Children are worrying about SATs tests

My DGD2 is 7. She is doing her SATs next week. Her school have told the children that they are being tested next week. She is normally a very happy go lucky child who doesn't get stressed (unlike her older sister) but she is clearly worried as she asked me today how many sleeps until the SATs? I honestly can't see what can be gained by testing 7 year olds.

OMG why would they do that to seven year olds. We called them special lessons. The children knew they were tests but weren't stressed because they didn't know how important they were.

Whilst we're on the subject of KS1 SATS, did you know that the results of this year's KS1 SATS will be used to set the targets for that cohort in Year 6? Unfortunately they don't take into account that the children in the cohort might change over the following 4 years. The place I worked had a very high turnover with Eastern European children arriving at any time and the indiginous catchment was a very transient community. By Year 6 the cohort might only contain 20% of the original children. That's fine if the new children are more able than the earlier ones. The school bursts through it's targets and looks brilliant. However if more able children are replace by less able then the school fails to reach target and is castigated for failing the children.

Worry and work-related stress are things kids have to learn to deal with in the same way as they have to learn to read and write, do arithmetic and how to socialise poitely. Perhaps it isn't as damaging as people seem to be assuming it is.

Just a thought.

Life isn't all hee hee ha ha

I remember loads of tests then two years of 11+ then exams, exams and more exams.
A steady preparation for the world of work.

My DGD, a 'bright spark' if ever there was one, didn't do as well as expected in SATs last year so was put in lower sets in Y7. However, there is life after SATs. She quickly worked her way up to the top set in English and second top in Maths, while also taking full advantage of a wide range of extra-curricular activities and thoroughly enjoying Scouts and amateur dramatics.

rosequartz whatever did you do? I don't know many jobs where you are tested once never mind every year. You might get some sort of performance assessment but that isn't an exam.

Exams throughout school and college trisher in preparation for launching ourselves on an unsuspecting world
[Grin]
Plus ongoing training

But didn't you get the Lower 6th which was the year with no external exams and you could -skive- relax a bit? They don't get that now you know.

I did external exams in the lower sixth. A number of us did extra O levels, resits and a few had accelerated tuition to take one A level in a year. I did A level History so that in the second year sixth I could concentrate on improving my grade if necessary and give most of my history time to studying for the additional paper that those entered for State Scholarships took.

It was 52 years ago!

Anyway, I skived a lot until just before exams. Not skiving off from school, but just coasting along!

One of my friends did Russian 'O' level in the 6th form (I think he did it outside school), we were most impressed when he passed.

We were tested and assessed but not in the same way as these days.

Teachers continuously assess children. They don't base their assessments on the results of one exam taken under often stressful and artificial conditions. The only people who think the SATS are useful at the league table makers.

I was the first year who didn't take the 11 plus. I went into the Comprehensive system and didn't take a formal exam until I was 16. We did small classroom exams but nothing huge until our O levels. Then we had a skiving year in the Lower Sixth before working a bit in the Upper Sixth and taking our A levels. Much later I did my degree through the Open University. Again only one exam each year. My PGCE only had one official exam and that was only an English grammar test which the lecturer insisted we undertake. That was done one day in the lecture room so not really that formal.

Do we need to formally examine young children? Not in my opinion.

Not for the league tables, I agree vq

But I think parents do like to know how their children are doing and probably some formal assessment is needed to do this. Unfortunately it is their anxiety that is transferring to their children.
Some teachers can take against a child for whatever reason; some children will not perform well for a class teacher they dislike yet in a formal assessment test they may do well.

Something other than an individual teacher's assessment can be useful.

My son is taking his AS levels this week and next and I couldn't care less how he does, because life will work out, one way or another.

Too much emphasis it put on qualifications in my opinion and not enough on how people are at doing a job, caring, compassion, common sense. They don't teach this, do they?

What would he be like if I was standing over him telling him he had to do well? He has had a hell of a year coping with emotions and learning to deal with depression so if he fails, then so what? He is alive. That is what counts.

is put not it Maybe I should have gone to school?

I did, a grammar school, passed my 11+ after time off for my heart operation. Just think how well I could have done if I'd have been there full time! lol.

Just not slept yet, been up with IBS.

I misse a lot of schooling through illness when I was eight and I only just failed the Eleven Plus. It's good to know I could well have passed if it'd been a level playing field. What peeved me was that at my nice new Sec Mod girls didn't do maths or science after the first year. We did business arithmetic (to make good secretaries) and human physiology and hygiene (nurses). Alegebra is a complete mystery to me and I have no idea where chemistry becomes physics. It was annoying when, aged fifteen, I decided the career I really wanted was to be an architect. Out of the question. Further education assumed I already had a basic knowledge that I didn't have.

