With only 3 weeks to go until the KS2 SATs, Y6 have been continuing to work hard in all subjects and put every effort into their lessons.
Teachers have been assessing where the children currently are in their learning and continuing to plan lessons for every child's personal needs.
With SATs being headlines at the moment I thought it might be helpful to you if I explain how SATs will impact on your child.
SATs are a government introduced assessment test, to judge the percentage of children across the country and in each school who are at an average level for their age group. These tests have been taking place for over 10 years now and while some people think they are a good idea, many people think they have resulted in year six becoming a pressurised last year in school with much of the enjoyment taken away because children need to be trained to pass a test.
Many headteachers and teachers feel that SATs are not the best way to assess a child and that they put children and schools under unreasonable pressure. The results from SATs tests get put into a league table. This table ranks schools in order of how well they have done. These results tables do not show the circumstances of each school and therefore do not give a full story of how well a group of children are doing. For instance; a child may have autism and find SATs so stressful that on the day of the test they refuse to complete it. They will receive a lower result than they are capable of and this result will be the result that the school is measured against.
Another scenario that happens is that a child who is due to get a high level in their SATs leaves the school just before the tests or, the other way round, a child who is finding learning difficult and isn't yet reaching their age related level might join the school just before the SATs tests. Many Headteachers and teachers say this is not a fair representation of school.
Should a child be removed from school by their family, in the weeks leading up to SATs, for a family holiday, they will be losing lots of learning time and this is likely to affect their results. Also should a child be absent, for instance, with a sick bug, or they are stranded in another country by volcanoes throwing ash across the sky ways, grounding all flights, then these children will be marked absent but they will still be marked as part of the schools results.
If a parent wishes to know how their child is getting on in school and what their levels are then they will be informed far better by asking the teachers at regular intervals, rather than waiting for the SATs tests, as the teacher assessments are done every half term for each child. Teacher assessments really do tell you where your child is in their education. Schools are working to further improve these assessments all the time. To say that the score a child gets on 1 day in 1 test is what they are always capable of is wrong, which is why, when your child moves to secondary school they go with a teacher assessed level and this is the level that will inform parents and their new teachers.
I think it really is about time someone asked the children what they think. Don't you?
Teachers have been assessing where the children currently are in their learning and continuing to plan lessons for every child's personal needs.
With SATs being headlines at the moment I thought it might be helpful to you if I explain how SATs will impact on your child.
SATs are a government introduced assessment test, to judge the percentage of children across the country and in each school who are at an average level for their age group. These tests have been taking place for over 10 years now and while some people think they are a good idea, many people think they have resulted in year six becoming a pressurised last year in school with much of the enjoyment taken away because children need to be trained to pass a test.
Many headteachers and teachers feel that SATs are not the best way to assess a child and that they put children and schools under unreasonable pressure. The results from SATs tests get put into a league table. This table ranks schools in order of how well they have done. These results tables do not show the circumstances of each school and therefore do not give a full story of how well a group of children are doing. For instance; a child may have autism and find SATs so stressful that on the day of the test they refuse to complete it. They will receive a lower result than they are capable of and this result will be the result that the school is measured against.
Another scenario that happens is that a child who is due to get a high level in their SATs leaves the school just before the tests or, the other way round, a child who is finding learning difficult and isn't yet reaching their age related level might join the school just before the SATs tests. Many Headteachers and teachers say this is not a fair representation of school.
Should a child be removed from school by their family, in the weeks leading up to SATs, for a family holiday, they will be losing lots of learning time and this is likely to affect their results. Also should a child be absent, for instance, with a sick bug, or they are stranded in another country by volcanoes throwing ash across the sky ways, grounding all flights, then these children will be marked absent but they will still be marked as part of the schools results.
If a parent wishes to know how their child is getting on in school and what their levels are then they will be informed far better by asking the teachers at regular intervals, rather than waiting for the SATs tests, as the teacher assessments are done every half term for each child. Teacher assessments really do tell you where your child is in their education. Schools are working to further improve these assessments all the time. To say that the score a child gets on 1 day in 1 test is what they are always capable of is wrong, which is why, when your child moves to secondary school they go with a teacher assessed level and this is the level that will inform parents and their new teachers.
I think it really is about time someone asked the children what they think. Don't you?
