According to Mr Balls the majority of parents appreciate KS2 SATS.

[OrmIrian]

Not on MN they don't seem to.

Not in RL IME.

So where are they then?

no no no, you're not understanding how it works.

They state as fact, things that they wish were the case, or things that fit in with policy, or things that would make them right/popular if they were true.

The reality of a situation is never a problem for a politician. They just ignore it. Much like sticking your fingers in your ears and going "la-la-la-la-laaaaa"

Ohohhh. I see. How stupid of me. We are all on message even when we aren't. I see.

Now you get it.

It's the same thing, really, that happens when they get asked a question they don't want to answer.

They pretend they were asked a different question altogether.

It's quite a skill hecate. Perhaps they should include it in Yr 6 SATs?

They probably got Sir Humphrey Appleby to design their survey....

Mr Balls is talking bollocks!

Indeed memoo. But its politician bollocks so a better class of gonad probably

It is probably true that KS2 SAT results are what a lot of parents look at when "choosing" a primary school, because there's not much else to go on except other parents' opinions or gut feelings when visiting.

It doesn't mean they "appreciate" them

Sooner they go the better.

(MN Towers, can you get that nice Mr Balls on here to give him an alternative viewpoint?)

I think Mr Balls lives in La La land. He's not really in touch with either parents, teachers or children. Typical MP!

have just read the OP to dp
'oh ffs. what bollocks'
so, we're all aggreed then!

Balls by name, balls by nature.

I do in a way. They made the school pull itself together and make sure that my disabled dd got a chance to catch up with the work she'd missed when they wouldn't allow for her disability.

That is the kind of situation when I think SATS can be useful: as a kick up the backside of the school.

Also, I have to say the school did handle the SATS in a positive way: as a learning opportunity. I imagine it will also help in getting ds the equipment he needs (the school is bound to care more about his SATS results than I do). So please don't go and abolish them until that laptop has materialised!

Fair enough cory! I must admit it was the first time ever DS#1 stepped up to the plate. But in terms of their educational effectiveness in the full sense, they were a waste of time and hugely stressful for staff and pupils.

And there is something so invidious in the assumption that teachers and schools can't be trusted that it demeans the whole process.

They weren't actually very stressful for the pupils when dd did them. Depends on the school. They don't have to be.

And tbh before the SATS there were teachers who couldn't be trusted with education. Ever read Kes? I believe Barry Hines was a teacher.

And I have vivid memories of a teacher telling my Dad that her pupils were too dim to learn her subject so she talked to them about other things instead.

Under the old regime there were plenty of teachers who thought it was a waste of time trying to teach the bottom set/children from the estates/pupils of the sink schools anything. Now at least they can't get away with that.

I think it's important to look at the history of primary school- if not all testing in UK state education. When I went through many moons ago, it was entirely possible to go from 4 to 16 with the 11+ as the only form of public exam you ever sat. You could basically fail every step of the way and no one KNEW til you were 16 and got one grade 5 CSE. OK, this was also back in the days before primary reports, homework or parents evenings, too, so a parent had no way of gauging their DC's progress.

At secondary, as happened at my DBs SM, every parents evening was a continuum of 'X is doing fine' right up until his CSEs then SUDDENLY 'We don't know WHAT'S gone wrong, he's stopped working/concentrating/started mucking around'.. and X fails. BUT funnily enough EVERY parent my parents knew from that school had EXACTLY the same experience- wildly successful Y7-10, then a lamentable failure on the part of the DC in Y11. Funny, that...mm.

Now, I think SATS are badly misused. But the answer is surely to ban the state wide publication of results, ie league tables. THEY'RE the problem, not testing, per se.
Fwiw, I like to have a quantifiable measure of my DSs strengths and weaknesses and I think it's good that the school's overall standards and, importantly, value adding are scrutinised somewhere along the line.

Finally, I wonder what alternative those who want to abolish SATS would come up with? I mean, in this day and age, we ALL want to be informed every step of the way of every nuance of our DC's progress, don't we, and I believe I read somewhere that the teachers in Wales who have abandoned SATS are up to their eyeballs setting, marking and analysing the alternative! Be careful what you wish for....!

So though I think Balls is a twat, I'm not anti SATS.

But faraday, as we do have parents evening, reports and internal tests/exams in school, why do we need SATs. Unless we simply don't trust our schools. WHich is a truly awful state of affairs.

