SATS - cheating

[ginx]

I'm an invigilator and lots of children get extra time for all kinds of reasons. The other children do not always know why but just accept it. Rob Clark is right, you can't always "see" these reasons, or know about them.

I'm not saying there isn't cheating going on at your school (although it's shocking and unfair) but do remember some children need extra help and time for many reasons you do not know about.

[RedVelvet]

The way I've always 'sold' SATs to my children is that they are a measure of the school and not the child. It's not like the 11+ where others results are compared with yours. So even if others are having extra time it has no direct effect on your child. Also in my experience secondary schools often pay very little attention to YR 6 SATs.


We are very chilled out about them in our house!

[Daogroupie]

Where does this argument come from that SATs are to do with the school and not a relection of the ability of your dc?

In Y6 students sit eleven plus exams in English and Maths and depending on how well they do secure a place at GS because they have shown that they are able in these subjects, nothing to do with their school.

Then six months later they sit some more tests at the same level in English and Maths which they are then told by their parents are nothing to do with their ability, but are instead a test of their school? Do your dcs not question this claim?

My dds would have found this very odd indeed that one set of tests asking mostly the same material were a result of their hard work and the next set nothing to do with them.

So then what happens in four months time when they are in Y7? Are tests now to do with their hard work or still just a test of the school? What about GSCEs? When does it magically change and why?

The only difference I can see is that everyone can do well in SATs because it is based on your result, not on how many people have done better than you. So in answer to the OP your dc will get their result unimpacted by others in the year. If they have time they should not have it will only harm them when they get to secondary school where they will not be able to get such treatment.

[Amber]

Where does this argument come from that SATs are to do with the school and not a relection of the ability of your dc?.

When SATs were first dreamt up they were meant to illustrate whether a cohort of children was performing to expectations - and were primarily designed to 'measure' schools and teachers. This is still their primary purpose, though the emphasis has now changed as they are used to construct league tables of performance to enable parents to make 'informed choices' about where to send their children to school. The performance of individual children is seen as less important than the performance of a school as a whole, as a good set of results leads to a higher position in the league tables, which in turn leads to greater demand for the school and, bottom line, more money and a more 'desirable' parent and teacher profile. OFSTED likes to see a majority of children making what they consider to be the required levels of progress, and if they do not, they will pass a less favourable verdict upon a school; so in that sense an individual's progress matters. In terms of the specific desire to see each individual child do well - this might motivate teachers, for sure, but it is not the purpose behind the testing - that is not nearly so noble.

I told my children that the tests were for the school's benefit and not their own, for I truly believe that to be the case, as a teacher and a parent and also, at the time, a governor

.Do your dcs not question this claim?

No. They have grown up with what I consider to be a healthy scepticism towards things which come from Government, and an ability to discriminate between specious or cynical argument and claims based on some kind of wider truth.

[RedVelvet]

Exactly that Amber.

[mystery]

I can see it both ways. In some secondary schools they do take notice of KS2 test results and they form quite a significant part of the information used to decide on setting in year 7 onwards. In other schools they don't.

In general one might expect the schools that teach children well in the years up to and including year 6 to get the better KS2 results. Also, one might expect children who put more effort in to do better .... and various other reasons.

It's best to be chilled about any test. Telling children it's all for the school's benefit will help this. Whether the argument is 100% true I think depends on the secondary school your child continues on to.

As to being sceptical about anything that comes from a government - yes that's always a good idea. I quite enjoy being sceptical about most things whether or not they come from government.

[peter5]

SATs test the students its not a test of the school .I also find it weird that people actually are convinced that secondary schools would ignore such valuable information about a child's years at primary school .

OP ,its probably not cheating as I think there are easier ways to cheat than to do something so obvious.

[Minesatea]

None of my DC's secondary schools use the SATS results for any purpose. One of my DC's sat all the maths papers in hospital so we were concerned that they may not have been a true reflection. We asked the secondary school and they said that they did not use the SATS results for setting or targets (preferring to use CATS taken at the start of year 7) as not all children would have taken them, and the grade boundaries were so wide as to be unhelpful.

[stroudydad]

Both the secondly schools I asked about Ks2 sats stated quite positively that they felt the sats results were unreliable and did not use them.

[Guest55]

We are getting off topic. However what ever we think the FACT is that Secondary schools are judged on the progress their students make from these KS2 levels.