Comments on: Why I wish my children hadn’t done so well on their SATs….

By: Kay

Kay — Mon, 08 May 2017 20:27:46 +0000

I just had to respond to this post. As a teacher who qualify as SATs were being introduced, my university brought in one of the team responsible for introducing SATs to lecture. Previous to SATs schools could opt into different child assessment scheme at the end of years and key stages. The problem with this is that if pupils moved schools the old school assessment scheme may differ to the new schools, and would not be transferable. The answer was to standardise assessment over the entire school journey so pupils progress could continue to be tracked even if they moved school. The outcome is that these results have been used to compare school and so schools now put pressure on pupils to give them the best result. Children have become statistics, and are being taught not a broad education, but a means to pass a test.

By: theworldaccordingtojoblog

theworldaccordingtojoblog — Sun, 07 May 2017 21:43:59 +0000

I completely agree with you Cass – my children faced the same sort of thing from their primary school only to be given inflated targets at secondary school. I am of the opinion that children find their own way in this world – my eldest really struggled with her GCSE's but she got what she needed to get onto the course she wanted at college – she is now learning a subject she absolutely loves and is predicted to do exceptionally well, something we never expected. We never push her, we never forced her to complete her homework or to revise but because she is doing something she chose and loves she is working hard to get the grades she needs to go on to the next stage of her life. I was appalled by my younger Daughters secondary school teacher who said she wasn't doing as well as predicted because she wasn't getting 7-9 (the new GCSE grade system) in all of her subjects – I am more than happy that she is hitting this crazy target in a few subjects and doing fairly well in all the others. Do the schools not realise how demoralising their unrealistic targets are.

By: Nina

Nina — Sun, 07 May 2017 14:55:22 +0000

Amen. My daughter will do her SATS this week and I couldn't agree more with you. Very similar story to yours, excellent OFSTED primary, but my older daughter has struggled a little to stay in line with secondary targets as well. I am way more chilled out this time, #2 will be fine, and I really couldn't care less about them the SATs. Unfortunately, though, you're right because although the secondary will do their own Year 7 assessments, I know the Year 6 targets will follow them into Year 8 and 9. So if they are struggling to meet those targets down the line is it the fault of the primary school or of the secondary school???

By: Fiona J

Fiona J — Sun, 07 May 2017 14:13:48 +0000

Very interesting take on modern education from someone who's clearly very involved with her children's schooling. It made me think about my own education and what parts of it were good and bad. Perhaps one element of drilling the kids for SATs that you haven't considered is that by doing so many practice exams they totally lose their fear of being tested and will be unphased by whatever exams throw at them in future because they've done so many. I too went to an academically high achieving school where we did the full range of exams every term and everyone was graded and the results published, so you could see exactly how well you'd done compared to everyone else. Although it may not have worked for everyone it certainly motivated a lot of us to work harder and compete with each other. I know competition is a bit of a dirty word in education these days but outside of school the world is competitive. Lots of exams and revision meant that unlike so many of my friends at different schools, I never lost a minute's sleep over exams and I never studied all night because I knew I was well prepared due to timetabled revision. Now, not all children may respond like this, and it sounds like your children's school have gone too far in pushing testing over delivering a rounded education, but I imagine that for some children this approach is beneficial. Another random thought; it's much easier for most parents to include creative activities, enriching visits and sports in their children's out of school activities than getting them to do more academic things, so it's easier to put back these subjects the school isn't providing than if they had skewed things the other way and stinted on maths and English. The biggest downfall of SATs teaching that I can see as someone with no children involved in the process is that higher education is not so much about a specific subject but about learning how to learn, not how many facts or formulae you can remember. The simplistic measuring of what a child's been taught using SATs isn't giving them the skills required to enjoy learning and tackle learning on their own, which is what's needed at degree level. Is the feeling among the majority of parents that you know that the school is way too SATs driven to the detriment of a rounded education for the children?

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 07 May 2017 12:28:34 +0000

Here here I totally agree.