Viewing 19 posts - 1 through 19 (of 19 total)
  • Y6 SATs – Are they more important for the kid or the school?
  • Harry_the_Spider
    Full Member

    My lad is in year 6. He’s clever, but a bit slap-dash and doesn’t check his work.

    If left to his own devices he’ll get 50% of everything wrong because he rushes things. If somebody prompts him to have another look he’ll find the error and correct it. This is just a phase, he’s an 11 year old boy FFS and doesn’t get the idea of double checking when he could be doing something else.

    As this will be under exam conditions, so there will be nobody to stand over him, how much is it going to bugger up his prospects?

    The wife is going nuts with worry.

    wors
    Full Member

    Its more for the school for league tables, I think secondary schools use them however to find out what kind of level they are at.

    bigblackshed
    Full Member

    It won’t. Mostly it’s for the schools benefit and how it sits in the league tables. Kids are placed in groups for secondary school as much from the teacher’s and schools’ report as from SATS results. The secondary school will also do informal tests within the first few weeks to check they have the pupils in the correct groups.

    This is from The Wife who’s a TA.

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    Yak
    Full Member

    I suspect it’s more for the school, but having chatted to the local secondary schools at their open days, they all said they stream from year 7 and use both the sats results and their own evaluation of the kid’s work over the first month or so.

    Our school is running an after-school sats club so the kids can practice doing some exam papers and learn a bit of exam technique. They all seem to enjoy it as they are a tight and friendly year group so no-one seem to be complaining that it’s extra work. The biscuits n’squash might help too.

    johndoh
    Free Member

    But does he get marched out of school with his hands behind his back if he fails?

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Your child’s success in life dependent on so many more things than a single test at an arbitrary time in their life.

    You are right, although as a test it *should* be useful for teachers information, there is way too much weight put on this by uninformed press and politicians. From a school point of view, it helps their standing in league tables. A good school and teacher is already assessing your child, and reacting to his or her needs from day 1 of school. It is used by the secondary when staring at 100 new names on a list for Septembers intake, but again there are meetings between primary teachers and secondary as the transition happens.

    If your only measure of success is a single academic test, you have a poor measure. Yes kids need to learn grammar, maths and particular knowledge. However, being inquisitive, having learning and problem solving skills, social skills and personal awareness is equally important. I know how I judge kids and adults around me – and it isn’t asking for a SATS result….

    I am most proud of my kids for other things outside academia – a comment from a friend at the end of a club ride about how nice and chatty my kids are, performing on an electric violin in front of whole school of parents, nailing that gap jump at Comrie, working out how to fix their own laptop.

    Remind your wife that the chief engineer on the original iPhone was a high school ‘failure’, college ‘drop out’ and more. That Einstein failed his school exams. Many, many dozens of examples of this – it is about character and ‘soft skills’ as much as exam knowledge.

    StuF
    Full Member

    It’s for the school.

    From my understanding, the school is under pressure to get good results (position in league tables), in turn this, puts the teachers are under a lot of pressure to get the results. Some teachers then pass on this pressure to the kids, which doesn’t do the kids any favours.

    Locally to me, year 6 seems to focus on only on getting the grades with mock paper after mock paper for homework and constantly testing the kids in school – grr

    brassneck
    Full Member

    The results won’t be linked to him, only the school – he’ll likely be streamed by secondary when he gets there, on a succession of smaller tests. I’m an ex governor, Mrs B a SENDCO with 20+ years teaching experience, we did no coaching beyond helping with homework. I wouldn’t worry about it at all, it won’t have any affect on his prospects.

    Coincidentally, OFSTED are now reducing their focus on SATS results anyway – finally realising that a good education is more than hitting a KPI.

    Edukator
    Free Member

    It’s for the school and the nation. So long as kids can do the things that bouy up the UK’s ranking in international calssifications the government is happy.

    MTB-Rob
    Free Member

    What about trying to teach/remind him to check is work? (and other exam tricks)
    Do you help check homework? get him to check it as you finish what you doing, before you have a look.

    Be a good thing for later life etc anyway.
    Also with a exam there be less distractions for him (no talking to mates etc) so he prob be a bit more with it.

    Harry_the_Spider
    Full Member

    What about trying to teach/remind him to check is work? (and other exam tricks)
    Do you help check homework? get him to check it as you finish what you doing, before you have a look.

