Scottish National Standardised Tests - results sharing

[User450246]

My dd is being tested this year (p4), but the school aren’t sharing any results - they say it informs general assessments and gets fed back as part of next teacher meeting in a non specific way but the next teacher meeting is October, will be a different teacher by then and in the 5 minute consultation the feedback amounts to ‘fine’ and has no meaningful content.

Does anyone else’s school share the SNSA results?
Do we have a legal right to see the test results?

This might be of interest - it's from the National Parent Forum Facebook page:

National Parent Forum Scotland
23 April at 13:44 ·
Today the Education and Skills Committee published its report on Scottish National Standardised Assessments.

NPFS highlighted the negative impact of deciding not to publicise the new SNSAs to parents. See Point 95 on page 25.

Have a skim of the full report here: sp-bpr-en-prod-cdnep.azureedge.net/…/ESS052019R3.pdf
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I’m so glad they are saying what I directly feel - repeated lack of good, direct information.

I also don’t understand why saying the tests aren’t a complete picture is again and again used as a reason to tell us nothing. Are gcse results a complete picture, or any test?

As my DS2 has just left S6 then it's not really relevant for me any more. However, my DC started school with the 5-14 curriculum and I'm sure it had issues that I don't know about, but you did get better information about how your DC were doing. Reports weren't simply a description of what they could do, they indicated the level they were working at and you could see what the normal age band for that level was. They'd also occasionally do reading and writing assessments and they'd tell you their reading age etc. After the change, you had no idea how they were doing until after the first set of high school prelims/exams.

Yes I’ve got no idea of my dd’s reading level, maths ability, spelling or any other detailed measure except that she’s in the normal range and lacks confidence - but there’s never a plan about what we should do about that!

It really is a dismal state of affairs - it’s really hard to help them when you don’t know what to work on.

Exactly. My DS2 was top of class through primary and when he hit High School he really disappeared of the radar (excellent behaviour so didn't cause any issues) and it wasn't until his first lot of exams that we realised he had issues which is now looking like dyspraxia. We are now in the position of playing catch up and trying to get him a diagnosis for Uni. I think if we'd had a better idea earlier that he wasn't performing where he should be we might have been more forceful. Not blaming anyone in particular, just as a reasonably engaged parent it wasn't highlighted or obvious to me so how do kids without that manage to get what they need. At least if you got reports showing, for example, that they still hadn't achieved level C at age 11 or whatever, you would be asking questions earlier and trying to engage appropriate support.

Dismal it is.

We now get the secondary report with its levels. This child looks identical to the first by these levels but is in a completely different place, I believe.

At primary I did think about asking for the test results but bottled out.

They aren’t really results though. It only tells you whether the results are in the high, medium or low band!

I might see if I can freedom of information the results, I’m looking at booking dd into extra tuition so I can get better feedback as attempts to find anything out from the school are a dead loss so far.

How did Scottish education end up like this, contentless and we can’t tell you anything you need to trust us?

There is no joined up thinking either - my dd has been listed as lacking confidence in every year and then by the end of that year we get a bit of waffle about her having improved a bit but never any recommendations or longer term approach.

loopy that would be significantly more information than I’ve got at present.

I have 18 year old DS1 that has been the same all the way through school, I've asked for support, been promised things and then they haven't happened, then promised things again that didn't happen and they keep saying that it's vital that we get something in place for him but then don't do anything. Now he goes to Uni or sits in his bedroom and has less confidence than ever. Obviously this isn't completely down to them but if they hadn't kept telling me they were putting things in place then I would have known that they weren't and pushed elsewhere. It's difficult because I can't really see how he is in a group of his peers as i don't have hundreds of kids in my house and obviously his behaviour at home is completely different. Anyway. I digress...

I can understand your frustration.

Not what you are asking but I'll throw this in for good measure:

I think for confidence other activities can be a great boost. I've known children who have done well at things as varied as music, drama, football or dance and it has had a knock on effect at school.

My post was to Op but looks a bit daft after i cross posted with yours WaxOn.

Sorry to hear about your son. He's not alone in finding refuge in his room, I know a couple of mums of lads of similar age who have told me the same thing. It's a very tricky stage.

My dd is worn down by the end of school, I struggle to get her to go to anything extra although we’re at a particular low point and I hope she might consider doing something extra curricular down the line.

My ds did loads of extra curiccular stuff. Scouts, dofe, swimming, judo, art etc. Didn't seem to make any difference though I guess it might have been worse without those things. I would recommend scouts though as it's a bit of everything and has loads of opportunities.

I deliver SNSAs to S3 pupils . They tell us bugger all and can't (in isolation) be used to assign a CFR level. It's a data gathering exercise for government .

I hate CFE reporting and effort related grades as a teacher and a mother. I can't communicate what I want to say and knew next to nothing about how my DDs were progress prior prelims. Not their teachers' fault they are confined by a crap system.

But why should they be gathering data I don’t have the right to see or have explained to me? Any data gathering has drawbacks, but as a parent I should have a right to see what was tested and the results even if it is partial information.

Partial information is not worse than no information. Partial information and drawbacks can be communicated.

I'm in primary and pretty much agree with Lidlfix. I would say that SNSA has merely backed up what we already know about our children, but doesn't tell us anything new. It's been quite useful for teachers identifying areas of literacy and numeracy that need more teaching input or consolidation however.

In our school the data would be shared by request but only as part of a wider conversation about the whole range of evidence we have about the pupil's learning. It certainly wouldn't be posted out to be viewed on its own because it would be wide open to misinterpretation. Could OP ask for the data in that context?

Also I think it's worth noting that if you child's reports don't actually tell you much about levels and next steps, that type of information should be being shared with parents at other points of the year or in other ways eg through pupil profiles. Could your Parent Council take up the issue, if they haven't already?

Yes I’ve nothing against the statement that any test is a partial picturing and that there is a more general issue that I’ll follow up on about overall lack of any detail in feedback

Our parent council is good but mostly made up by non working teachers who don’t really understand the lack of feedback as presumably they have a much better idea of how their children are doing.

That's a shame - but they're in a great position to help the HT share information more readily as they will have a good understanding of the kind of info the school is gathering. They have a duty to represent the entire parent body at the end of the day, so if other parents are saying they're not well enough informed they should be bringing the issue up.

Well I’m on our Parent Council and it’s constantly brought up that the feedback from teachers doesn’t tell us how our kids are doing. It’s a shite system. Parents constantly point out they know more about their nephew’s learning/grades in England and Ireland than they do about their own kids. Parents seem to be getting more fed up with the supposed Curriculum for Excellence and there’s no one to complain too.

All I want to know is whether my 9 year old is at the top, bottom or average in his class. I shouldn’t have to wait until high school exams to find out.

Sorry, to answer your question our school doesn’t share the results and we get as much info as you which is utterly hopeless

We definitely don't want to go down the same route as England though, where children are taught to tests from a young age (SNSA can't really be "taught" in the same way).

There are schools out there giving loads of information to parents, and in fact it's a requirement of CfE. Perhaps an enquiry to your local council education department would be in order?

Mrs A, can your Parent Council request that this goes on your school's improvement plan? Then they would definitely have to make some changes!