SATS....Pushing the children over the edge. (Education System)

Member Name: MandyMinx

Product:	Education System
Date:	01/07/03 (261 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Monitoring, Raising standards

Disadvantages: Pressure, Expectation too high

"It's important that the whole of a child is educated not just their ability in numeracy, literacy and science." Nottingham Evening Post 21/5/03

Anyone who saw the news yesterday will know that the government has finally decided to change the way in which National Curriculum SAT's testing is going to be conducted in the future. What do you think?

I welcome the changes that the government are implimenting, but I do not feel that they go far enough or deep enough to solve the problems that have arisen because of the national league tables.

I agree that testing is good and an effective way of monitoring the progress of a child, my concern has always been the way that each and every child is constantly compared to the 'national norm', regardless of any special needs that the child might have.
When a child is tested there is no little box to tick that allows the examiner to take into account the fact that maybe this particular child might be dyslexic or have a learning disability. In some cases the fact that the school has got this child putting pen to paper at all is in itself an achievement that is not recognised by these tests and tables.
In inner city areas the schools are constantly recieving a cohort of children who have no pre- learned literacy and numeracy skills, very often because mum and dad never recieved a good enough education to be able to inintiate the story sharing and counting games that would give their children a headstart on the educational ladder.
These schools are working extremely hard to give these children the education that they not only deserve, but have a right to, but as you can imagine it is much harder for them. I know that in some cases the hardest fight for the teacher is getting through to some of the parents the importance of making sure that their children recieve an education. You have to remember that many of these parents were not taught this valuable lesson themsel
ves at school and many infact have no faith in the educational system. I have seen many a school and many a teacher going to heroic lengths to get parents into school, in the hope that they can in turn help them reach a child and help them suceed.

If you think about it, is it any wonder that we are losing teachers at an alarming rate?
Is it right that a school fights against the odds to get a child reading and writing, only to be made to look as if it is failing when compared to schools that have a better cohort, in a higher classed area, where parents are better educated and more motivated to want to see their children reach their full potential.

Does the fact that a school is sitting at the bottom of a league table mean that it is a bad school?....Well actually I don't think it does, but many parents see it that way and schools know this.
I feel that as a consequence, many schools feel forced to put an extreme amount of pressure on the children to perform well.


In my son's old school they went to pathetic lengths to make sure that the school stayed towards the top of the league tables.

PE was cancelled after christmas, so that extra SAT's revision could be done. There was no art, no drawing, very little opportunity for creativity.

Naming and shaming became commonplaced, with the childrens work being graded infront of the whole class and children having to stand up and let the whole class know how well or how badly they were achieving.

Booster classes were set up and I was expected to send my child to school at 8am, two mornings a week and for three and a half hours on a Saturday. James went on a Saturday, but the early morning classes were very difficult to get him to. James came home one day to say that teacher had told him that he had to come. I wrote a letter informing them that this was too difficult and reminding them that he didn't 'have' to attend. He was then told i
nfront of the whole class that if he did badly on his SAT's then it would be his own fault.

I have also found that schools are so desperate to hang onto their higher achieving children that these kids are actually allowed to get away with a lot more than some of the others. I have witnessed this from both sides of the arguement.
James achieves, according to the school, lower than the average child. He went through a really rough time recently when he was really badly bullied. The child doing these awful things was a really high achiever. The school ignored our complaints and even turned a blind eye to the horrendous things that this boy was doing to my son. In the end we decided to move our son to another school. The old school never questioned this, nor did it try and talk us out of it. Infact the forms went through very fast. My son was a statistic that this school concidered it could well do without.

My daughter Gemma on the other hand is concidered to be achieving in the top 3% in the country. The school that she is at has a tough stance on tardiness and children who are late on more than one occasion are punished with detention. I have to say that Gemma is always late. Has she sat a detention?...No. Why? because she is a high achiever and to be honest the school need her to help keep their grades up.

Is it right?...No!
Is it just?.....No!


Is it right that our children are put under this pressure? Does it have an effect on the performance of the child?

I think it does.
I moved my son to a school that seemed to me to have a more relaxed approach to SAT's. I don't mean that they didn't bother with them or the results, what I mean is that they refused to put the children under the same pressure as his previous school did.
Did this have an effect on James academic achievements?...Yes it did!
Within two weeks of being at this school he was achieving a full point above the level he
had been achieving at the other school. Now my son didn't wake up one morning and suddenly know a lot more than he did the night before. In my eyes, what happened was that when the pressure came of and my son felt less stressed and worried about the scores he was achieving he started to enjoy his work and the results were instant.


As I have said before I am in favour of testing.
I am in favour of testing for both the school and the child, but I want my child tested all years round,when he is not under pressure.
I want him tested in a way that gives me an overview of what he is really achieving.
I want my sons achievement measured on the progress he is making throughout the year and not on the results of one test that effectively compares my child to what the government conciders 'normal'.
I want schools to encourage my child, planting seeds that will give him self respect and a determination to succeed, not give him the very clear message that he is not as good as everyone else.


Is it any wonder that a child who achieves below the national average, might feel that they have no chance in the education system? Is it fair to say that such a child might then no longer see the point in going to school everyday.?
Is it not possible that the reason so many young people choose to truant from school on a regular basis is that they already feel that they have failed?


I believe that it is important for schools to be continuously tested and challenged. Challenge is good and healthy.
Testing makes sure that a school does not become complacent and standards have to be and should monitored, but I think that it is a very good idea for test results to be acompanied by an offsted inspection that takes a much closer look at the school and taking into account the needs of the children and the work of the staff to raise standards.
Too many schools and too many teachers are finding themselves unfairly lab
eled as under achieving, when infact the progress they are making, with the children who need the help most, is astounding.

Lets stop telling our children that they are failing and instead lets show them that there is hope and they can learn.

All children can achieve. Shouldn't we help and encourage them.



Ok I've had my say....LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!



Thanks for reading.

Mand x x

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