New standard testing starting soon at a school near you... Will we know the results?

[Arkadia]

Does anyone know if we can see how your child (P1, P4, P7 or S2) or the school as a whole have fared? I have been trying to find out some information, but could find nothing.
What has surprised me is that my primary where my DD (P4) will be sitting this test next week has been doing A LOT of revision all this week and will carry on doing so until test day next week.

There were some fair questions that asked about rhyme and phonological awareness. But 2 independent reading parts that were full of complex vocabulary that even my most able readers struggled with.

I felt sorry for them because I wasn’t allowed to help them and they had to just stare at it until I reminded them they can skip to the questions where they could just guess.

Pretty bird I think you are referring to 5-14 which is the curriculum I was taught under. I remember vaguely doing the tests but you’re right that it was more of ‘when you’re reasy’ approach as opposed to an everyone has to do it approach.

There is a survey that can be filled out for Connect about the P1 assessment: www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/FK7Y7DC

You can also ask to withdraw your child from testing if you feel strongly about them undertaking the test

But why the aura of mystery... Why don't they just show what the test was like and the mistakes made, if any?
"That is only part of the assessment" to me is code for "you are not to be told otherwise you are going to make a fuss".
I am told (by the teacher) that the assessment for the P4 was "reasonable" (which I think means it was "easy"), but still we can't be trusted with it.
Considering that there is the age old problem that we have NO IDEA what goes on within the school gates, that was a chance to get to know a bit more, but it doesn't look that way.

i agree arkadia, i can understand why marks and position in class is perhaps withheld for assessments, but why you don't get detailed strengths and weaknesses inputs from the annual twice yearly internal assessments and/or these broader benchmarks is difficult to fathom.

the aim of the tests is really to check standards across schools rather than look at individual pupils though. in essence, to flag up if the teacher's professional judgement is on the money - i'm really not getting what it is you want to know from the test/what would be meaningful for your own child?

there will be wider stats available later in the year but the govt will prob make it as difficult as possible to understand because they really don't want to turn this into a league table. and they're right in one way because teachers/schools should be getting judged on the difference they're making rather than whether or not a class of kids from affluent backgrounds do better than a class of kids from a deprived backgrounds. the real measurement will be in ten years time when you can track classes through several tests at different stages.

i would also agree with PB - my DD got 6 As at Higher last year inc English, but couldn't read at the end of P1 and only got it in P2 so would presumably have done miserably in the literacy stuff - none of this is any real measure as to how an individual child will do in future...

Quite frankly, ANY information that is more than the usual waffle would be welcome. As I don't know what they are supposed to do, what target they are supposed to meet, what level they should be working on, and more in general what they do at school I am not that particular....
And anyway, @Sturmundcalm, why should I have a special reason to see a national test that my child has sat, as opposed to be shown it by default? Shouldn't it be a basic right?
Also, I bet that those who found it difficult to read the P1 reading test is because they don't really do phonics at school (just like my school doesn't). It would be interesting to see it, but we are not deemed worthy...
Why is it so bad to check whether standards are falling (even further) or not? Must we find out only when it might be too late or much more difficult to take any action?

Yes, exactly what arcadia said, why isn't it a basic right to see the results of any test your child has sat? Why do we have to have the special cases of late developers being used as a reason to not give this information to anyone, surely the fact that your kid wasn't developmentally ready in P1 is a valid reason the teacher would give for why the test results weren't particularly relevant for your child sturm rather than being used as a general rule not to tell people anything about the tests.

And if there's really no point testing P1s because there are so many non standard cases at that age, why are they being tested?

Why are the scottish government so afraid of external verification and league tables?

@Arkadia, my school uses phonics to teach children how to read, alongside sight words that can’t be sounded out with phonics.

With regards to it all being ‘cloak and dagger’, the teachers have been told not to give out the information. The order comes from higher up so we follow it.

If your child’s teacher was concerned about your child’s progress or thought they were above where they should be, they should be communicating that with you without the need of a test. The teacher may also not necessarily agree with the results of the test because they see the child’s work daily and know if they are capable of something as opposed to one computer test sat over 30 minutes. I know that some of the marks my class have come back with, I disagree with because I work with these children daily and have seen they are more than capable of doing these things. I certainly wouldn’t be flagging any concern because they got one question wrong on a test.

got to wonder at some point whether parents will refuse to let their children sit tests that they're not going to be getting any information about, where people in general aren't party to any results and where neither the school nor the govt is going to be held to any account for these tests.

