NUT and NAHT to lobby Parliament about SATS

[Gayle]

The NUT (National Union of Teachers) and NAHT (National Association of Head Teachers) have joined forces to lobby Parliament to abolish the Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 SATS.

They are marching on Parliament on Tuesday 28th March. As it happens, my Mother in Law will be representing Blackburn branch of the NUT on the march.

I'm still unsure about this. I can see the need for assessment both of schools and of pupils but I can equally see that studying for tests in just three subjects doesn't give a good picture of a school or the education the children are receiving.

My daughter is due to sit hers in two years time. What do you think? It would be good to hear from parents who's children have sat them.

[lindsay ormerod]

They are a waste of time, a blunt tool. All that it served to do in my daughter's case was give her sleepless nights and reduce her to a nervous wreck for a week, and she actually did extremely well in them despite this.
I agree we need some form of assessment but this isn't it!

[lancsdave]

Originally Posted by lindsay ormerod

They are a waste of time, a blunt tool. All that it served to do in my daughter's case was give her sleepless nights and reduce her to a nervous wreck for a week, and she actually did extremely well in them despite this.
I agree we need some form of assessment but this isn't it!

Pretty much sums it up

[andrewb]

Originally Posted by Gayle

The NUT (National Union of Teachers) and NAHT (National Association of Head Teachers) have joined forces to lobby Parliament to abolish the Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 SATS.

They are marching on Parliament on Tuesday 28th March. As it happens, my Mother in Law will be representing Blackburn branch of the NUT on the march.

I'm still unsure about this. I can see the need for assessment both of schools and of pupils but I can equally see that studying for tests in just three subjects doesn't give a good picture of a school or the education the children are receiving.

My daughter is due to sit hers in two years time. What do you think? It would be good to hear from parents who's children have sat them.

Do you mean April?

[accyman]

stats are just a govenment tool used to direct blame at teachers instead of at themselves

because of these stats kids are burdened with extra homework to preppare for them which can take up weekends and holiday periods just to make a school look better on a chart , not too mention teh stress it puts teh child under

i havnt followed stats too closely but evey now and then they raise tehir ugly head because somone is trying to get the age of testing to 1 year old or somthing ridiculous

hate to go off topic but is anyone esle concerned with the amount of homework kids get these days and how what were once holiday periods are now spent fretting about getting homework done

mind you my sons homework is done online now and isnt even marked by a teacher , they simply login and see what score the pupil gets

anyone could be doing the home work for them

[AccyLass]

My daughter will be taking hers in just over a year

Quite confident that she will do well as she is at level 4 already

Although ya never know what the pressure can do to a child

The revision won't be crammed in tho... she has already started
BBC - Schools - KS2 Bitesize Revision - English

[andrewb]

We need some way of allowing parents to choose which schools are the best for their children, so that schools compete, but I'm not sure constant exams are the way to do that.

[Gayle]

And yes, i did mean April!!!!!!

[accyman]

Originally Posted by andrewb

We need some way of allowing parents to choose which schools are the best for their children, so that schools compete, but I'm not sure constant exams are the way to do that.

if stats are so badly needed how did we ever manage without them, its not as though before them we didnt produce scientists , engineers , architects and so on so how did we ever manage without the stats system?

im not sure if i am going to explain this very well lol but it seems to me kids these days dont learn for themselves but have the relevant imformation imprinted on to their memories rather than learned into memory just to make sure they pass a certain set of questions

also has anyone seen how kids are told to do long multiplication these days , i showed my son how it shoud be done and he said wow thats a lot easier than the way school show us

no i dont mean with a calculator before anyone asks lol

[emamum]

Originally Posted by andrewb

We need some way of allowing parents to choose which schools are the best for their children, so that schools compete, but I'm not sure constant exams are the way to do that.

thats what OFSTED are for....

[emamum]

Originally Posted by accyman

mind you my sons homework is done online now and isnt even marked by a teacher , they simply login and see what score the pupil gets

anyone could be doing the home work for them

what about the kids that dont have internet at home?

[Lilly]

They say that the purpose of SATS is to guage how well the school is doing, not the child.

However, just because a school gets poor SATS results does not mean that it is not a good school with good, hard working staff.

Schools can only do so much with the pupils they have at the school.
I.e. if the school has a lot of special needs or pupils for whom English is not their first language then they are not going to get the same results in Maths, English and Science as other schools.

Just because the SATS results are poorer does not mean that the children and staff have not tried their best.

More notice should be taken of the value added score which takes into account the level the child was at when they started to the level they were at in their final year.

In year 2, children often don't know they're being tested. They just think their doing some special work with the teacher. These are marked in school by the teacher and are not done under exam conditions.

In year 6 it's a different story. A lot of pressure is put on the child and there is a lot of information to remember. Children need to be fluent readers too as they need to read the booklet before answering the questions and they only get so long in which to do so. If they are not fluent readers they don't stand much chance.
These are marked externally and are done under exam conditions.

What happened with year 6 SATS last year was a disgrace. Many schools papers were lost by external markers and many schools never got their papers back so never knew how the children had done.

All that work and they never got the results.

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by Lilly

They say that the purpose of SATS is to guage how well the school is doing, not the child.

However, just because a school gets poor SATS results does not mean that it is not a good school with good, hard working staff.

Schools can only do so much with the pupils they have at the school.
I.e. if the school has a lot of special needs or pupils for whom English is not their first language then they are not going to get the same results in Maths, English and Science as other schools.

Just because the SATS results are poorer does not mean that the children and staff have not tried their best.

More notice should be taken of the value added score which takes into account the level the child was at when they started to the level they were at in their final year.

In year 2, children often don't know they're being tested. They just think their doing some special work with the teacher. These are marked in school by the teacher and are not done under exam conditions.

In year 6 it's a different story. A lot of pressure is put on the child and there is a lot of information to remember. Children need to be fluent readers too as they need to read the booklet before answering the questions and they only get so long in which to do so. If they are not fluent readers they don't stand much chance.
These are marked externally and are done under exam conditions.

What happened with year 6 SATS last year was a disgrace. Many schools papers were lost by external markers and many schools never got their papers back so never knew how the children had done.

All that work and they never got the results.

I totally agree Lilly, it now seems that teachers have to be more interested on how well the schools is doing not the children, teaching is hard enough these days without raft after raft of government "targets" because thats what they are, isn't it the same in other areas Police, NHS, are prime examples, league tables are more important than doing the job