Sats For Seven-Year-Olds Set To Be Scrapped

[mikey4444]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-39436927

I am not a parent, but if I were, I would want to know how well my child is doing at school.

But if they are not tested, how am I to know ?

[bednobs]

Define well.
by talking to them, by talking to the teacher, by seeing that they are happy.

[jim360]

Ask them?

Or ask the teacher?

Exams are overrated as a means of testing kids. Or anyone else, for that matter.

[pixie374]

You speak to the teachers. This is a test for how well as school is doing, not the students.

[bhg481]

How did your parents know how well you were doing at school Mikey? I bet they didn't have SATs then. Mine saw my school reports and met my teachers at parents' evenings/.

[emmie]

i wonder if seven is too young, and as others have said ask the teachers, school.

[mikey4444]

But isn't how well your kids school is doing, just as important as how well your child is doing ?

[pixie374]

Not to me.

[mikey4444]

Its been a long time since I was at school, but I seem to recall that we had end-of-term tests, which I think we called "terminals"

[ToraToraTora]

Naa, no point in testing the saucepans at 7, good move. I think they are over tested these days.

[mikey4444]

Pixie...surely there must be some connection between how well a school is performing and the same for your child ?

Would you be happy sending your child to school, that was seriously under performing ?

[pixie374]

They do still have tests. But as Jim says, it's a limited way of telling how well somebody is doing.

[pixie374]

Their school went into special measures, mikey. I didn't even consider moving them, because they were all doing really well and were very happy there. Maybe my priorities are different from Ofsted's, but I never lost confidence in the school- they were fantastic.

[andy-hughes]

The point of Sats is to give the illusion that the Government cares about education, which it clearly doesn't.

They give away their complete misunderstanding about the way children are educated by the name they give their tests ' Standard Attainment' - there is nothing 'standard' about any child in any school anywhere in the world.

The notion of comparing schools is utterly pointless.

If you live in Durham, and find that your child's school comes up short against a school in Oxford - what are you going to do? Relocate? Complain? Accept it? Worry about it? The result for all of these will be the same.

What you should do is say to yourself, Oxford has a far higher average of professional people living in nice big houses and paying for private tuition for their kids - there would be something seriously wrong if their pupils were not achieving better than ours.

So I will think only - is my child happy? Is my child achieving up to his or her own ability? And I can get all that information on Open Night when I speak to the teachers.

Other than that, I don't give a flying one about 'comparisons' with other children or schools. because I am only raising my child, and when they leave school, my interest in the education system will cease instantly.

Education is a vote catcher - we all have an opinion on it because we have all been to school.

The government doesn't care about education, or children (they call them 'our children' because it sounds caring, and inclusive) - it cares about your votes.

If the government could get votes by putting money into Premier League football clubs, it would - children are irrelevant - they don't vote.

[emmie]

the report does say could be scrapped

The Department for Education is proposing a new assessment for pupils when they first start school instead

[pixie374]

That makes more sense... "value added"

[andy-hughes]

If the test is to assess each child as an individual, then fine, but the notion of comparing one four-year-old with another, even in the same class, is a nonsense, and proves nothing at all.

[kvalidir]

Really happy about that, the amount of stressed little kiddies there are is incredible- people shouldn't be assessed in this way at such an early age.

[bednobs]

"The Department for Education is proposing a new assessment for pupils when they first start school instead"

*Deep shudder*
christ on a bike, why?
My little girl is in her second term at school. She can't read, wouldnt have a clue about maths (or "number sentences" as they call them in school nowadays). I am (reasonably) happy for these things to come when they come. Her teacher tells me she is making progress, making friends, and i can see she loves school, which is enough for now

[andy-hughes]

bednobs - exactly!

Any parent only cares about their own child for the time that child is in school, and after that, their interest in education ceases permanently.

The notion that parents care - or even understand comparisons between schools is utterly bogus.

When our house was burgled twenty years ago, I asked the policeman who came round if he would mind sending a policeman from the Devon and Cornwall Force - about three hundred miles away - because their clear-up stats were better than the Staffordshire Force. He laughed. So did I.

[vetuste_ennemi]

Testing? Inviduous and useless comparisons?

I think the case against both has been very well made. Scrap Ofsted forthwith.