Bad assessment result

[Tinkus-Pinkus]

Don't remember that one - though there was one called "Carry On Screaming". Fenella Fielding, Kenneth Williams and the usual Carry On gang. We had the video of it a few years ago, ( ) which we used to watch at Halloween along with a cartoon version of Sleepy Hollow!

Makes me think that the things that scare kids nowadays really are scary, if even adults find them sinister.

That's the one

[Tinkus-Pinkus]

Just as bad as Jeff is the fact that what would have been a regular piece of work at my school (doing an 45 mins of maths questions or an English comprehension) is now an "assessment" which all kinds of things can hang on. The KS1 tests at our school are taken so seriously before, during and after -- it's ridiculous really.

There are loads of old SATs papers they could let your DD sit on a day she is feeling happy and rested. The 4b maths test result is completely invalidated by the fact she was feeling rubbish that day. If the school feels the need to "assess" for some purpose or other, they should do it again.

I agree

[southbucks3]

Oh if only we could all be as gung ho about it as my youngest, he came home from school yesterday and told me he'd sat a spelling "assessment" and got "drrrr drrrrrrrr drrrrrrrrrrrr 16/50, my worst ever, giggle giggle".
We did not know whether to laugh, cry or tell him off, in the end my husband opted to threaten him with pulling him out of school, and then he would have to be home educated with mummy all day. Nice to know, that I am used as such a scary option! (I was wearing my jeff mask at the time of course!)

[solimum]

Must be something about eyes that is very scary - anyone remember the Demon Headmaster series on TV a few years ago? Or the billboard in the recent film of The Great Gatsby..

DD was seriously freaked out on our once-in-a-lifetime trip to Sydney by the Face at Luna Park ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Luna_ ... tralia.JPG" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ) she must have been 12 or 13 at the time

[Amber]

It was the child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang that did it for me.

Happily no one had invented assessments when I was a child.

[mystery]

I was too young for assessments too. We all got taught the same material throughout the year and had the same year end exam. And if you got a bad mark? No cnsequences apart from a pep talk and dealing with whatever your own feelings were about it. It did not affect what you were taught the next year and whether you were considered to be brilliant or a dullard by the teachers or not.

By contrast, my (bright) year 3 child's learning, and that of children around her, has been dogged right the way from reception by teachers who decide at the drop of a hat what she is not capable of. I should start there with nursery really!

This is not required by government.

Maybe there is a jeff type character who scares teachers into thinking that this is what the early years and national curriculum guidance says you should do when it says no such thing.

I hope the jeff fears have completely gone, and I hope that this regime at certain schools where a bad day in an assessment in ks1 or ks2 can give a parent concerns about the possible consequences for their child's learning fades away.

[southbucks3]

I remember being tested to within an inch of my life at primary, spelling, maths and lots of french nouns, but the consquences were far higher than anything now if we did badly...we missed our breaktime!
There were no top tables either, we had one each, when we finished a page of work we raised our hand to have it marked, if we got most of it right we got the next sheet. This did mean of course that some children never got the next sheet, some simply did not understand, others rarely worked hard, and often got the ruler...shudder. Perhaps it would have worked better with circulating teaching assistants as well as the teacher.

[Tinkus-Pinkus]

I went to a Steiner school and basically did whatever I wanted for e first 11 years of my life. My teacher was a composer and he played Scott Joplin on the piano with his feet when I was 11 my Mum put me in for the 11 plus and I have to this day thought I failed. I remember sitting in front of the test paper and thinking, that I had no idea how to answer the NVR questions, however my Steiner education taught me to use lateral thinking and so I just put what I thought was right. I continued to go to the Steiner so I assumed I had failed. And have always told everyone I did. Then I was talking to my Mum about it all the other day in relation to my DD and my fears for her and my dear old Ma said of course you didn't fail you got an A plus. Obviously no one ever thought to tell me my result or at least in such a way that I got it. All my life I have thought that I did not make the mark in that exam, not that I cared much.
We are early risers, those others of you who are on here now. This is my quiet time before the onslaught of the morning and Drama school beckons. Play dates this afternoon and roller disco this evening.