SATS Week

[Guest55]

Do you honestly believe these reports?

I've looked in detail at some of the test questions and the analysis ...

Much of this stuff is politically manipulated - I can prove two completely oppostie things from the same data!

[Proud_Dad]

http://www.oecd.org/unitedkingdom/build ... ngland.pdf

According to the reports main summary "there are an estimated 9 million working aged adults in England (more than a quarter of adults aged 16-65) with low literacy or numeracy skills or both. This reflects England’s overall performance in the Survey of Adult Skills - around average for literacy,but well below average for numeracy relative to other OECD countries in the Survey(OECD, 2013). These 9 million people struggle with basic quantitative reasoning or have difficulty with simple written information. They might, for example, struggle to estimate how much petrol is left in the petrol tank from a sight of the gauge, or not be able to fully understand instructions on a bottle of aspirin.

I agree that it is worrying if so many people don't have these basic literacy and numeracy skills and see nothing wrong with simple, non-stressful tests to try and make sure that everyone has grasped the basics before leaving primary school.

I don't see how testing that primary school children know the difference between a subordinating conjunction and a co-ordinating conjunction really helps them to understand instructions on aspirin bottles though...

[Amber]

This reflects England’s overall performance in the Survey of Adult Skills - around average for literacy,but well below average for numeracy relative to other OECD countries in the Survey(OECD, 2013).

The results of a later survey, PIAAC, which were widely misreported in the press, offer a slightly different picture. It did indeed show that functional literacy was at a low level among many young adults in England. But the two reasons it gave for this were:

1. Massive inequalities in social class which led to a huge disparity between high and low attainers;
2. A focus on huge numbers of qualifications but then limited opportunity to use these in jobs, which meant that young people were not practising the skills they used at school.

I know a fair amount about this as a close professor friend of mine was involved in analysing the results and went mad when he saw the way they were being portrayed.

In England, 17 per cent of adults had low proficiency in literacy, 24 per cent had low proficiency in numeracy and 18 per cent had low proficiency in problem solving. These were similar proportions to those found in the OECD, on average, for literacy and problem solving and a statistically significant higher proportion for numeracy.
The characteristics most likely to be associated with low proficiency were having a low level of education, belonging to certain ethnic groups, having poorer general health, having parents who have low levels of education, not having computer experience in everyday life, and working in certain occupations. Despite the age group findings it is noteworthy that being in a younger age group was not significantly associated with having lower skills. Surprisingly, speaking English as an Additional Language was also not associated with low literacy and problem solving, although it was associated with low numeracy.

This has absolutely nothing to do with primary schools. Nothing. Certainly not with the kind of total guff which Nick and Nicky think kids need to learn and then be tested to breaking point on. And it also has very little to do with secondary schools.

You need to remember that the OECD publishes this kind of thing all the time and each survey shows something a bit different. The Government listens to the bits it fancies and ignores the bits it doesn't. One of the strongest messages to come out of PISA, for example, is that segregating children by ability is a really bad idea. Do you ever hear that one in the press? Please remember that all these organisations have an agenda, and if you are in doubt about the OECD's one, remember what the 'E' stands for.

+1 Proud Dad - if you needed that for reading an aspirin bottle there would be a widespread danger to life.

[PurpleDuck]

Yet another plug for Michael Rosen and his great posts on FB. Please go and look, if you haven't already at his spoof paper, and his latest post. A snippet to whet the appetite:

3. How many times has your father spoken to you about Tasmanian Devils? If none, proceed to the room marked 'unworthy'.
4. Do you have an encyclopedia at the bottom of your garden? If you don't have a garden, ask your parents why not.
5. Do you like Nicky and Nick? Tick 'yes'.
6. The word 'notwithstanding' doesn't mean 'not with standing'. English: funny old language, eh? But not for you.
7. Give four sentences which explain what this brilliant piece of writing is about.
8. Explain why the people who wrote this test are anonymous.
9. We're finding it rather hard to think of another question but we have to or Nicky and Nick won't give us another one of these very lucrative contracts. Can you think of a question? No, don't answer that one, because we won't be able to put it through a computer.

Amber, how do I find this on FB, please? I searched for Michael Rosen and only saw his private page - does he have an 'official' page with his posts, or do I have to request to be his FB 'friend'?

[Guest55]

I found it on his blog as I don't have Facebook.

[PurpleDuck]

I found it on his blog as I don't have Facebook.

That's great, thank you.
I love Michael Rosen's sense of (dark) humour. This is something I spotted on his FB page (I only have an account to spy on people ):

Michael Rosen
Yesterday at 12:29

DfE statement: Just because we're wronger than you doesn't mean we're not write to get you to do SPaG.

[PurpleDuck]

Edit: deleted post following Guest55's comment below. Didn't realise the questions shouldn't have been publish on-line by a newspaper!

[Guest55]

They are silly to do this as the questions are supposed to be embargoed for 7 days!

[PurpleDuck]

Did anyone tell them? I wonder... In any case, I've now deleted my post above.

[nyr]

Too late! I've been there and done it ...

If you run through the test then, for each question, it tells you the percentage of people (presumably adults) who answered correctly. The fairly low results for some of the questions is quite interesting and perhaps a worrying testimony to some of quasimodo's posts.

BTW, I think the questions are from the DfE sample paper rather than the test yesterday.

nyr