[Closed] Even the children are on strike

The Tories are that competent, that they could pull that kind of stunt off!!!

Like I said, I don't hold much credence with the conspiracists but then you read stuff like this....

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mefty - Member

If the school is making a big thing of it that is a problem with the school.

Kids aren't morons, they know when they're being tested. And it's not the school making a big thing of these tests is it? They're responding to the fact that they are a big thing.

What JP Gargan sed ^

s aren't morons, they know when they're being tested. And it's not the school making a big thing of these tests is it? They're responding to the fact that they are a big thing.

Or it's the parents whipping the whole thing up into a big thing rather than the teachers, because there's no parent like an insecure parent...

As above - some kids need a gentle touch, some don't. For those who do, simply battering them does not help. Surely you must understand this? Or does a public school education beat any sympathy out of you?

The first anyone, other than the teaching staff, knew that the test was taking place was when it started, even afterwards alot of the kids didn't really appreciate that they had been tested. That is how it should be and it is hardly difficult, my daughter has no idea of her scores because they are unimportant.

Not at all mol - comprehensive approaches to education are flawed IMO

Are you saying she belongs in the lower tier or the upper tier? You'd relegate her at age 7?

But these tests are hardly a battering - unless as mefty, schools approach them badly

She is battering herself. Because the tests exist.

You think your daughter might die if she doesn't do well in a test at school?

Don't be stupid. That was a metaphor, as you almost certainly knew.

If she is too stressed by school, she will not learn well, and hence not meet her potential whilst having a miserable childhood. Is that ok with you?

She does not know she is having a government test, they have told the kids it's a fun quiz.

Or it's the parents whipping the whole thing up into a big thing rather than the teachers, because there's no parent like an insecure parent

Except it's not just the parents, it's the teachers too. Did you see dazh's post?

ninfan - maybe it's just lots of people from across the country that have looked at the new curriculum and tests and decided that, actually, they fundamentally disagree with the premise that's been used to set them?

Yes, the people who are taking their kids out of school are directly affected but they're not the only ones who care about how the education system is being turned into a commodity.

my daughter has no idea of her scores because they are unimportant

Why bother then?

Individual scores are unimportant but a bench marking exercise will help in evaluation of the system as children progress. People say they want evidence based policy and then complain about the collection of evidence.

There are othr ways to collect better evidence, single point tests are a poor indicator of student capability. I always did really well at tests, often beating my peers who were actually better, brighter and harder working but found tests outfacing, conversely I was crap at coursework because i was idle, which was perhaps a fairer reflection of what I'd done over the year

[i]a bench marking exercise will help in evaluation of the system[/i]

children as a commodity.

schools will teach only in ways that increase their scores.

and yet the curriculum they are teaching is narrow and flawed, the bench-marks being used fail to measure a lot of things that are important and those things will cease to be taught.

ninfan - Member

Or it's the parents whipping the whole thing up into a big thing rather than the teachers, because there's no parent like an insecure parent...

It's a big thing because government policy has made it a big thing, end of. Everything else is a reaction to that.

It's just a piss poor data collection exercise. Back int'olden days you'd get a grade and an effort score from your teachers in your report, why not just enter that into a database you'd get the benchmarking data you'd want from a more consideed perspective ?

OK, here's a daring thought. If the tests are causing teachers to "teach to the tests" then they're evidently bad tests. Likewise "preparing for the tests"- the preparation for the tests is the curriculum. If they're supposed to gauge progress and attainment then they have to test to the teaching.

+1

Back int'olden days you'd get a grade and an effort score from your teachers in your report

And if my predicted A-level grades were anything to go by, then teachers aren't that good at judging these things.

From way back on page 1

if schools want to teach solely to pass the tests because of the league tables, well, that's their problem.

This, to me, is the central issue, and if the kids are being crammed full of literacy and numeracy to meet some tests, at the expense of a more rounded education, that is very much the kids' problem, isn't it?

I don't know, some schools are better than others, some teachers are better than others but if I had kids at primary age*, I'd be taking an active interest in what they were doing at school**. If it was always literacy and numeracy, with art and history not seeming to get much of a look in, I'd maybe be asking the school about that***. Anecdotally I hear that that is the case in some schools. I'm sure it's not in others.

To me, the danger in all this is not that kids are overly tested, stressed by it, labelled as failures (as many have said, it's the schools not the kids that are judged by SATS scores)but that the education they receive suffers as a result because teachers make the wrong decisions, for the wrong reasons, about what to teach 'em.

*which I do
**which I do
***they're not, so I don't need to

People say they want evidence based policy and then complain about the collection of evidence.

Individual scores are unimportant

Hang on - if that's the case, how will the tests help an individual from having a failed life due to inability to recognise a subjunctive (and hence being forced to become a Tory minister)??

Therein, for me, lies a big problem - people want more say on everything but they're not qualified to have that say.

I assume you're referring to the government?

"It's just a piss poor data collection exercise. Back int'olden days you'd get a grade and an effort score from your teachers in your report, why not just enter that into a database"

In many ways that would be better, but it relies on Teachers not being smart enough to realise that giving every kid duff marks for the first benchmark will make them look great at the next data point.

In contrast a test can go to a moderator...

I assume you're referring to the government?

The government absolutely brings about a lot of misery and unhappiness not only to itself but also the electorate through a mixture of cackhandidness and self-interest.

In many ways that would be better, but it relies on Teachers not being smart enough to realise that giving every kid duff marks for the first benchmark will make them look great at the next data point.

Seems to me this is a problem of league tables and pushy parents.

