Preparation for key stage 1 SATS

[Reallytired]

My son is in year 2 and will be sitting SATs either at the end of this term or in May. I am not sure how it works. Do children still sit tests or is it done on teacher assessment?

I found some old papers and mark schemes on the internet. It has been a bit of shock how rigid the mark scheme can be. I get the feeling that quite a few marks can be lost by not understand what is required, even if the child has no problem with the maths, reading or writing.

For example am I right thinking that in Maths if a question asks you to show working out and you only give an answer with no indication of what method you have used then the child will get a big fat zero. Even if their answer is right. Similarly a child can get a wrong answer but get a good proportion of the marks if they show they understand what they needed to do.

How do you make sure that a child has the best chance of showing off their ablity and not throw away marks. I really don't want my son to do practice papers or get stressed. He is only six and too young to have a care in the world.

However I do not want my son to end up in the bottom sets next year with the nightmare kids.

'but recognise that there is a huge range of abilities in any group of 30 probably more than in a smaller class' Mrs Z, great you are so supportive as a teacher but this comment about the range of 'abilities' worries me.

Given that only a small fraction of 'ability' has been proved to be 'fixed' surely they all currently have different levels of attainment? (Especially in primary). When we talk about 'ability' like that it suggests we 'believe' some are inherently 'quick' or some inherently 'slow', even if we don't if we talk about able children and not so able children at this point labels can stick and lead to self limiting beliefs amongst children. This worries me for all the reasons I've explored already. It worries me that teachers MIGHT be thinking 'Jenny has more ability than Zane etc. Rather than Jenny currently is a level 2 and Zane is working at level 1' to put it simply. Or maybe you mean current attainment when you say ability?

Also some of the NC levels etc, don't they presume (in the way that they are structured) that learning proceeds in a smooth upward path? When it often proceeds in a jerky, unpredictable sequence of insights, plateaus, regressions and frustrations (am quoting partly from Claxton here). If we don't understand that we may struggle when the going gets tough.

Thanks Feenie for the explanation about the 'W' by the way, this has gone a very long way to put my mind at rest, the fact that you can move up sub levels very quickly if a teacher can see that you've grasped the concepts etc, etc.

Am really enjoying this thread, some really great contributions .

Cortina in my Y2 class I have one child assessed by the EP as developmentally age 2 years 3 months. I also have a child whose understanding/processing of language has been assessed at the 0.1 percentile by SaLT ...
do you honestly think I should expect these children to cope with the same work as the rest of the class?

No, of course they will need differentiated work, that's not what I'm saying.

What I am saying is I fear there's a lot of intelligence out there being wasted out there by underestimating students potential to develop, I fear this can happen if we concentrate too much on inherent 'ability' and talk about 'ability' rather than current attainment.

What any person in the world can learn ALMOST all people can learn, if provided with the appropriate conditions of learning. Not counting the 2 to 3% of children who have severe impairments or children at the other end of the spectrum but EVERYONE else. Carol Dweck is very interesting on this and has done a huge amount of work to 'prove' this.

But cortina it isn't 2 or 3% of a typical class it's more like 10% more in some schools.

That doesn't mean that we should think in a fixed way about 'ability' IMO for all the reasons I've explained.

I don't think I do think in a fixed way about "ability" but I think perhaps you do if not in the way you believe others to.

ha, sorry, but that I think is rubbish that 98% of people will be able to reach the same. I certainly do know I will never ever reach/be able to do certain things. To believe otherwise wuld be kidding myself. Yes, of course I could do certain things better if I worked harder. The fact itself that certain poeple are able to do the same things as me with a lot less effort, doesn't that mean there abilty in that is better then mine?

Perhaps they were in the extension group when they were 4?

I think Cortina is talking about potential and potential attainment. She is saying that just because someone has a more natural ability at one subject, it does not mean that a person with less natural ability doesn't have the potential to get the same marks in a SATS test. I think she is right, one pupil may need to work harder than the other, but if they do so, then they will reach the same target. One pupil may be slower than another, but if they apply themselves, they will reach the same target. Aesop explained this by the example of the arrogant hare and the slower tortoise who eventually won the race.

Most children are capable of reaching the same goals even though some will have to work harder and some will take longer. If this does not happen and their potential is not fulfilled then it is due to the structure of the classroom of 30 pupils and the quality of personal attention and tuition that each individual receives. If most of the children on the bottom table were given good 1-to-1 tuition they would soon improve and if the tuition they received was regular, they would soon be on the top table. I used to tutor children many years ago, and I was able to increase their grades substantially. It is not impossible.

