are helping kids to try and reach that ideal then they are artificially raising the SATS results. This means:

Kids get unrealistic scores set for GCSEs as often SATS results are used to set kids. Some schools do their own tests as well but not all do. Having an artificially inflated SATS score could result in a child being set too high, having pressure put on them to achieve something which the SATS say they should be able to do but which is actually impossible for them.

Artificially high results overall could also mask teaching failings within the school. If for instance all kids are given "help" in maths exams the results could mask the fact that maths isn't taught properly and instead the teachers are just cheating their way to good results.

Honestly? I'd report a school if I thought this was true. I'd have no qualms about it. They are basically screwing over their pupils in order to make themselves look good.

A friends child reported that every child in the outstanding school had 1-1 support in the SATs so yes I believe some schools do cheat like this. So unfair on the schools that follow the rules who are compared unfavourable in league tables and unfair to parents and pupils who are misled.

We need a shift in culture so people don't put so much on SATS. My kids school is a "good" school. It will likely never reach outstanding because their SATS results aren't good enough. The reason they are decidedly average? The school believes in a low pressure environment. They do not send home hours of homework and put pressure on the kids. They are also an exceptional school for SEN children, which means there are many of them within the school. There are also a huge number of kids who aren't academic high flyers because the school fosters a belief that there's more to life than academics. They support extra curricular activities and encourage kids to peruse their strengths, whatever they are. They would not achieve super high SATS unless they did things like withdrawing lower level kids, putting on mega extra pressure or cheating. All things they refuse to do. That should count for more than SATS results.

It quite possibly is true and yes it’s cheating.

It won’t be all kids, most likely a few who are ‘borderline’ to get the expected standard, especially if eligible for pupil premium.

Having particular children in a room 1:1 or a small group is fine and my old school often did it eg for anxious children or one with ADHD who just COULDNT sit in silence for an hour so disrupted the others as well as not doing as well as he could. Reading questions out loud also fine other than for the reading test. But clearly, telling them which questions they’ve got wrong or which operations to use is cheating. I can believe it happens though - I remember my own teacher tapping a question and shaking her head 20 years ago!!

Believe me this is unacceptable . My Ds did ask his teacher about a few questions in English ( he was bored , lost focus) He was clearly told the teacher couldn’t help.

We have children who are entitled to a reader, we have children who are entitled to a scribe, we have children who are entitled to extra time ( we even have a couple who are entitled to a reader, a scribe AND extra time!) The rest of them just have to get on with it-with the occasional " keep going, you're doing fine" whilst inwardly cringing as they write complete rubbish on their papers

The number to report maladministration concerns is 0300 303 3013.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/key-stages-1-and-2-investigating-allegations-of-maladministration

www.theguardian.com/education/2017/jun/06/teaching-cheating-primary-school-sats-teacher-tests

Cheating is rife in primary schools. When DH did teacher training at a supposedly outstanding school, he was surprised at the low academic level of his year 6 class. All became clear when he saw how their mock SATS were administered. He quit.

I'm sure I heard talk of having a system where teachers go into schools other than their own to have some oversight of the KS2 test process. I'm not sure if it was just an idea or if it is going to actually happen though, it sounds like something needs to be done.

There's no such thing as mock SATs

Oddboots my head suggested that to a group of nearby schools most weren't interested

Yes I expect it's true. It's been a few years since dd did sats but when she did the deputy would walk around the class and tap the question with a pencil if it was wrong so they'd look at it again.

Total farce and it really soured our view of the school. I didn't report at the time but I wish I had.