35-40 years ago I was tested at primary school most years, and we had a huge multi day test session in the final year which the secondary school used to base their expectations on. School didn't coach us for them or apply pressure, parents said nothing more than "Do your best"

Between them, our two kids have now had 3 rounds of Sats, and again, the school put no real pressure on them and we didn't either.

I suspect that all this pressure on the kids comes from wannabe Superheads and the chattering middle classes concerned at their Facebook friends may find out that Tarquin and Arabella are not child prodigies after all, just normal kids with ****ed up parents.

Given how articulate striking children were on CH4 news and how well written and designed their posters were, they will sail through their tests - very impressive level of knowledge and expertise being demonstrated by such young ones. Almost GCSE standard....

Far smarter than in my day.

[url= https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/listen-schools-minister-trips-grammar-question ]Minister in failed test shocker[/url]
Great example - minister gets the grammer question wrong. Key thing is, what difference does it make if an eleven year old can correctly identify a subordinating conjunction, as long as they use them properly?

Well they may as well get used to puerile box ticking now because that what is awaiting them at work. Apparently as long as my PD is imaginative it doesn't really matter how good I am at the job I'm apparently paid to do.

why are schools even telling them they are doing a test, ours didn't, it is a bench marking exercise it has no significance to the children at all. If the school is making a big thing of it that is a problem with the school.

I suspect its because thats how schools are judged and with performance management thats how teachers are judged for pay progression.

...a bench marking exercise will help in evaluation of the system as children progress. People say they want evidence based policy and then complain about the collection of evidence.

So presumably this benchmark is required because currently if a 16/17 year old does well in an English or Maths exam then we have no [i]evidence[/i] that this was due to the stuff they learnt in school?

Therefore we need to test them to make sure they don't already know this stuff at six.

Makes sense.

Though I'm not sure that rules out the possibility of them learning stuff from sources outside of the school environment? Perhaps compulsory Boarding Schools and minimal outside contact would be the best scientific approach.

Incidentally I'd be interested to hear how people fair on this sample test:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2016/05/03/can-you-pass-this-grammar-test-meant-for-11-year-olds/

(I'm a degree-educated 41-year-old: I only got eight out of ten and that was with a fair bit of guesswork).

6/10 all guesses though, didnt have a scooby

7.

Damn 9 - 50/50 on past progressive

At least 4 educated guesses though. 😯 could easily have been 6 or 7

No wonder the kids posters were so well written. Better than the junior doctors' versions 😉

But these aren't the tests at the centre of today's [s]storm[/s] minor news are they?

Was dey all like

'Exam format academic assessment is an anachronistic preoccupation of the Tory right'

An' shit?

9. ****in adverb/adjective. 😡

I got 8 (decided not to guess, what's the point of that?) No idea what the past progressive is. I got the active voice thing right just because Word used to shout at me for using the passive voice, I just don't care is all. No idea what a subordinating conjunction or preposition is.

My colleague's an english literature graduate, she'd know all this stuff. But tbf I think knowing it still makes no difference at all to her life, except that she likes to use it to look down on people for not knowing how to correctly deploy an ellipsis... Which to me, is a bit like slagging people because they don't know how to triforce, or they can't correctly identify a particular world war 2 tank. I have an MA and the highest uk school english qualification, so it's a bit of a surprise that I need to resit P6. Absurd really.

It's a shame the Nick Gibb story has ended up just being a way to make fun of him; the real point is that it doesn't matter if he got the answer right or not- and it doesn't matter for us either. So why does it matter for primary kids? So they can do well in the test, is the only answer I can see.

Footballers' curse DD (and snooker judging by this weekend's commentary)

I suspect its because thats how schools are judged and with performance management thats how teachers are judged for pay progression.

Whilst performance pay is not a bad thing in my view, if teachers are projecting the importance of the tests onto pupils because it is financially important to them, that is.

So presumably this benchmark is required because currently if a 16/17 year old does well in an English or Maths exam then we have no evidence that this was due to the stuff they learnt in school?

I imagine data that shows pupils's progession over time is far more valuable than just data showing their ultimate achievements. Many good schools don't do well in league tables because they don't have the intake. Tests like these, which show development over time should - and it is dependent upon them not being gamed - give a better idea of who the really good educators are, rather than recruiters.

All 10 yay!

I didn't understand the questions at first!

My English education was appalling to be fair.

Something I'm working on.

I imagine data that shows pupils's progession over time is far more valuable than just data showing their ultimate achievements.

So let's say, for instance, that we take this data over 12 years and we discover that kids who knew their 13 times table at six years old were more likely to pass Calculus at 18 than those who didn't.

Ignoring the fact that the curriculum had probably changed several times in that 12 years, what does that result actually tell us?

Does it mean we should make teaching the multiplication tables a priority? Does it suggest that some kids are naturally good at maths? If no one in the school passed the test at six and then no one passed Calculus at 18 does that mean it is a bad school or perhaps just one in a difficult area?

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

6 year old daughter loved reception year, but hasn't enjoyed the years one and two. She is now worried about the "special test" she is having to do. Sure, some kids couldn't care less about them, but my daughter feels under pressure to do well and is certainly aware of what's going on. A six year with exam stress, not sure where the benefit is coming from, but we
now have a child that hates school.

[i]I don't think you can underestimate how badly a government can misinterpret and misuse that evidence[/i]

Step up Hunt and the 'a 7 day NHS will save lives' line 🙁

back on topic:

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

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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]i'll flunk the test above[/i]

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] I often do, when I have difficulty learning a new language. [/i]

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.

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.

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.

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?

[img] [/img]

[and yes there's a missing word!]