Teachers answering questions/helping children in SATs

[Flicketyflack]

Hurrah SATS have finished!

DC has come home every day perplexed by some children in his class and certain kids in particular repeatedly asking for help during the tests.

I am quite annoyed as surely they are tests and if teacher help the kids it does not reflect their real abilities? Or am I naive?

He has told me that he thinks it is as much as six or seven questions each test! He also suggested certain children were 'favoured' in that she helped them more than others!

Should I report this? It seems unfair on those kids that don't ask for help.

A lot of cheating goes on in some primary schools...

I’ll leave it at that.
😓

I agree and understand that those children who were 'assisted' gain little in the longer run however it feels very unfair when other kids, who may also have not fully understood or wanting reassurance or help, just got on with it

Your dc received exactly the same instructions as the other children - they will have been encouraged to ask if they wanted something reading. Your beef seems to be entirely about your dc not asking, which is entirely up to them! You absolutely can't then chelp about children who chose to exercise their right.

FlicketyFlack - I can understand why you’re annoyed. We had similar during SPAG and spelling on Monday, Ds said that teachers were telling certain children to look at their answers again, and to change them in some cases. One teacher also pronounced the way a child had spelt one word ( a word spelt incorrectly ), so it was obvious to that child that they had spelt it wrong and they then changed it.

The school will come out with a load of crap excuses, in our case the head tried to say that the teachers were making children rub out their spellings if they were a bit illegible and write them again. Some of the things my son told me were so specific though that I believe 100% that the school were cheating.

I’ve complained to the school but am still on the fence about complaining officially. My ds and his sister have worked so hard and neither had any help so their results will be accurate. Their results could be wiped out if I complain and they will feel like their hard work is for nothing. The other part of me knows that really I should report it.

I don’t blame the teachers for this. I think they’re put under so much stress and pressure to get a high number of their children to achieve expected level.

The teachers on this thread have posted on other recent threads regarding cheating and have vociferously urged the OK to report.

The examples this OP has given are different and do not constitute cheating.

I don’t blame the teachers for this.

I think you'll find the rest of us do! We're under the same amount of strain and maladministration pushes up the grade boundaries and makes it harder for all of us.

I agree that the examples the OP have given are different Feenie. However, I can still understand why she’s annoyed. It’s not the teachers she needs to be annoyed with, but the SATs system in general.

It seems ridiculous that all children are given a test at the same level where some children are unable to understand the questions and therefore need a teacher to rephrase it, or explain parts of it - what is the point in that. It must be distracting for the other children to listen to teachers explaining and rephrasing questions constantly. I would prefer they didn’t do tests like this at all at their age, but if they’re going to do it then surely there should be different levels because clearly these tests are inaccessible to some pupils if they can’t even understand the question as it’s written.

Yes, I completely take your point about other teachers being annoyed about the ones who cheat.

I guess I’m trying to empathise with why their teachers ( who are generally lovely people ) would stoop to this level. I know that I should report this, I think the headteacher is extremely worried that I will. Selfishly though, I don’t want this to cause problems for my 2 children in their last half term at school. I really am fighting with my conscience over this one.

All children are given the same opportunity to.ask and as long as teachers follow the v strict guidance then it's fine, and I can't agree with some of your post for the reasons already stated.

However, if you want me to comment on the whole assessment system as a whole, it's broken, and not what I came into teaching for 25+ years ago.

Roll on the NEU vote to boycott next year (ballot 4th June). The NEU are the old NUT combined with the ATL and are the biggest union. Last time (2010) the NAHT joined in. I think that's also on the cards this time (everything crossed).

the teacher was doing more than encouraging, for example she gave an example sentence to illustrate a modal verb

This example would absolutely not be allowed. Reading questions and a limited amount of rephrasing is ok, but it may well be that the teacher has crossed the line. Difficult to say for sure without more specific examples.

I reported my ds's school's maladministration 2 years ago, ladylannister - he was blatantly told to change answers. STA wanted his name and threatened me that his results alone would be annulled if I chose to blow the whistle. He was borderline and I ultimately decided I couldn't do that to him. They made me feel like I was the problem - as an experienced Y6 teacher, I was shocked. I would still urge anyone to report - at the very least they will have had LEA moderators turning up and breathing down their neck. Was fairly disillusioned knowing all the hoops I have to jump through.

