Education minister comes on tv to say Sats aren't difficult and gets question wrong

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Frijj said:
But we're assuming that it is the educational system of Finland itself and not the socioeconomic factors specific to the country and the way in which schools are organised (teacher pay, staff:student ratio, etc) that are at play here

We can't just mimic Finland and hope
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So rather we mimick countries that are literally nothing like ours (China, Singapore) etc and hope? That makes sense.
 


Booey said:
If she's bright, as I'm sure she is, she'll pass. People need to remember that are no longer any levels as such. Your child will be graded as, 'at expected progress for a year 6 child' if she makes the grade in her reading, SPAG, 3x maths tests. It will come in the form of a scaled score - 100 being 'at expected progress' anything below, obviously won't be at expected. The only area that differs is writing, which is purely based on teacher assessment and has sub-levels, if you can call them that - working towards, at expected progress, working at greater depth within expected progress.
The real fly in the ointment is the fact that no one knows what will be deemed as 'expected progress' until after every single test has been marked, and the DfE work out their averages (sorry, not allowed to call them averages - I meant 'mean').
The more cynical of us would be inclined to think that there may well be a political agenda behind what the thresholds will be. This'll be dependent on whether the government want to be seen to have succeeded, or if they'd rather stick the knife into the teachers, such is their wont.
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Thanks for that.

I really wish I hadn't read and joined this thread though. It's starting to wind me up.
 
Frijj said:
I'm not defending what they're testing or saying they should be testing it, nor am I making a suggestion as to what schools should or should not test.

I just want to get to the bottom of whether or not these SATs are actually difficult for the age group in question.

It's unfair to say things like "Well, I teach A-Level English and we don't cover this" or "I did not do this at school" or "I'm a thirty year old English graduate and I don't know these things" etc because the odds are you weren't taught them and if you were you've forgotten them.

Simply, is this material difficult for KS2 children?
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Of course its f***ing difficult.we wernt taught them because there is no need to know it at that age.ridiculous imo.
 
the dark one said:
Of course its f***ing difficult.we wernt taught them because there is no need to know it at that age.ridiculous imo.
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Just because you weren't taught it at KS2 doesn't make it difficult.

I don't think they need to know it nor have I ever said that.

I am simply questioning the reasoning of those who proclaim it as difficult.

Bagpuss said:
So rather we mimick countries that are literally nothing like ours (China, Singapore) etc and hope? That makes sense.
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Where did I say we should mimic SE Asian countries?
 
Fumf said:
As a primary school teacher, I can tell you that the test will be very difficult judging from the sample test that I have seen. As other's have said, it's an utter joke of a situation. The writing standards aren't improving in our school because the children can identify the subjunctive form. We, as teachers, might be able to say they can use a semicolon but they're losing their own style and creativity. The English lead teacher has been on moderating courses and it seems to be a case of 'feature spotting' when marking rather than appreciating the actual quality of the writing.
I've never known so many of the kids worrying about their tests. One of the Y6 lads, who found a practice test difficult, asked his teacher if he was 'stupid' because he didn't get a good mark. He isn't. Far from it. He's not alone in his thinking though.
Perversely, these results will be largely ignored by their secondary schools because the kids will be reassessed in September.
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Maybe they would if the parents did?

Just thinking long-term.
 
feynman said:
Thanks for that.

I really wish I hadn't read and joined this thread though. It's starting to wind me up.
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Ha! How I wish I was only joking! (Government approved exclamation sentence right there - begins with how our what and contains a verb)
I've been building up to these godforsaken tests for over a year now. I've had to go into schools and deliver presentations, trying to get schools up to speed with the changes in assessment. The children I teach are ready; I can't wait until they're over so that we can have some fun again.
 
feynman said:
Ha-ha that's a fluke;)

Given that then, can you explain what my girl means regards English. She says they're doing the spag etc but no essay type test and this will be tested over the coming month?
The previous years tests we've mocked have long answer(like an essay) short, and spelling. She says it's different this year.

