General Chat

To do the KS1 (for 6 year olds) SATS?

These are for 6 year olds, Bear in mind, in many EU countries, children don't start school until they're 6, and in Britain, we will start to label them.
Some children don't know what a book is until they start school, but many will thrive a year or two later - but let's test them so we can ' label' them as soon as possible.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/2016-key-stage-1-english-grammar-punctuation-and-spelling-sample-test-materials-mark-scheme-and-test-administration-instructions

What really worries me is the section on 'helping pupils' - let's label a child who shouldn't have to go through this at such a young age, as needing extra help!!!!

I had a look and my 5 yr old grandson could do these tests , but many children do not blossom until they are much older and i do not agree with testing children at this age as it cannot possibly be a true reflection of their intelligence ..

Children learn and develop at vastly different rates ...

Some of the words in the actual questions are, to my mind, above the reading level of the average 6 year old! :-S

I think some are a bit tough too Maggie, but presumably they have been taught sufficiently to be able to answer them all? What about those with birthdays late in the school year as well and they do say that girls and boys develop at different rates? I'm not in favour of making an issue of things at so young an age, some will take longer to settle into school, others don't get the advantage of home coaching and support. A good teacher will recognise the differences and give extra help where it is needed without having to be told which need help surely!

Children need to be educated not inculcated.
A Swedish colleague recently asked me why the English hate their children so much.
I sent my kids to Montessori schools which do their d-st to allow children to develop at their own speed.

http://www.oxfordmontessori.co.uk/

There is another way.

My grandchildren went/go to Montessori pre-school, but we don't all want to send our children away to school, neither can we all afford private school fees for 10+ years!!

I'd also like to know why Public schools, and the privately set up schools don't have to make their children endure SAT after SAT, like state school children do!!
Neither do they seem to appear on the poxy 'league' tables

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Molesworth

I suppose that if the tests were simple everyone would score 100% and so would be pointless. One would assume (hopefully) that the difference in results does show who is doing well and who is struggling.

The SAT tests have brought nothing but misery to children, stress to teachers and sadness to parents right across the world without improving education one iota.

How can they when the basic assumption is that a child is at best some form of animal that can be trained to jump through designated hoops? Maybe the Tories still see education as a means to create mechanical people who have just enough ability to toil in shops and counting houses while they rack up their offshore billions.

foo bah