I don’t understand what all the furore is about. I didn’t even realise my eldest was going through these tests until the storm in the media. Her school is treating it like any other test – and she is tested every week – aren’t all kids?, and she’s just cracking on. I’m sure if my wife or I were laying it on thick to her about the importance of doing well it would no doubt freak her out and both her test score and her future approach to tests and exams would be harmed.

I was a late bloomer in my school career, really late, and remeber at primary school having regular weekly tests in most subjects and getting pretty stressed out and upset about them, but at least I always had a good idea what I was good at and what I wasn’t so good at which stood me in good stead when I finally started to knuckle down.

Yet another storm whipped up by ‘outraged’ parents. Whatever your view on these tests, taking your kid out of school in some form of protest is just rediculous and irresponsible. What life lesson is that teaching them? that when you come up against something in life you don’t like or agree with you just spit your dummy out and opt out? that wont get you very far in the real world.

Schools and teachers really need the support of parents. One of the big differences i’ve noticed in parents behavious between the time I was at school and now is that parents used to side with the school – If I got a bad report I got a rollocking from my parents and told to buck up, these days it is more likely that parents will criticise teachers, the school, the education system, David Cameron, anyone but themselves. But then I guess its the modern approach for many these days – everyones a victim, its always someone elses fault, anything but to actually have to get involved in anything and take responsibility for yourself and your own decisions and actions.

I’m not even going to bother taking that test furhter up the page because I know that I wont do very well. My school education was woeful compared to my kids at the same age. I can tell that just from the homework they’re getting. They’re doing stuff at school at 6 and 9 years old that I don’t remember ever covering in my whole school life. In know i’ll flunk the test above. And there in lies the inconvenient truth. Everyone loves to slag off the school system, league tables, class sizes, but despite all that the reality is that more kids from a wider variety of backgrounds are better educated to a higher level than ever before, so on balance the fact is the system is working. It’s far from perfect, it’ll never be perfect, but its getting better year on year, generation to generation.

i’ll flunk the test above

but does not knowing what a subjunctive is actually *matter*?

At 50 I never wish I’d done more grammar lessons at school, I do wish I’d been given an understanding and love of art.

At 50 I never wish I’d done more grammar lessons at school.

Really? I often do, when I have difficulty learning a new language. It’s hard to learn another language when you don’t understand your own.

Yet another storm whipped up by ‘outraged’ parents. Whatever your view on these tests, taking your kid out of school in some form of protest is just rediculous and irresponsible. What life lesson is that teaching them? that when you come up against something in life you don’t like or agree with you just spit your dummy out and opt out? that wont get you very far in the real world.

I think (and I might be wrong – won’t be the first time) the thing is, in this instance both schools and parents are saying this is the wrong way to do things, and Nicky Morgan’s just going “la-la-la, can’t hear you”.

I often do, when I have difficulty learning a new language.

see, we all have different life experiences – I don’t often learn new languages and am fairly comfortable with my own.

I can always learn the semantics and structures of programming languages fairly easily, though.

Really? I often do, when I have difficulty learning a new language. It’s hard to learn another language when you don’t understand your own.

Whilst that’s a useful add-on to learning grammar, I’m not sure whether that’s the aim – I certainly don’t think that there’s value in knowing what a subordinate conjunction is in order to be able to use one.

wobbliscott – Member

Schools and teachers really need the support of parents.

Kinda what’s happening.

Ultimately I am for evidence-based policy, but I don’t think you can underestimate how badly a government can misinterpret and misuse that evidence.

It is surely better to have some evidence though, especially if it is in the public domain, as this will lead to better scrutiny of government proposals.

It is surely better to have some evidence though, especially if it is in the public domain, as this will lead to better scrutiny of government proposals.

Scrutiny of this one has been almost universally negative (see also: Junior Doctor Strikes, Forced Academies, TTIP, etc), but the government seem grimly determined to impose it anyway. It’s not as though there isn’t already a system of tests in place that provide evidence of progression (and, as has been mentioned before, teacher salaries are related to it).

This gains zero marks. Who here had ever hyphenated written numbers?

Especially since the second hyphen that the teacher put in is wrong.

Edit: Oh, hang on – looks like they’re crossing out a hyphen. Which makes them technically correct, which is of course the best kind of correct.

Never even seen hyphens in number that I can remember

why doesn’t the one hundred get a hyphen when the forty-eight-thousand does?

Although in the words of Anakin Skywalker – “its to late four me. My-son.”

A solid 5 for me.

I wasn’t interested in grammar at school. I’m still not!

After a few years working in bike shops I did manage to complete a PhD, a post-doc, work in a major international research lab, edit scientific journals, and now work as a uni lecturer 🙂

It’s all bollocks!

(waits to be shot-down for terrible grammar)

I got 7/10. Nevva bin gud at English innit.

mefty – Member

It is surely better to have some evidence though, especially if it is in the public domain, as this will lead to better scrutiny of government proposals

Bad evidence can be worse than no evidence. There’s basically 2 separate objections to the SATs which have been lumped together a bit. The first is about testing in general, the other about the actual standard of the specific tests- the difficulty level, relevence, openness to distortion and preparation etc. But Much of the criticism of the impact on pupils revolves around issues with these too. We wouldn’t be hearing anything like this level of dissent if teachers and parents had faith in the testing.

If it’s possible to teach to the test, as it seems it is, and not all schools or teachers do so, then the results will be broken. If the test isn’t perfectly relevant to the curriculum, and effective in testing learning of the curricilum, then the results will be irrelevant. And that also bears back on the first group too.

If it’s possible to teach to the test

Surely it is always possible to teach to the test. Personally I can’t even see why that isn’t necessarily a good thing, you get good at stuff by practice.

Interestingly there was independent primary school that did no testing and had no curriculum and after it was shut, and the kids went to state schools the parents found out their kids were woefully behind.

Speaking to some acquaintances on Facebook about that sample grammar test.

One of them got 7/10 and she teaches English Grammar to adults learning English as a foreign language.

The other got 9/10 and he has a degree in Modern Languages and has also taught EFL.

😯

So you’d assume with scores of 7 and 9 they’d probably have passed then.

So you’d assume with scores of 7 and 9 they’d probably have passed then.

More pertinently, how would you use their scores to then inform their future education?

dragon – Member

Surely it is always possible to teach to the test. Personally I can’t even see why that isn’t necessarily a good thing, you get good at stuff by practice.

…in this case, that means you get good at the test- it’s diverting study away from the normal course of teaching. That’s pretty clear I thought? This is a specific issue of this testing regime rather than testing in general. As I said earlier, the test needs to test the learning and the curriculum, not the test preparation. Test to the teaching, don’t teach to the test. That Should be a tautology; the 2 should just be the same but they aren’t.

dragon – Member

Interestingly there was independent primary school that did no testing and had no curriculum and after it was shut, and the kids went to state schools the parents found out their kids were woefully behind.

Not very relevant to most of the argument though. Few people are arguing for no testing and no curriculum. Well, the government seem to be against curriculums, that’s a key part of academisation.

Here’s a sample of the questions of the Key Stage 1 maths test for six year olds:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/tomchivers/dont-cheat-we-will-know

Have to say my 6 year old wouldn’t have a clue about the algebra or fractions bit.

sorry to drag this up again but this question.

Can someone explain it to me?

[and yes there’s a missing word!]