I’ll keep my fingers crossed that they do vote to boycott them next year Feenie. I agree that there is something very wrong with the current system and sympathise with teachers like yourselves who have had to witness education progressively getting worse and worse.

I hope that they can eventually find a system which takes some of the pressure off the teachers and allows for a broader and more exciting curriculum for the children.

How does sats results affect kids? Isn’t it just a huge distraction and waste of time? I mean fair enough govt want to monitor school performance in general, but shouldn’t affect individual kids.

We've never stopped our broad and balanced curriculum. Amen to every other bit of your post though!

Namenic - your child 's individual results in Maths and English lead directly to the targets set for your individual child's targets for your child's school set by the dfe. Even Science - ignoring the TA your Y6 teacher has to legally report

Go figure!

How do targets for individuals matter? I mean surely the target is for most kids without SEN to do basic arithmetic, literacy, comprehension and ability to express themselves in writing? Do modal verbs etc help anyone? Might as well teach basic Latin if you’re going to that effort.

I home ed so i’m very Involved in my child’s education. I guess even if my child was at school i’d Be checking to see what level they were at and supplementing if they were weak in an area.

There's nothing basic about the tests or the targets. How the targets affect the individual child is down to the school - if a child has a relatively easy target, they may be reluctant to push them to achieve anything more, even if they are very capable, especially if they have children who are not. And the reverse is also possible - depends on how good the school is and what resources they have.

The biggest problem here is the fact that children have to sit these tests in the first place.

I’m a teacher in the Scottish system and we have just been completing our National Testing. There is no pressure (pupils and parents are told about them the day before in my school) and the results are used to give us an insight into areas for development.

There are three tests of approx half an hour to an hour long (reading, writing, numeracy). We don’t teach to the test, neither the teachers nor the pupils stress about the testing (my class love sitting them!).

It does impact on every child as each cohort determines the standard needed for the scaled scores. If some cheat it drives up a false standard meaning those who did it correctly are undervalued. It's wrong!

There is no pressure

Interesting! Nick Gibb said much the same thing about the SATs, that the children shouldn't even 'notice' them. Hard not to know you’re having a test when the powers that be insist that displays are covered, desks are in rows, smart watches confiscated, children escorted to the toilet, packets of test papers only opened in the test room then sent away to be externally marked with results reported 6 weeks later. Don’t know any 10/11 year olds who would fail to notice any of that - and none of that comes from teachers or the school. How is it managed in Scotland?

Reading the question is allowed.

Giving examples and explaining specific content isn't.

I have had secondary students claim they were sat in a different room during SATS with a member of staff who told them answers, that they would get help in class etc. The problem is that meant they had a high SATS score, so had to achieve higher at ks3 to be on target and they had a GCSE target that was a grade or more too high. The problem then arises when GCSEs are proper exams and staff aren't allowed near the papers or the exam hall. Schools cheating or bending rules at ks2 advantages the school and disadvantages the children long term.

I'd be quite happy for them to be scrapped.

It does affect them when they get to secondary as their indicative grades (the grades the government says they are most likely to achieve, and the grades secondary schools are measured by) are set mainly using ks2 sats results. If they have been coached to death/given answers, they end up with an artificially high score and very high indicative grades. I have some lovely girls who were clearly given answers, with indicatives of 8-9. They will never reach this and as a result, often feel like they are failing. They aren’t, it’s a knock on from their sats. Bloody horrendous.

Scotland don’t have them.

My daughter (7) had her last SATs paper yesterday which was spellings. Both her and her friend told us that the teacher had been "helping" and that she also explained answers in the maths paper too. You've got to remember, this is a text on the school and it's teaching, they're not overly bothered about the child. If the results come back bad, it looks bad on the school and their teaching. I totally don't agree in it, but looks like it happens quite often.

Haggisfish - I was responding to goatinthegarden's post and comparing SATs to National Testing in Scotland.

Ah-sorry!