SATS grandchildren sitting this week

Just heard quite an interesting piece on Radio5Live (Drive Time?) on the SATs. It started at 4.47pm and lasted about 10 minutes.

Oh - sorry CathyAnne.

We don't want people speaking as a grandparents, an ex teacher or a school governor. No one will listen to them.

This time the children have spoken in their distress and the powers that be have to take notice.

Children. Like adults have off days, when they don’t function to top ability.
biglouis, thanks for your criticism if the ll plus. It’s a cruel and unusual punishment, to tell the majority of 11 year olds their ‘failures’.

M0nica

The problem with papers at different levels, is that teachers make decisions and they can often underestimate quite how bright a child is for a whole range of reasons; if a child is quiet and doesn't take much part in class, because a child is neurally diverse, especcially in the past when these problems were not recognised because of in-built prejudices against children for their colour, home background or other.

I am dyspraxic, not recognised or known about inthe 1950s, and teachers consistently under estimated my ability because of my writing was so bad. Come exams, when I was marked on what I wrote, not my handwriting, I would end up with marks that put me in the top 10 in my year. When my place was based on written work during the term I was in the bottom 10. In the 1980s DS had exactly the same problem for the same reason. He wasmoved to a lower grade in maths simply because the teacher found hs work difficult to read.

So all children should get a chance to go as far as they can in exams and tests, without the teacher prejudging their capabilities.

When there are levelled papers, pupils will have done quite a few past papers, so the teacher can gauge at which level to enter them.

I don’t like the sound of them and I’m glad they weren’t a feature when I was at school.
My own children had them at school 30 odd years ago but their purpose was very much understood (by me at least) to be to test the teacher.
I suppose how individual children cope with the tests depends on what they excel at.
For example I would have been perfectly happy with reading and comprehension tests but would have just given up if presented with those “problem” solving questions eg if it takes a man a week to walk a fortnight how long
is a piece of string?
There’s learning and retaining knowledge and useful skills and there’s testing.
What are SATs purpose.

Thank you Ashcombe for that clarification- most illuminating.

Spot on Luckygirl; speaking as a parent, grandparent, former school headteacher and school governor.

The purpose of schools is education. SATs do not advance education.

They:
- put schools under pressure so teaching becomes a more difficult task.
- affirm to those who are slow learners that they are worthless.
- give the academically gifted a chance to shine when they are shining already.
- disrupt the flow of the pupils' education.
- force slow learners to endure the humiliation and frustration of struggling through a paper that can never do well at.
- skew the curriculum towards the SATs rather than what is most appropriate/purposeful for the children.

They must go.

I speak as a chair of school governors.

Sats were always a cr*p idea and invoke anxiety in teachers and schools in a way that the old tests never did. That anxiety and tension is conveyed to the children. They have nothing to do with education in its widest sense and they instil fears of failure in young children which is harmful and completely unnecessary.
Ditch them.

I am entirely cynical of examinations or tests at around age 11 which mark children out for life as a success or failure. Im also very cynical of tests which examine only one kind of abilities - like find the next number or diagram in the series. I recently did an online test like that and it told me I had an IQ of 81. Good job I never took it seriously.

Ive taught adult students (who failed 11+) and went on to apply for uni. I applied to uni in my 40s and got offers from every one on the UCAS form although I attribute much of that to being able to "talk the talk". Failing the 11+ did not stop me eventually gaining a Ph.D and having an academic career.

The problem with papers at different levels, is that teachers make decisions and they can often underestimate quite how bright a child is for a whole range of reasons; if a child is quiet and doesn't take much part in class, because a child is neurally diverse, especcially in the past when these problems were not recognised because of in-built prejudices against children for their colour, home background or other.

I am dyspraxic, not recognised or known about inthe 1950s, and teachers consistently under estimated my ability because of my writing was so bad. Come exams, when I was marked on what I wrote, not my handwriting, I would end up with marks that put me in the top 10 in my year. When my place was based on written work during the term I was in the bottom 10. In the 1980s DS had exactly the same problem for the same reason. He wasmoved to a lower grade in maths simply because the teacher found hs work difficult to read.