My whole future had depended on that one exam. If being tested more often helps channel children in the right direction and enables them to move within the school to the right level, then it has to be done and the sooner they become accustomed to the stress the sooner they learn to cope with it.

What VQ has said about how the league tables are worked is very worrying. And wrong.

Hope your IBS sorts itself soon ruby.

SATs are testing the school and they need good results for the league tables.
A good OFSTED report depends on the results, they can be a really good school but they won't get a good report without good results.
Abolishing league tables would be a good step.
They are not important for the child.

Well said.

Parents have always wanted to know how their children are doing. When I was at school that was done through reports and parents evenings. The parents trusted the teachers opinions. They didn't ask for artificial test results and league tables.

When I taught primary I found that most parents wanted to know if their child was well behaved, working hard and most importantly had friends. Few were interested in levels which meant nothing to them. They just wanted to know that their children was where they should be or better than they should be. Parents with children with SEN knew their children would most likely be below average. They didn't need a level to tell them that. They wanted to know more specific things regarding their child's individual needs such as building social skills and life skills.

Exactly Leticia they are of no benefit to the child and in a school like my DGC's sadly they are of no benefit to the school either.

Actually my DGD's teacher told DDiL last night that she was "relying on G to do well I order to improve the statistics for her year group" no pressure there then .

Quite right Leticia - what I was trying to say (but more clumsily). SATS are testing the school's performance, then parents get anxious if their children don't get into the 'best' school etc
gillybob that's a burden to put on young shoulders!

I still don't disagree with tests, though. My DC often 'disappointed' their teachers but came through very well when the test results came in and then 'astonished' the teachers.

Nothing wrong in a bit of low key testing but the present system is mad!
So much hinges on it for the school. The government also needs good results to prove that reforms work.
It is all teaching to the test. I was employed for years in the spring term doing 'boosting for SATs' - all government money given to the schools for that purpose! The year before I retired I did 'one to one' tutoring in the normal school day. Government money again - not for SEN- for those who could get a level 4 with a bit of a push.
It is very much 'to get a level 4 you must............'
If they want a standardised test they should just have a low key one to see what they know ( or don't know) -without league tables.
The league tables mean nothing anyway. I remember one local school getting fantastic results one year so that parents were wanting places. As the staff said - it was just an exceptional year group and they hadn't a hope of doing the same the next year.

There is nothing wrong with testing if it feeds into an overall assessment that takes into account more than the results of one test in an artificial and stressful environment.

I got a 2.1 when I passed my degree. If you look at my assessed coursework I was on track for a first but I'm terrible in exams and never show what I really know. If only my exam results had been used I would have got a 2.2. Assessment needs to be based on more than exam technique.

When I was teaching I taught young children exam technique. How to pick up marks by answering the one mark questions first. How to use the same letter each time on multiple choice questions you don't know the answer to because at some point that letter will be right.

Teaching that to 7 year olds can't be right but it had to be done.

From the age of around 8 to 13 I was educated at schools in Romford, an area of Greater London where the population consisted predominantly of "blue collar"/"working class" people, a number of whom were employed by Fords in Dagenham.

I remember that between the age of around 8-10 we did classroom-based "exams" which tested our arithmetic, composition, spelling, etc., but I don't recall feeling pressured in any way. I was very good at English - always top or near the top - but very bad at arithmetic - always bottom or near the bottom. I did feel a little disappointed that my arithmetic had let me down, but it certainly didn't stop me sleeping or eating - and I don't think it did any of my classmates either. Thinking about it, though, I expect it was pretty upsetting to be the person who did badly in every subject and came 48th in the class. So I suppose any sort of competitive element is bound to have a negative effect on somebody - but particularly if the sole emphasis of the school is on academic achievement. But at the junior school I attended there were lots of other opportunities to achieve - netball, swimming and football clubs and a choir - and each year there was a chance to participate in a quite sophisticated (for our age) musical for those that enjoyed performing (or helping backstage, or assisting with painting the scenery, etc.).

Of course, after leaving junior school, we were encouraged to work hard and study for our exams but there wasn't the sort of hysteria that you see these days - and I actually think the level of literacy and numeracy was much higher then. I went to a secondary modern school, but a look at my old school magazine shows that many pupils were well able to put an interesting and well constructed piece of writing together. Also, there was a junior and a senior choir - and a French choir - and several after-school and lunch time activities which were purely for interest and enjoyment - with no suggestion that they existed purely to enhance exam results.

I'm not sure that the current obsession with testing and exams - in so many subjects now - is conducive to real learning but, even if it is, I think it is wrong that young children should so early on in life be forced to become part of the "rat race".