Not forgetting last summer's complete f* up with the marking. DS#1 didn't get his complete results until September

I didn't go through the state system, but as far as I remember, we were constantly tested and monitored.

faraday "When I went through many moons ago, it was entirely possible to go from 4 to 16 with the 11+ as the only form of public exam you ever sat. You could basically fail every step of the way and no one KNEW til you were 16 and got one grade 5 CSE." so what's changed it is possible to go from 4 -16 with KS2 SATs at age 11 being the only public exam you ever sat....

"English children are tested longer, harder and younger than anywhere else in the world, according to an influential report that compares school standards in 22 countries.

Primary schools in England are obsessed with tests and put pupils through ?pervasive? assessment, according to researchers from the Cambridge University-led Primary Review. "

primary review

I quite like SATs. My DS is doing them next week and he does seem to know something. When I was at primary school we didn't do any physics or chemistry and hardly any English. It was all country dancing and basket weaving.

SATs may not be perfect, but they are better than the total lack of accountability that seemed to exist when I was a pupil.

I have to agree with faraday. It's the league tables that are the root of the problem. Without them, the pressure which comes down from LEA's to Headteachers to Key stage managers to teachers and thus to the children would be greatly reduced.
You see, it's not really about children, it's all about targets and they start at the Govt and filter down.
In KS3 where SATs have been abolished, many teachers are still giving optional/old SATs papers to assess the kids. They still need to report results to those above. SAT's is a tried and tested method of doing this.
Only when league tables are abolished will this pressure in schools be reduced.
I do believe that ongoing assessment is vital, but does not have to be given in test like forms.

I can see why there could be formal assessment papers for the benefit of secondary schools, but they needn't be published; in any case secondary schools do their own assessments in Y7, don't they?

Ditto internal exams in Y3, Y4, Y5, Y7, Y8 & Y9. National exams, yes - published results & league tables, no.

Cat, that's the whole point though isn't it? You cannot imagine what my school was like because when we were pupils there was no national curriculum and no standardisation. So at some schools there was a huge amount of formal work and testing and other schools were very progressive. When I went to middle school we had no set lessons apart from PE. There were topic ideas and worksheets in drawers and you chose what you wanted to do all week. Some people would spend the whole year doing art. My parents didn't choose that sort of education for me; it just happened to be my local state school. SATs and the national curriculum ended that sort of educational style. There were some benefits to my education but I would rather my children did the SATs.

ponder - IME, yes they do. DS#1 sat CAT tests at the end of the summer term before he was due to leave primary. At his secondary school. In fact his new school didn't know the SATs results until they asked me at his December parents evening.

I can only imagine that my school was hot on parents evenings, reports and constant testing because it was a private school and parents wanted grades for their money

League tables are without a doubt the real problem IMO.

OK, so in fact this ISN'T about SATS as such as all, is it? It's their misuse in the form of league tables that vexes us.

Random comments on the above:

"so what's changed- it is possible to go from 4 -16 with KS2 SATs at age 11 being the only public exam you ever sat....

-THAT'S because parent and teacher pressure abolished KS1 and KS2 SATS!

"From after the February half term they practised and practised. P.E, art and all the fun things went out the window."

-That's an example of a school, driven by its league table position, misusing SATS rather than to get an overview of progress.

"But faraday, as we do have parents evening, reports and internal tests/exams in school, why do we need SATs. Unless we simply don't trust our schools. WHich is a truly awful state of affairs."

-yes, and as I outlined above, back when I was at school (66-80 fwiw!) schools COULD and DID fudge those! Who's checking the rigour and standard of those internal tests? How do we ACCEPT that "Jonny's doing really well" means anything- against what standard?

"I didn't go through the state system, but as far as I remember, we were constantly tested and monitored."

• well, I did but I went to an academically rigorous, endlessly tested girls grammar which suited me fine but I recognise that my experience was by no means typical of the general state of state education back in the 70s! You really needed to SEE your own DB come home from his SM in Y9 struggling with maths I KNEW he'd been capable of at the end of Y6 because we were in the same composite class to see the value of SATS.

An after-thought: Might it be that those amongst us who oppose this testing regime have high attaining DCs who we KNOW are doing very well in very good schools (which we 'trust' implicitly) thus we are annoyed that our DCs may be having the 'extras' squeezed out of their educational experience by the tyranny of the league table that SATS results are used towards?