@cornishstripes parents are able to withdraw their child from testing if they so wish.
As for accountability, this is the first year of SNSA so not sure what will happen with results (I’ve just started maternity so a bit out of the loop!). With the tests before (I can only speak for the council I worked in), teachers would have meetings with their headteacher to discuss the children’s results, especially if any were seen to contradict teachers judgement. Plans were put in place for children who scored highly and those whose score was below average. Those whose scores were average were assumed to be at the correct pace for their learning. (Terminology used in context of results, I would never say a child was average or below/higher)

thanks hoop - congratulations on the baby btw!

I find it so interesting that if my DD is not scoring high or too low, she's deemed to be achieving her potential - sorry for the ranty posts, I need to go back to her school as I find the feedback frustratingly vague and it has been like that for 3 years, very little concrete feedback at all.

Thank you!

If I’m honest, I wouldn’t put too much on the feedback teachers are getting from the test. The sheets we get tell us the following:
1st sheet- where your child scores on the test, either high, medium or low
2nd sheet- a little bit more detail on specific areas but it’s all based on if they got the question right or wrong e.g they may need to work on reading a calendar if they couldn’t answe the respective question on calendars
3rd and 4th sheet- tells you the type of question they answered (quite vague and in education speak as opposed to just saying what the question is!)
5th sheet- compares your child with their classmates.

When all the tests are done it highlights if there was an area that the whole class struggled with/did well with.

My impression (and again this can vary council to council) is that as long as no one was to produce a huge shock (top group child scoring low or vice versa), there won’t be too much of a concern. I did have a look at the P4 numeracy test as I was supporting a couple of children in a quieter environment and it seemed like a fair test. The tests are designed to get more difficult if the child gets it right and easier if the child is getting them wrong.
However I also think the results will be used to produce league tables a la England and I don’t feel it’s necessarily a fair representation. Obviously if you have concerns about the teaching in a school or your child’s progress, raise it with the school. I just hope it doesn’t mean parents moving their kids around to the ‘best’ schools. I work in a school in a deprived areas and I’ve never met a harder working group of staff that consistently want to challenge the children they teach and provide an excellent education, based on the child’s abilities.

@hoopdeloop, re phonics I rest my case ;)

I know that the "cloak and dagger" is not the school's fault. The whole issue is SO toxic that there is no right answer the current government can give. As (in MY experience) the school is in no way accessible, the parents are going to suffer because totally disenfranchised. The kids MIGHT suffer too, who knows... We don't know what is going on.

@cornishstripes, I hope it is NOT the way you are saying. Scoring as expected does not equate at all as working at full potential. Potentially, if you pardon my pun, it could be quite the opposite I would say.

So, in any case, I will know something when the report cards comes in, which is the Friday before the last day of school. Fat chance we will have ANY possibility to discuss anything. And anyway, what would there be to discuss as I don't have any reference point?

Also, I bet that those who found it difficult to read the P1 reading test is because they don't really do phonics at school (just like my school doesn't). It would be interesting to see it, but we are not deemed worthy...

No. The P1 comprehension is difficult. The majority of the words are not decodable using the first forty sounds, which forms the backbone of the P1 curriculum.

Many children who are doing well with phonics would have been unable to read it.

One of the biggest problems I had with the P1 test was the length and the gap between the acceptable questions and the wildly too difficult ones. A lot of mine gave up and lost marks on questions which they should have been able to answer.

With regards to the old 5-14 testing, it was a) much more appropriate and b) a paper exercise. You could quite easily set the rest off and complete Level A without too much bother.

To complete these ones a P1 child had to sit in a quiet room for at least forty minutes. It just couldn't be done in a class.

@NiamhFromAcrossTheRoad it would be interesting to know how that paper was set. Is there any way to see it?
It could be that since the higher echelons don't have a clear idea of what phonics entails, they misjudged it.