    Oh yes. Constantly. But he is 11 years old and is putting all of his energy into growing massive feet and a moustache. The poor lad has no clue what is going on at the moment.

    wobbliscott
    Free Member

    Both, it’s important to know how the school is doing and its good practice for kids to deal with the pressure and stress of exams. Knowing your stuff is only half of the challenge…there is a skill to actually doing exams too and its just as important that kids have sufficient practice at doing exams under pressure…dealing with the stress and pressure, learning how to prepare for exams, learning how to manage exams whilst doing them etc. It’s important kids leave school with the ability to compete in the global market. Our kids will be much more globally mobile that we were…they’re going to have to be, so they will be competing with Chinese, Indian, European, American etc. kid peers so it is vitally important our school and exam system has credibility internationally so our kids results can be considered appropriately against other nations systems.

    The results won’t be linked to him, only the school – he’ll likely be streamed by secondary when he gets there, on a succession of smaller tests.

    This is true, or was in the case of my daughter…and she did all the better at her secondry school tests because of the focus and hard work she put in for her SATs and as a result probably was streamed better than she would have…she’s clever enough, but hates exams, but the more she does the easier she’s finding it.

    wors
    Full Member

    The poor lad has no clue what is going on at the moment.

    Same with my lad, past 12 months have been tough on him turning from a boy into a (nearly) man!

    Both, it’s important to know how the school is doing and its good practice for kids to deal with the pressure and stress of exams. Knowing your stuff is only half of the challenge…there is a skill to actually doing exams too and its just as important that kids have sufficient practice at doing exams under pressure…dealing with the stress and pressure, learning how to prepare for exams, learning how to manage exams whilst doing them etc. It’s important kids leave school with the ability to compete in the global market. Our kids will be much more globally mobile that we were…they’re going to have to be, so they will be competing with Chinese, Indian, European, American etc. kid peers so it is vitally important our school and exam system has credibility internationally so our kids results can be considered appropriately against other nations systems.

    The results won’t be linked to him, only the school – he’ll likely be streamed by secondary when he gets there, on a succession of smaller tests.

    This is true, or was in the case of my daughter…and she did all the better at her secondry school tests because of the focus and hard work she put in for her SATs and as a result probably was streamed better than she would have…she’s clever enough, but hates exams, but the more she does the easier she’s finding it.

    Which is why i disagree with this, its all well and good doing well academically but if it comes at the price of their happiness and mental well being?

    iamtheresurrection
    Full Member

    Agree with nearly everything above. The SATs results are a measurement of how well the school are teaching across all subjects, and for all pupils.

    All kinds of results come out including how well the school are teaching disadvantaged children, those with English as an additional language and so on.

    There’s a lot of pressure on the results for the school, but there should be none on the kids. I realise it’s not always portrayed like that in every school, but I’ll be telling my kids to do their best but not to worry about them whatsoever.

    anagallis_arvensis
    Full Member

    Sats results will define his GCSE target grades which will be following him round like a bad smell for years.

    Simon_Semtex
    Free Member

    Harry…… Would it be useful to know that in Secondary your wee lads target grades will be based on his Primary SATS results? Imagine that your lad pulls it out of the bag and gets really good SATS grades. For the next 6 years his progress will be measured on that really amazing day in 2019. Will he be able to live up to those targets?

    He could spend the next 6 years being told… “Well ur sats suggest that u r really smart but ur not meeting ur targers in german, french or physics.

    On the other hand, lets say ur lad knows how to “play the game” and his sats grade is just ok or even dare i say it…. Poor!

    His targets for the next 6 years at secondary will be pretty low and he will ALWAYS be able to meet them.

    Tell him not to try too hard in his SATS. That way his life at big school will be less stressful.

    Trust me…. I’ve spent too much time with stressed Yr11’s today.

    jjprestidge
    Free Member

    I am still considering whether I will boycott them when my daughter reaches year 6. They are an incredibly stupid idea, dreamed up by a government whose education policies were imbecilic (little has changed since, of course).

    It doesn’t take a genius to look at countries, such as Finland, where educational attainment levels are higher at 16, and think ‘what are they doing that works?’ (clue – it’s not endless testing or homework at an early age). However, the thickies in power are singularly incapable of finding their own arses with both hands, so there’s little chance of any progress on that front.

    JP

    anagallis_arvensis
    Full Member

    Yep my boy might well be ill that day too.

    However, the thickies in power are singularly incapable of finding their own arses with both hands, so there’s little chance of any progress on that front.

    100% nail on head.

    ayjaydoubleyou
    Full Member

    If he’s as smart as you say then on all the papers (except the part of English where you write an essay/story) he will have finished in about half the allowed time. And then have to sit in silence in the classroom/hall. If 30 mins of absolute boredom doesn’t encourage him to go back through it (with some prompting from you and the teachers beforehand), nothing will.

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