So all children should get a chance to go as far as they can in exams and tests, without the teacher prejudging their capabilities.

Ash Combe thanks for setting out the demands of the English Sats. Imagine you’re a hard working child with average IQ, who happens to be dyslexic.
It’s cruel and unnecessary to inflict unnecessary stress on children

some.

They only do them in England and I don't think independent schools have to do them although ome may choose to.

I’m pretty sure my granddaughter’s school doesn’t do SATs. Nobody’s mentioned them. She’s in Year 6 at an independent prep school, though she is going to a state school in September.

Nellybrook

Why can't there be a couple of test papers of varying difficulty that teachers could decide which one to sit their pupils for? Presumably some kids found this year's tests fine.

In the past, govt has been very negative about levelled papers where the teacher has to decide which level to enter each pupil. Indeed govt changed the entire maths GCSE because a minister wanted pupils to go into the exam knowing they 'could' attain the old C grade, even though their work over the previous 4 terms had reflected they'd get nowhere near that grade.
Pupils across the ability range all doing the same paper in certain subjects, can cause a lot of pupil-stress

Why can't there be a couple of test papers of varying difficulty that teachers could decide which one to sit their pupils for? Presumably some kids found this year's tests fine.

BlueBelle: this is what The TES had to say:-

This week pupils took a reading test that led to school leaders calling for testing reform – but what was the problem with the paper? Tes investigates the numbers behind the words
12th May 2023, 5:53pm
Gráinne Hallahan

This week, Year 6 pupils in England sat down to take their hour-long key stage 2 reading test - the third paper of six during the 2023 Sats week.

The reading paper has caused huge controversy this year among primary teachers and leaders (and pupils) - not because of the content but because of the length of the texts and the difficulty of the questions.

In the reading booklet, children were asked to read a total of 2,106 words split into three separate texts. This is one of the longest reading booklets ever used in the KS2 tests - and almost at the limit of the 2,300 wordsfor the texts that is set as the maximum number.

Furthermore, the Department for Education’s guidelines say that a Sats pupil is expected to be able to read a minimum of 90 words per minute.

This means reading the booklet alone would take 23 minutes and 30 seconds, leaving just 36 minutes and 30 seconds to answer the test questions.

But this isn’t the only reading that pupils are expected to do in the hour-long test.

In the section of the test book that poses the questions to pupils, there are many more words to be read - 1,337 in fact.

That will take our 90-words-a-minute reader another 14 minutes and 51 seconds to read - but we will round that up to 15 minutes to give them time to turn the pages.

So there are now just 21 and a half minutes to answer 38 questions - meaning you have to give an answer every 34 seconds (this includes the time it will take to go back and re-read a passage to get their answer).

What’s more, with a maximum of 50 marks in total to be had in the paper from these questions, it means you are trying to “score” a mark every 25 seconds.

Reducing year 6 children to tears, having some not sleeping is unforgivable,

My understanding was that the comprehension was longer than usual, and was rural-based, which disadvantaged those pupils who lived in towns and cities.
A common thread seems to have been that the most able haven't been able to finish the papers.

The ghost of Gove lives on in Sats.
Teachers don’t need Sats to tell them where their children are functioning. It’s a load of unnecessary stress for everyone involved

SATs are not set by teachers. Reading the Mumsnet threads it seems as if the comprehension text was lengthy which left significantly reduced time for answers. The context would not have been familiar to some children and the question were not phrased in language that could be easily identified in the text.
Obviously discussion of the actual text is still embargoed.

Does anyone know what was in the exam that had children crying Was it something that hadn’t been covered in the year… if so that’s the teachers fault not the childrens

I feel that SATS at 11 aren't too bad an idea, tho I don't feel they are child centred atm, but for the school. too much pressure and take the chance away for individual children development.

I failed my 11 plus and went to Technical High School and loved it lots of sewing and crafts and dance drama and there wasn't a lot of academic pressure - but because a teacher had found out a route for at that time for non public school kids I ended up at a prominent uni.

I dont think they should have SATs before 11 tho.