SATs results delayed ( Who cares?)
I was driving home from Essex last evening and tuned in to the BBC radio 4 PM slot to pick up the headlines. Top report of the day was that the SATs results for 1 Million pupils would be delayed by one week !!
I had to pull over into a layby as I was laughing so much at the report and the response from the Department. Just WHO CARES ... the Department and the BBC made me feel that a national catastrophy was at hand and that we must all come out fighting (or digging for victory or something). They didn't manage to tie it in with the 'global credit crunch' but I did get the idea that if they could have they would have.
Not withstanding the amazing cost of the five-year contract to ETS and the 'softer' costs to schools, parent, teachers and children and the fact that we are the only country that perpetuates this 'test it, test it, test it' regime are 'WE BOVVERED'?
Well I fancy NO, is the real answer. If the results are delayed a week or a month - so what. What are the real implications of the calamity? For the children absolutely nothing, nil, zilch ... and it is them we do it all for, isn't it?
Okay, I concede that some children/students may have been built up for their results coming in (possibly based on a reward system !).
The Department seems to be bothered about the damage it has done to the credibility of the exam system. The company has ' learned lessons'. What have the rest of us learned ... and are we BOVVERED !!
posted by Doug @ 08:28
12 Comments
12 Comments:
Are we bovvered. YES WE ARE!
Tests are a national right in this country. It's a badge of honour, a rite of passage.
We've developed the best national testing system of any country in the world.
We test children every year to gather evidence of performance and present understanding to inform future teaching.
These annual tests mark our passage towards the working world.
We're now going to do our best to gradually ease children into this incredible testing regimen by shielding them in KS1. ( A slight chuckle here)
Exams are proof of our work ethic. The modern day fairy tale. 'Do well my son/ daughter and you'll get on.'
It's a National disgrace that they are one day late let alone one week.
But this appears to be globalisation write large. mange more for less but keep the profits high.
'The training day for markers reminded one of the attendees of bingo.'
But a word or two of caution.
Someone suggested that for all this education, testing and teaching there is a 98% loss in imaginative ability by the time your'e 30.
And despite Gordon Brown's advocation of the 'work ethic, the learning ethic and aiming high' to achieve upward mobility' a recent panel of experts found that 'education has done virtually nothing to improve social mobility. Worse still apparently, as a greater number of people gain more qualifications, the less socially mobile the country has become.'
Must mean a return to 'elitism'?
Time to read the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's study on poverty and relative poverty and realise how poor most people are if you aren't already living it.
Like your style Mike, it has provoked me to say more ... My 'we' is a bit 'me' really but who are your 'we? Who are these people who are bothered and why are they? That's what I want to know.
'A national right' !! Come off it. A right to be tested to destruction surely cannot be something anyone who vote for.
And I don;t concede that it is the best testing system in the world ... others have looked at it and have not followed. If it is so good why don't out nearest friends follow our lead?
I am also not convinced that the testing finds its action in informing and changing the pattern of future teaching. Although, at an institutional level I can see why people might think so.
As to exams being a proof of our work ethic ... do you mean success in exams is proof? I think not. Success in exams proves that people are good at exams. They may not be good at 'living' or as Sir Ken Robinson constantly points out 'being creative'.
So back or forward to elitism. After all the Olympics are nearly here and just think of all of the money invested in 2012 to prove just how good we are and just how strong our work ethic really is.
Its worth having a read at this point of Clay Shirky's 'Here Comes Everybody'.
The 'we' you ask about is all the educationalists, politicians, teachers, advisors, parents, civli servants who think testing annually is a good idea. We must think it's a good idea because we do it every year. We train our children to answer the tests with a belief that it is a measure of their ability. We think this is the best way to educate and monitor our children.
Do you remember the line in 'Crocodile Dundee' when Mick said '7 million people living together in New York must be friends or why would they live there.' or something similar.
Well it's not so different.
And you've still go to do the work to prove you're good at exams by being good at passing exams.
BUT perhaps it all rests on the lack of imagination to think of anything else.
BUT this is CATCH22
Can't resist the challenge of this ....
'We must think its good because we do it every year' ... just because we force people through the hoops doesn't mean we think its good. I am not sure that teachers think its good. The ones I talk to certainly don't. The children I talk to don't either.
There was the wonderful situation recently in USA when a group of children on being given an assessment paper sat there and just , well, sat there. They asked politely what was in it for them .
