Kids on strike

It is not as simple as that I am afraid - so much hangs on these tests for the school that it is very hard for that pressure not to rub off on the children. These are politically motivated and designed on the back of an envelope - middle-aged politicians saying that this is the way they want things done whilst having no idea of what the task of educating children is about, nor having any professional background in teaching. If you are in charge of a department that is outside your professional experience, you should be listening to the professionals who actually know what they are talking about.

I have no objection to tests that are based on proper professional judgement with the best interests of the children at heart. That is not what these SATs are.

Luckygirl re pass or fail - it was my poor attempt at being facetious!

As was the question about fines for unauthorised absences - I was referring to the children whose parents are taking them out of school for the duration of the tests. Again with a note of sarcasm, sorry if posters took my remarks at face value - you are all very nice to reassure me!

There's just one other thing that perhaps need saying in this debate. The tests make a great deal of money for the companies that run them and the more tests they can persuade the government to impose the more money they will make. Always follow Cicero's advice and ask 'cui bono?'

So helmacd if you believe "Life is full of tests so the sooner they learn to deal with that the better." should we start a bit earlier than 6? What about 4? Maybe we could sort them into ability groups then and put the less bright ones all together. Or what about 2?
Testing may be appropriate later in school life but certainly not at 6. As I said the SATs were dropped in favour of continual assessment by teachers, a much more successful system and as I said one that M0nica's GD would have been through.

Oh bear- a good one! The system for setting and marking is time consuming expensive and complicated. On the bright side a number of teachers and ex-teachers make a bit on the side (but not as much as the organisations setting them do).

Good question bear - the answer has nothing to do with education, children or schools. Very sad.

Since league tables were introduced and published nationally most school have found themselves in a kind of completion as, naturally, they don't want to be 'bottom of the league table'.

When I was teaching Y6, too many schools took this year group off curriculum completely and only 'taught to the tests' even then.

Our HT and myself agreed we would NOT do this. Our Y6s continued to study Music, Art, History, PE, etc and the only concession to Key Stage 2 SATs was that during the relevant lessons (ie Maths, English and Science) we would look at past papers and exam technique - which made sense to us.

This resulted in happier children, less stress and ditto the teacher!

AND our SATs compared very favourably with those of other schools.

Those of you who know me might like to take a look at my blog. 'Why can't we let our children learn.? I wrote about this more fully there. I taught from 1952 to 1985 so I know quite a bit about the subject.

helmacd I am glad we agree about testing but sadly disagree about keeping politics out of education. Politics has been in education ever since free universal education funded by the state was introduced in the mid-19th century.

He who pays the piper calls the tune. The aim and intention of government funded free education is to produce a workforce who can be self-supporting and contribute to the economy and success of the the country in their time. It is has always been the government that has defined what this is. It has just varied from generation to generation.

What I do not think should happen at this age is the publication of league tables, although I do think the information about any individual school should be available to a parent considering that school for their child.

Objective standards are necessary. When my DC started school I considered one that was constantly being praised by parents because the education was so good. I visited it and found it rigid and old fashioned and that held back the brightest children. Parent assessment is not reliable.

I'm not against testing. Any half-decent teacher assesses all the time through interaction with children. Teachers assess whether children have understood learning objectives and make constant (sometimes subconscious) adjustments to teaching. Spelling and tables tests are a way of encouraging children to adopt useful learning strategies. I would argue that assessment is part of the teaching and learning process.

However, tests are not being used to promote learning, but as a big stick with which to beat schools and to justify intervention.

The Key Stage 2 spelling/grammar tests for 11 year olds are totally inappropriate and that's what parents are complaining about. Nobody in the Department for Education is listening to parents and teachers, which is why some parents decided to take their children away from school.

The government will no doubt use the results of the tests to claim that 11 year olds don't know their grammar to justify their mass academisation plans. The trouble is that people won't read beyond the headlines. Of course 11 year olds should be able to punctuate accurately and know the main parts of speech (nouns, verbs, etc), but they really do NOT need to know the terminology for a subordinating conjunction, the past progressive, the subjunctive, etc.

I don't know who devised these tests, but I would be amazed if they had ever met a normal 11 year old - or even a member of the general public, most of whom can communicate effectively without knowing the grammatical terms for the words they use.

A pig never got fat by being weighed.