I think Cortina is right that in a busy classroom, it is possible that "there's a lot of intelligence out there being wasted by underestimating students potential to develop". This is the reason that many parents choose to home-school their children, in order to provide them with this quality 1-to-1 tuition. We know from this forum that Riven home-schooled her kids with tremendous results, and the fact that Riven's daughter will be going to Cambridge and her sons will be going to top universities, was helped by Riven's quality tuition. If you read about the child prodigies going to Cambridge at a young age, you find that nearly all of them were home-schooled. Nearly anything is possible with quality 1-to-1 tuition. The problem is it is too expensive and therefore parents have to hope that their schools will be able to nurture the enormous potential that their children have. The parents should be mindful that if their children are underperforming, it is not because they are not capable, instead it shows that they need more personal tuition.

Unfortunately claig I don't have a bottom table or even a top table but my strugglers do get a short daily 1-1 as do my high fiers.
If only the school day was longer and I could split myself into at least 6 people...

agree with you mrz, schools do a fantastic job, but it is impossible to give 1-to-1 tuition to all the class

Thirdname, there are genetic differences in peoples intelligence but these are smaller than first thought. For everyone there is a wide envelope of variation around the base point that depends on experience, encouragement and self-belief. Surprisingly little is really known and understood about the brain, it seems that research goes on and on. What's true is that most of us are capable of more than we think.

I thought like you when I first started reading up on all of this. It really is true that what one person can learn pretty much anyone else can learn. Sure, you may learn more slowly, sure there will be the small percentage of extremely gifted people that can do more, sadly those with real learning impairments won't reach the same level, but EVERYONE else can learn what the person sitting next to them can learn. I know I bang on about it on here but Dweck's 'Mindset' really does, I think, prove this. She and others have done a huge amount of research.

The danger is if you believe that the person sitting next to you has more inherent 'ability' it puts a ceiling on how far you think you can go and how far you will be prepared to try. What's the point? It's not very smart, is it, waste of time if your partner/friend at the next table has more ability, you can never be as good.

I thought like this and it stopped me, right in my tracks at 7 years old when I couldn't draw a combine harvester like my friends. Well there were many different incidents, you get my drift. . If someone had messaged to me that I COULD do what the top table were doing with effort, and time it would have made the world of difference to how I saw myself and more importantly how I learned.

It was if a fog descended and an anxiety, I thought I didn't understand what I was being told, I daren't tell anyone when I was stuck for fear of judgement (I was at the limit of my ability - yikes don't tell anyone, no way out)! Why did they get it and I didn't? Then I gave up, decided I'd never get Maths etc and spent my lessons writing in my notebook in the back of the class.

Think you'll agree not really a conducive environment to learning or a great attitude and I expect I can't be the only one.

This is why I worry about the concept of 'ability' tables. Claig you are spot on again about what I was driving at. I think if everyone called them 'attainment' tables and parents and children alike believed that they were about where a child was currently with their learning it would be a great stride forward. Most I know believe that there are 'clever' and 'slow' children in the class and these labels tend to stick - more from the parents than the teachers I'd add.

If 'ability' is deeply entrenched in the classroom then the danger is it makes re-categorising a child very difficult. A run of poor results in an 'able' child is perhaps a result of problems at home, or getting in with the wrong crowd. A 'slow' child that suddenly does well is credited with a surge of effort when the reality may just be that the labels were not so black and white in the first place.

I also don't like it when parents and others talk about 'ability' in children as I think it can be so self limiting for all the reasons I've mentioned, no ability has a ceiling.

By the way I didn't know that about Riven, very interesting and wonderful to hear.

It does worry me that schools label children so early as 'high fliers' or 'strugglers' and apply additional help accordingly.

What about the children in the middle?

My experience is that my son's teachers have admittedly so little knowledge of the children in their class that they rely on parents to tell them what reading level their child should be on.

I asked my son's teachers about his literacy/numeracy levels (he is in Year 2, bright but with SEN - DCD and ASD) and they haven't the foggiest as it hasn't got to the time of year when they do their assessments.

So, how is reliance on teaching assessment rather than formal tests going to present a more accurate picture of anything other than initial working assumptions about children's abilities which are reinforced by applying additional resources only to those defined as 'top' or 'bottom'.