I am just not sure we need to monitor our children in this way and I am not too sure why we are 'wasting' their childhood with this institutional approach to learning when there is much more to be gained by a collaborative exploration of interesting and creative ideas.
Making people do things they don't like is character forming. Forcing people through similar hoops is a time honoured way of creating social cohesion.
As to the SATS monster, well everyone needs a bogeyman.
Great animations. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/7393247.stm
All schools need an animation studio.
This blog Tuesday 13th May ...
Doug,
Congratulations on one of the funniest posts I've seen this year.
The only results that matter at all are those upon which conditional university places are pending.
The only other tests that matter are those which select and discriminate access to the higher levels of study which lead to those offers.
All the other testing is political nonsense and perpetuated by those who have no idea about child development.
Thanks for a good old giggle.
Nick
Doug, you're right. There's no reason for anyone to be particularly bothered about the delay to the SATS results. Certainly not the children for whom the results will have no impact at all.
The problem is that the government, in its wisdom, has decreed that SATS results are a good measure of children's educational attainment. This then leads on to the results being used to measure schools. Which means that the schools attach great importance to the results. And that means that children and parents are also led to believe (erroneously, I believe) that the SATS are important.
The only way this is going to change is through finding an alternative (and simple to publicise and market) means of evaluating children's progress that takes into account their whole development, not just a tiny subset of the curriculum.
Are we bovvered. YES WE ARE!...but not necessarily all for exactly the same reasons. The biggest reason I am bothered (sorry can't keep up the Ms Tate impression!) is because I can't believe the almighty ****-up this has become. English results are now expected to be at least 2 weeks late for KS2 and when they arrive we are not to believe they have necessarily been scored correctly as for some the marks were reversed - high score = low level, low score = high level! We care as our children are judged by the results by their future schools and by their peers. We care because they are 'supposed' to be a measure of our children's progress - if a child attains level 3 at KS1 we expect a 5 at KS2 and a 7 at KS3. We care because at KS3 they affect the GCSE's and level of GCSE our children can take i.e. a child that scores a level 5 or 6 at KS3 wouldn't take the higher level papers at GCSE. As one of the comments says the schools care as the results are published in the 'league tables' used to judge how good a school is and are used to calculate the 'value-added' payments for the schools. Finally, we care because our children DO care. I know my daughter put a huge amount of effort into revising her maths and science and getting her speed up to ensure she could complete the longer writing task in the time allowed and still have time to check that she hadn't made any silly mistakes. If she doesn't attain her 3x level 5s at KS2 she will feel it was in vain. Testing at 11 is not a new thing - I took my 11+ many years ago. There 'my' reward was to go to the school of my choice and do the subjects I wanted to. My parents reward was knowing that I would be in lessons that 'challenged' me rather than getting bored and switching off or messing about. So, yes I dare say there are facets of society who don't give a monkeys - just as I don't give a monkeys that this politician is sleeping with his secretary and that footballer has broken his toe - but some of us do care. Something has to be at the top of the news, politician's sex lives, footballers medical worries or exam results being delayed...the credit crunch is more important but its old news and anyone who hadn't noticed to creeping up over the last couple of years probably either has too much money or doesn't shop or pay a mortgage.
Anonymous comment: we care because our children DO care.
I know this is right but I just have the feeling that they care so much because 'we' ensure that they do. And the institutional system puts pressure on pressure to develop the self-fulfilledness (?) of it all.
'A' goes on to say that: Testing at 11 is not a new thing - I took my 11+ many years ago.
So did I but over the last 50 years we have moved away from this ( not far enough in my opinion) but it doesn't prove anything.
It is not the mess that the lateness of the results seem to have created that bothers me it is the fact that people can get so upset about an admin thing and this just blinds them to the real problem.
Sats are not good for children, they are not good for schools, they are not good for education... they have the potential to waste two years of the first six years of a child's schooling ... and they cost a fantastic amount of money that could be more productively used.
Too right we are not bothered. The most important testing my daughter did was back in November time doing entrance exams for grammar schools. And the school did absolutely f*** all to help the bright kids prepare.
They then worked the bright kids like donkeys come spring to get the SATs results they wanted for the school.
After my daughter sat her entrance exams for which she worked so hard I told her not to do any more homework if she didn't want to and to do just enjoy the rest of her childhood before secondary school.
Hang on... aren't we all missing the point here? The results were delayed for ONE WEEK - that's the bit we're not bothered about.
The original point of the article was questionining why a mere one week delay makes headline news.
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