I worked as a TA at our local primary school for 30 years.my children went to the same school up until about 12 years ago it was a lovely friendly school with a great team of teachers and staff.now I hear from my friends that are still there that it's the most saddest and stressful place to be.Children are not free to be there selves and to enjoy school anymore schools should not be run by the government.

It's not about stress - it's about spending the whole summer teaching to a test rather than educating

Exactly BRedhead59.
It's the fact that they're missing out on other subjects and activities. In summer they should be outside playing games and sport, as well as inside with more creative acitivities, and reading exciting books, at whatever level they're at.
English grammar is a minor part of education

I am wondering what messages are being sent to children if they say they were ill when they were dancing amid the bluebells on a sunny day.

Also there is a photo of children carrying no to sats banners....not sure I approve of using children to fight an adult battle. What will be the lasting effect on their attitudes to school and exams?

Children need to be kept on board not hear their parents wittering on.

Not that I approve of the stupid heights the tests have come to. I did think the spokesman yesterday who got his answer wrong was a bit cheeky to blame his own education. I do agree with you vampire queen.

Agreed, vampire queen, re assessment system. I worked on the pilot for the teacher assessment system called Assessing Pupils' Progress (APP) a few years ago, and it was used successfully in schools for a while. The teachers did the assessing, but ( vital point) they had to produce the evidence from the children's work. We also worked on a system of moderating between schools. I've never understood why it was dropped.

Although here in Scotland we are not involved in the current "protests" against testing I think most parents are concerned about the effect these tests have on young children. I have my grandson four days a week after school and do his homework with him. He has a reading book, word wall, words and a sentence to write and quite a variety of arithmetic to get through. We have four nights to do it and have to spend a minimum of one hour each session. The teaching methods are so different these days and when he starts talking about "clever connectives" I wonder how long I'll be able to keep up!! He is 6 yr old and in P1.

Of course 11 year olds should be able to punctuate accurately and know the main parts of speech (nouns, verbs, etc), but they really do NOT need to know the terminology for a subordinating conjunction, the past progressive, the subjunctive, etc
I agree with that daphnedil, well said.

And I also agree with the following from LullyDully
I am wondering what messages are being sent to children if they say they were ill when they were dancing amid the bluebells on a sunny day.
Also there is a photo of children carrying no to sats banners....not sure I approve of using children to fight an adult battle. What will be the lasting effect on their attitudes to school and exams?

And what happens to a conscientious child who didn't go to school because they were ill? (vomiting profusely!). DGD can't be the only one.

I might add that her parents are not in the least stressed about the tests, one way or the other.

And was your DGD stressed about the tests, Jalima?

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the tests and I cannot make up my mind, I very much disagree with encouraging children to "strike". This is telling them that it is alright to go against authority so it's ok to disregard what their teachers - AND parents - are trying to do to help them become responsible citizens.

Hattie or we could be teaching children it important to have a voice and not become subjugated! It is all right to go against authority if the authority is behaving badly! public protest is a sign of a healthy democracy.

Not in the slightest FarNorth, she enjoys them!
(she was vomiting because of a bug which has gone around, we stayed away!)

The best I can do is that, if my GS reaches the 'national standard' in SPAG, he will be able to underline an indeterminate number of indeterminate grammatical terms, that compared to other children's underlining of indeterminate numbers of indeterminate grammatical terms, will yield, at least, a 'standardised score' of 100 from whatever 'raw score' he achieves."

There's a lot to be said for and against testing. When I was a child in primary school we just got on with things and concentrated on learning and being happy and most children finally achieved at their ability level.

However, it wasn't too difficult to see that the middle class kids did better whether they were brighter or not (and often not) because their parents intervened in their education.

The current complaints about the SATs seem to be coming from mainly middle class parents who do not want their children stressed, put under pressure or made unhappy. One of the reasons for this is that they know that their children will succeed with their genes and their targeted help whatever their ability level.

In this case I'd say that the SATs are invaluable for working class children in that they provide a measure of objectivity and alert teachers (who can be fooled by charm, good manners and pushy parents) to the bright child from a poorer background so that the child will be given a chance to succeed.

In my secondary school we administered the MIDYIS raw ability test years before the SATs were instigated and we thus had an idea of each child's potential regardless of parental class or income. Those children who achieved highly were not allowed to sink because of other factors like unsupportive parents or poor behaviour. My Head of Department would never allow a bright, lazy or stroppy pupil to be demoted from a high set, bless him and those children got the chance they deserved to gain good GCSEs. The current SATs could be used in the same way.