Level 6 SATS.

[Amber]

I'm a little confused with SAT's. Should we just leave it up to the school to do the tutoring for this?

Yes. They will, believe me. Your poor child will have little else to do in Year 6 if your school is typical.

Do the results really matter to us, or is it the school that benefits?

No. Yes.

Love your post yoyo. Sadly the school preferred the 'sit here and do another level 6 paper' approach.

[JRM]

I see SATS as completely for the benefit of the school. In my dream world they'd jsut give them a paper on the day and the kids would do it and not think twice about it. In reality DS is in year 6 and has had some practice papers already and knows that the teacher is disappointed with the class overall. But then the same teacher has done far better with enrichment and investigative activities the rest of the time than his previous teachers so I don't feel inclined to complain.

Yoyo, my car needs a good clean. I'll get DD on to it tonight as she is always asking for some maths to do and has a new stopwatch for her birthday that she could time herself with...

[yoyo123]

I wish the children could just sit the sats too. I am all for assessment, how else do you know where the gaps you have to fill are? or where there are problems?

Unfortunately it is the way the results are used. The schools, quite rightly, have to show that the children have made progress

A child is seen as having been failed by the school if they haven't progressed in a straight line, 2 sublevels a year The fact that the child may have been seriously ill, witnessed a family break up or been a victim of domestic violence doesn't seem to count.

There is no measure for the fact that a child who was so lacking in confidence that they would cry over their work most days in yr3 could stand up at the front of the class and show others how they worked out a problem in year 6, or a child with complex sen has gone from being withdrawn from most lessons and unable to sit through assembly has been able to take part in a class assembly before whole school and do their speaking part on time and word perfect? I don;t think those children have been failed by the school at all

The level thresholds are also very "clunky" (imagine a sublevel is from 30 - 49) eg your raw score can go from 49 to 50 and you have made a sub level progress, you can also go from 31 to 49 and have seemingly made no progress at all.

(NB My personal opinion, other rants are available! )

[Reading Mum]

Reading all this makes me so glad my DD's school doesn't do SATS any more (indie). That said, she certainly isn't having a holiday in yr6 as they are getting just as much homework as ever - and they do their own exams in June to assess progress

[Okanagan]

A child is seen as having been failed by the school if they haven't progressed in a straight line, 2 sublevels a year

Which just leads the schools to work out what is the maximum they'll be able to record at the end of Y6, subtract 2 levels a year, and decline to officially record levels above that even if the children are working ahead of schedule. So records might show the expected progress, when in reality you're getting stagnation.

[Amber]

A child is seen as having been failed by the school if they haven't progressed in a straight line, 2 sublevels a year

Which just leads the schools to work out what is the maximum they'll be able to record at the end of Y6, subtract 2 levels a year, and decline to officially record levels above that even if the children are working ahead of schedule. So records might show the expected progress, when in reality you're getting stagnation.

Very cynical, Okanagan. I assume you must have evidence that this 'stagnation' is occurring? It doesn't say much for the professionalism of teachers. Nor for the way they are held hostage by RaiseOnline and other 'assessment tools'.

[Okanagan]

I'm told every time we have a parent consultation - we know he's at x but we can only record a maximum of y because we have to allow for two sublevels a year up to the end of year 6.

[neveragain*]

You go yo yo! Yeah, totally agree

[yoyo123]

Which just leads the schools to work out what is the maximum they'll be able to record at the end of Y6, subtract 2 levels a year, and decline to officially record levels above that even if the children are working ahead of schedule. So records might show the expected progress, when in reality you're getting stagnation.

a very cynical view and not one I have ever come across,in my 18 years of teaching, maybe I have always worked with professional caring colleagues.

eta: I hadn;t read your post Amber..snap!

[Hera]

I was told in the last parents' evening that DS would be entered for level 6 English and Maths and other than taking from it that he was doing well I pretty much ignored it. I have always seen SATs as more for the school? Am I being too blase?