Are they telling me that actually writing an essay isn't part of testing English? Story telling, descriptions, metaphors blah blah?
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The written work is assessed by looking at the work the children have done throughout the year and making a professional judgment against the standards set by government - teacher assessment.
 
Esh said:
The written work is assessed by looking at the work the children have done throughout the year and making a professional judgment against the standards set by government - teacher assessment.
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Mind if I add a little caveat? The moderation process has also been overhauled. The moderators will no longer enter into a professional dialogue with teaching staff. They will take books across all subjects and will be looking specifically for grammatical features. They'll be looking for examples of correct use of semi-colon, hyphens, dashes, brackets for parenthesis, relative clauses, fronted adverbials etc.
They'll also be looking for joined handwriting and 'most' words spelled correctly. Oh, this also applies to dyslexic children too - if they can't spell correctly, despite their difficulties, they can't be working at 'expected progress'.
 
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BigPlato said:
A lot of there policies, especially for younger children, have an awful lot of research based evidence now. The last few years (at least) saw many schools adopting these practices for younger children. This doesn't fit with the Y1 phonics test or the Y2 SATs however; and these are what the school is judged on.
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Just spotted the grammar error in the top line.
 
Frijj said:
No I don't. Those issues and more have been covered on the other threads on this topic.

This thread directly pertained to the difficulty of the examinations and I wished to question how difficult they actually are, because the education minister not knowing the answer has absolutely zero bearing on the difficulty of the examination, although it does make good journalism.
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@Fumf the primary school teacher answered that question in post 26.
 
Bagpuss said:
Aye, the BBC programme Chinese school told me all I needed to know about that.....12 hours a day sat infront of a teacher taking notes from a board. Then home for more work. No wonder they have the highest rate of suicide amongst kids in the world.....If that is seriously her aspiration she has lost the plot, no right minded parent wants us to mimick systems like that surely?:eek::eek:
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Interestingly, the Chinese have been paying visits to Finland to look at what they do, because some there realise that they are churning out rote learners who can regurgitate what teacher instructs them but who are lacking in critical thinking and creativity.
 
HellsBells said:
But should they?

Who gives a fuck if they can't tell a proposition from a subjunctive clause? Wtf??

Let's spend two years teaching 11 year olds how to pass a test that won't help them do anything at all in the real world, but will help schools pass a review or get into a league table and earn more money as they're all going to be academies from next year.

In the meantime, little Maisie can't tell the difference between 1500% Apr and a high street loan, or how to write a CV or speak properly in an interview.
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It very much depends on what your "real world" is. I agree that a basic understanding of mathematics (in the sense you are describing) is hugely important, but I would also have benefited ( in my real world) from being taught grammar and languages ... rather than the metalwork and woodwork I was taught later for three years.
 
HellsBells said:
But should they?

Who gives a fuck if they can't tell a proposition from a subjunctive clause? Wtf??

Let's spend two years teaching 11 year olds how to pass a test that won't help them do anything at all in the real world, but will help schools pass a review or get into a league table and earn more money as they're all going to be academies from next year.

In the meantime, little Maisie can't tell the difference between 1500% Apr and a high street loan, or how to write a CV or speak properly in an interview.
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Does it help when learning foreign languages? (I don't know btw, I'm just putting the question out there) The one thing I've always found the hardest to grasp is when words or verb endings change depending on whether something is in the nominative case or accusative or dativ or whatever because we never needed to learn that in English. The newspaper is still the newspaper whether I'm reading it, seeing it lying on the doormat or squatting a fly with it.
 
HellsBells said:
Including you, it seems?
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How does it include me?

I read the lad's post. If people are going to quote me and carry on about things other than the difficulty of the exams even when I've repeatedly acknowledged the other factors they bring up (unsuitable curriculum, pointless, pressure inducing etc) then I'm going to point them towards where I refer specifically to the perceived difficulty of the exams
 
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