SATS and a tribunal............

[nickminiink]

Hi, as mentioned in previous threads, our tribunal against the NIL is in approx 4 weeks and my son has just sat his SATS - YR 6. I am told the results would not be made available to us until July, I was hoping to use these results at my tribunal as in the words of my son "I have not done very well", which to be honest based on his year's course work and hours of sitting down with him to revise I kind of knew he would struggle, despite the school saying he is doing well and progressing accordingly to his ability (still don't get that statement as its so open ended, what is his ability, does this mean he will never achieve any qualifications as expected becuase of his ability). So my question is has anyone else managed to get the SAT results earlier and used for a tribunal, is there a legal angle I can go in at or is July fixed and that is that. I really do need these results to show how much he is struggling

Thanks again for your help, be glad when this tribunal is over seems to have taken over my life for the past 18 months

Nick

Nick, I was asking about help in SATs as schools don't want their stats to look bad and often seem to 'help' DC with their SATs when they have been very reluctant to help them throughout their schooling, which isn't in the child's best interests at all. It may give them an inflated SATs level in the externally marked test which will make the school look good, but will make it hard to get the help your DC needs. If they were in another room, was that because they were having 'help?' Maybe not officially, but I wonder how many adults were with that group of 5? Were they given extra time or more help with reading than would otherwise be possible. I can understand a 'nurture' group being in a separate room if that was common classroom practice, but with your DC's history with the school I would be a bit suspicious.

EllenJaneisnotmyname - I am suspicious of everything my son's school does, my son is not a very good communicator due to his SPLD and poor working memory, I asked on the first day of his SATS if he got any extra help he said no, then on the last day Thursday I asked again, he said no again, so I queried with him and tried to spell it out clearly, then he said "oh yes we were seperated in a different room, where the teacher read out the instructions", so I said did a teacher sit with you and read out any questions "No just the instructions at the beginning". So to be honest I do not know if he is telling me everything and I wouldn't be surprised if they were given extra time as they wouldn't really know, strange to seperate them and not tell the parents. I have stopped talking to the school as I have fell out many times over the statementing and lack of progress, otherwise I would have challenged their reasoning, I still might as need to talk to them regarding his attainment levels for the tribunal.

Ellen sorry to crash in but re my reporting for suspected malpractice I have been wondering how the head/senco could wriggle out as he does seem to be extraordinarily confident about his rule breaking. For example, if the maths lessons had two different groups with the head taking one and the class teacher taking the other would this count as everyday practice in relation to having a reader in the SATs? No reading of questions, just extra maths support, just happened to be the same children in the borderline 3/4 group that had readers in the SATs and only done for the SATs term.

kOKO, I think whatever they do in relation to SATs has to be 'normal classroom practice.' In my school the DC on SA or SA+ have their maths lessons in a small group of 7, in a separate room to the other two sets, taught by the SENCo and a TA. 5 of these DC did their SATs in that room, with the SENCo and TA to read if necessary which is perfectly acceptable. 3 others on SA+ had 1:1 readers and extra time in a different room, but these DC have very low reading ages and big discrepancies between verbal and non-verbal CATs and permission was sought from the LA. The 'nurture' group of 7 are not borderline 3/4, they are borderline 2/3 if anything or maybe low 3. Borderline 3/4 DC had some booster sessions during lunchtimes with the class teacher, but did their SATs as normal with their class (we set for maths, so this was the middle set.)

I would say your HT would argue that his 'special' group have questions read to them in the classroom normally, and it would be hard to argue against this, as I'm sure that some DC would have questions read to them occasionally. He would argue that the booster group is normal classroom practice as well. TBH lots of schools take booster groups from Christmas onwards for borderline 3/4 and 4/5 DC in maths and literacy. Did you find out if all the borderline DC had 1:1 readers or just a larger proportion of teachers and TAs than normal?

Sorry for hijack, Nick.

Ellen the 5 borderline DC had 1:1 readers but they were sat in the hall with the rest of the cohort.

Says it all, really.