Here is an interesting article that sheds some insight on this all affair:
gg1952.blogspot.com/2018/05/testing-times-for-scotland.html
it doesn't answer the basic question of WHY we cannot see it, but at least there is some info on why some complained about them.
It seems that most of the grievances revolve around the P1 assessment (and some seems reasonable, but without looking at the paper it is impossible to have the full picture), the rest looks a lot like moaning for the sake of moaning ;)

I never felt that there was a barrier at the school gate, both ds' primary and secondary were aka ways very open to working with the parents.

The primary in particular always talked about the fact that education was a 3 legged process: school, child and parents. It did workshops and even produced a video about how to support our children at home.

The secondary school also did/does evenings for parents to explain study skills and also does a lot of work (to be fair, it has specific funding for this) to increase parental engagement amongst those that traditionally don't get involved.

At primary, even after the 5-14 testing stopped and we were left with useless reports saying your child is performing as expected , they were very good at writing reports to let us know that ds was performing well (and would do well at secondary). If we ever did have a concern (in P3 and P5), the headteacher dealt with them quickly (after initially getting an unsatisfactory response from the teacher). But I had also made a point of getting involved with the Parent Council (and School Board, before it and the PTA evolved into the Parent Council) so that I knew and got on well with the headteacher and her depute.

But according to ds, some of the kids from the feeder primaries to his secondary had obviously not been working to the required standards, as they struggled going into S1 (he would name which of the feeder primaries were the "problem" ones).

No, they are only available via networked LA computers.

Although it is supposedly designed to become harder/ easier as the pupil gets questions right or wrong there are clearly only so many questions in the bank.

Releasing the questions to the general public would be silly. Pushy parents would immediately start drilling their children, others would be worried that their child cannot do x y and z. Etc etc.

@niamh, I don't see why...I imagine that the questions will change yearly and different areas will be explored. What is wrong with knowing what some people think you should know?
@pretty, our school organized a workshops on literacy and one on numeracy, and everyone, including the HT, is there if you want to talk to them. However it doesn't go passed the lip service level. Our HT is VERY good at managing people ;)
The big maths Worksop was OK (although I understood it better a couple of years later when I had another look at the material). The one on literacy was crap. The teacher was ill prepared and didn't teach us a lot.

That's a shame Arkadia - it certainly wasn't lip service at ds' school.

That's why I wasn't overly concerned that ds couldn't read (properly) until towards the end of P2. They encouraged us to encourage him to find things he wanted to read - even if that was "Captain Underpants" Eventually, it was his desire to be able to check the Queens Park football scores for himself that got him really motivated!

Even when he got bored for nearly a year, while he was "between" reading groups (moved back into the top group at the end of P4), we were ok as the school was very constructive and encouraged us to free read (after he'd waltzed through his reading homework ).

And now he's off to Uni to do a "reading heavy" degree.

Arkadia it sounds as though your school has a problem communicating that predates the introduction of standard testing. I can see why that's very frustrating.

As a parent, I quite liked the 5-14 stuff, as least you had a clue about how your child was doing. I don't have any DC that will be involved in the new tests. The interveneing years between 5-14 finishing and now have been like a wasteland for me as a parent. I don't want a report telling me that you've been doing the Romans this term, I know that, I've seen the homework. I actually want to know how my child is doing.

DS2 passed his level C reading in P2, the teacher was able to wait until a suitable subject came up in the testing as some were not great for a 6 year old (I remember her mentioning one on vandalism which he would have no experience of). She said to me one day at pick up that she was going to test him the next day and the subject was likely to be eskimos so it might be worth checking that he knew what they were. I asked DS2 and his response was "don't you mean inuits?". I left it at that...

It doesn't sound like the replacement is focussed on the child.

Small update. I sent an email to the HT who, as always, was very prompt at pressing the "reply" button.
So, I was told that they have to attend a training course first to make sense of it all and then we can have a chat in august when the school starts again (well, after all these tests were only 3 years in the making, so there wasn't enough time to instruct everyone...)

BTW, I have found this page where the tests are described:
standardisedassessment.gov.scot/more-about-assessments-and-reports/#heading-9514
there is a sample report for a P4. I just hope we are going to see something a bit less waffly

I've not heard of these assessments before

Arkadia that's interesting. I'm shocked if the example questions are for Third Year.