Are our state school children over-tested?

[zanzibarmum]

So much stuff about state school children been over tested and taught to the test. Clearly not a good thing. But why not a similar discussion re private school kids in prep school,common entrance, 13+ etc.

No testing at my ds's private school until GCSEs and I assume year exams at secondary level. Anything else, eg common entrance, is entirely optional.

Really? No end of year tests in private schools?

cos in private schools you make that choice and can remove them if you don't like it. DS2 is at a progressive independent boarding school where minimal amounts of testing are done until GCSEs.

I suppose there is no need to discuss a system which is not forced upon you.

I think there is a difference between end of year tests and SATS which are quasi public exams.

When I attended a private school there were end of year "exams". However we got to go over the exam papers and learn from mistakes. Also there were no league tables.

There is nothing wrong with summartive assessment. It can be a useful tool for teachers. What is wrong with SATS is the way they are administered and the lack of feed back on performance.

No - what is wrong with SATS is that they force schools to teach to a narrow curric, preparing students for exams which do not allow skills and knowlege of a subject to really build up. We were encouraged to lose trust in teachers in state schools a long time ago and a a result education has become a tick box experience for many students.