I speak as someone from a very humble background and a very 'bog standard' comp, who got a first from Oxford. I would never hothouse or get private tutors for my child as I have no desire to engage in the competitive system that now drives our education system which seems to value only test scores and ticking boxes to confirm the correctness of teacher's expectations over and above individual potential and ingenuity.

debs40 there must be something woefully wrong with your son's school if they really are so clueless. I'd honestly think about moving if it's genuinely that bad. DS is in a hugely varied Yr1 class, so some kids can't speak English, others are reading books way above their years. The teacher knows where each child is by weekly one to one reading, daily guided reading where she gets feedback from TA's and parent helpers if the kids aren't in the group she's taking and also via regular assessments throughout the term. I may be wrong, but I don't think that level of input is that unusual. I help in the class as a parent helper, so I know it's true.

Debs40, smee is right, the situation you describe regarding teacher assessment is woeful and VERY unusual - Y2 teacher assessment was changed in 2005, so most schools started there and changed the rest of the school's assessment procedures to bring them in line.

Thanks. I have wondered. They are supposed to be an Ofsted 'outstanding' school - not the reason we went thrre I hasten to add. We actually tried another school first as this seemed too cold and clinical.

Year 1 was ok but this year is dreadful. I have just sat in on an open lesson where the teaching was trying to teach suffixes. Given that this was a lesson for parents to come and see 'literacy in action' it was pretty awful. I couldn't follow what she was saying half the time and my son sat in front of me with his white board drawing guns and star wars figures.

This is a class of two teachers who have said he's fine all year so I've had to drag in the external agencies involved with him to tell school he has 'complex needs', argue so that he is put on SA+ with an IEP, argue again so that he actually gets some provision under that scheme and then get told by the head that I'm causing her teachers 'stress' by asking questions.

It's not good is it? Mmmmm, I know..... what to do though? I've had to stay with him for half an hour this morning as he didn't want to go in and have to pick him up for lunch as he doesn't want to stay (he has sensory issues and problems eating in the canteen). I'm supposed to be working.

Sorry for hijack!!

Maybe try again with another meeting? Does sound shoddy though. Your poor son. Or have a quiet look at other schools close by. Though if he's got lots of mates and is broadly happy socially that might not be a sane way through. Hope you get something sorted soon.

Thanks. I am supposed to be seeing head about SEN issues but they've already got very defensive. I feel like I'm walking on egg shells trying to be encouraging and diplomatic when actually what is going on is pretty dire. The alternative is to express a true opinion but I know what the response will be to that ....we are an outstanding school blah, blah.

Incidentally, we have a grammar school system here too which I am convinced has a huge impact on primary education. Schools become caught up in the rush to get children to level4/5 by the end of year 5 so they can stand a chance of getting in against all the private preps around here. There are no private secondary schools here as why would you need that when the state can pay for you to have an exclusive education with your middle class pals for free? If you fail, parents bus their kids out to the next county to attend decent comps. It's a disgrace.

Sorry, that's another issue altogether but the system means some kids get 'written off' very early

Couldn't agree more about selective schooling having an effect. Am lucky we don't have that where we live. There's another post on the same subject running at the moment. About a mother wondering if she should get her son a tutor so he can get into Grammar later on. He's only in Yr1...

Believe me, it is no surprise and I can see why because others do it, people think they have to. Instead of thinking there is more to intelligence than an 11+ test. What happened to allowing children to develop thinking minds for themeselves and their own pace?

My state school in the 80s was far from perfect and was actually considered to be pretty poor but you were always allowed to come up with your own ideas and encouraged to do so. This stood me in good stead when I went to university. I saw some students from top public schools struggle (I'm not saying all but some) when they were not being spoonfed the 'right answer'. I was used to figuring stuff out for myself and also used to getting stuff badly wrong sometimes too so it wasn't such a challenge!

I think ensuring that all schools teach to a certain standard is a good idea but being so prescriptive about what a child should 'know' by a certain age is absolute nonsense and bears no relation to how intelligent a child is....the same goes for the 11+ in my book.

debs you are most wise. The only people who get anything from all the stress of it seem to me to be the tutors.

Agreed. I didn't appreciate that this was the nature of the system here when my son started school. Now I think we will have to move before secondary school as this type of system is pernicious and undermining and is ruining local primary education.

This is one of the reasons we are hanging fire at the current school.

Just need to find somewhere to live that has good, progressive, inclusive primaries ...or at least one...any ideas?????

Hackney's fab imo. Obviously not without it's problems, but there are some really lovely primaries. Secondaries are banded, so all schools have to take 20% of kids from each ability. Far fairer and stops pushy middle classes taking over schools too - though not wholly obviously. Can't fight human nature.

Getting far away from original post....we used to live in London..Holloway rd...oh to be able to go back to the big city!!

I know we're being bad hijacking. But there's a lot to be said for living in the inner city. Though I know a lot on here would think me mad for saying that.