Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

silvercar

michaels wrote: »

Just watched about 70% of the last episode of Undercover on bbc1, having seen about half of the serries...and didn't understand the ending

Shh! Been watching every episode and have had a power cut tonight.

Pyxis

michaels wrote: »

Or perhaps lots of pupils were simply poorly taught? When they got rid of SATS in Wales a few years later gcse results fell off a cliff

Still at least there was less stress for the pupils and teachers...

I remember having 'tests' regularly in primary school, but they were no big deal.
I don't have any memory of being primed for the 11+. None whatsoever. (I do remember taking it and feeling nervous about it).

i remember having termly 'tests' right through secondary school, and internal end of year exams.

(The only time I got really nervous about exams was when I sat GCEs and A Levels).

I have no idea if any of those tests were actually testing the teaching methods rather than what I knew. I daresay some of them must have been, though.

Surely that's how it should be?

Doozergirl

silvercar wrote: »

I don't think they do. Schools don't offer places based on securing level 5.

Schools may be judged on the percentage that reach targets. They may also be judged on "value added" - they compare the age 7 SATs with age 11 and see what value has been added. Pupils should move up 2 levels in 4 years. Judgement may be more league tables/ impress potential parents rather than money. Not convinced that people are that interested. Parents looking to move from state primary to private secondary or grammar schools focus on the school destination of existing pupils rather than SATs.

Don't think you should worry michaels, or feel that you have missed something.

Agree. The teachers are being tested. Your little one shouldn't be bothered by it. I'm sure the teachers have done what they could in a sensitive way.

The year 6 SATs are brutal. DD sat them this week. She has been repeatedly ill over the last three weeks and was so poorly this week, yet I had to send her in each day so she didn't up sitting them all in one go in isolation. She may have one or two periods of illness in a year, normally.

These tests are a measure of teachers' ability to teach for tests. They've taken a huge bulk of proper learning time and added stress to little people's lives.

I'm just glad they are over. The fact that my daughter has a label now for every type of word does not please me. I don't get the point.

zagubov

This sounds very old-fashioned; teaching is supposed to be all student-centred now; the whole current emphasis in education has moved towards the pupils being in charge of their own learning. Heaven help the teacher who dares to teach the class something in front of an inspector/lesson observer.

It's all about getting the students to teach each other, assess each other and take ownership of their education. Teachers are now facilitators.

If this trend continues across the diminishing public sector, pretty soon we'll be drilling our own teeth, designing our own house extensions, working out our own taxes and forming our own militias to protect our country from foreign invaders. So I hope it doesn't.

Doozergirl

michaels wrote: »

I should have been more on top of things being aware that DS wasn't learning what he should have been. It is hard for pupils to overcome the label they have of being a level x and get put on certain tables etc....

Erm, if you were on top of things, you might understand the utter !!!!!! that your kid is expected to know this year.

The whole point of measuring teachers should be that the children shouldn't know that the teacher is being tested, and certainly shouldn't feel that they are the ones being tested.

Learning to recite is not real learning or proper understanding. Your child is not being labelled.

Indon't think there's anything wrong with being on a certain table. I'd rather be taught in an appropriate group than not understand, or be bored.

https://piclinegirl.com/2016/05/14/sorry-nicky-im-out/

zagubov

Biggest problem in our area is replacing problem teachers. As in, they get rid of teachers better than they appoint them, so we get parents saying their kids had a different teacher every three months and were constantly trying to adjust to different teaching styles.

While that's probably good practice for coping with HE. I'd be grateful if they found a way of keeping teachers at primary and secondary so by the time we get them at tertiary/college/uni level they had a vague idea of how many beans made five.

Generali

GDB2222 wrote: »

Isn't that what pantomimes do? They have one text for the kids, and another lot of double entendres to keep the adults happy.

TBH a lot of the best kids films have moved past that to simply being decent, if simplistic, stories with dialogue that goes beyond, "Aaaaaaaaaaargh, wooooah". Kung Fu Panda 3 was a lot of fun and genuinely funny with a decent storyline. It's not The Third Man or anything but it's quite watchable.

GDB2222

Forgetting your bomb in a football stadium, even just a dummy bomb used for training, that's worryingly forgetful.

zagubov

GDB2222 wrote: »

Forgetting your bomb in a football stadium, even just a dummy bomb used for training, that's worryingly forgetful.

Hey but never mind the security company probably didn't cost that much so we'll all get a tax refund. :beer:

As for education, if your teachers are underperforming, instead of getting SATS data, why not just show them ads for teaching jobs abroad? They'll be better paid and respected and out of your hair.

Just don't show them to teachers you like.


Actually I remember seeing a job teaching at Seychelles Polytechnic. A friend said to be careful it wasn't just a trumped up re-branded college in Balham.:rotfl:

SingleSue

Youngest spent his entire year 6 SATS either under the desk or in meltdown, as a consequence, he didn't actually complete any of them.

Apparently though, those same results have been used to predict how he would do all the way through, hence the predicted low score for his level 3 BTEC initially. He was predicted Merit, Merit, Merit, he is currently achieving with 9 units out of 18 completed, Distinction*, Distinction*, Distinction* and is finding it all rather easy and cannot understand the others moaning about the huge step up from level 2, according to him, there has been no difference to what he did last year to what he is doing this year.

Mind you, he was doing level 3 standard (and amount) of work for level 2 because he got his determined, stubborn and focused head on to make sure he made the grade to go onto level 3 after things went a bit awol with his support at the academy and consequently, his GCSE results which meant he had to repeat a year before moving onto level 3.

He kills trees when he prints his work out, thinks nothing of doing 3000 words for a task (and there can be numerous tasks per unit) and then writing up his own political history research by hand (9 A4 pages last week alone in his teeny tiny writing)....and he is not even studying that!

Edit - I guess this shows he is not a typical teenager, he goes to college, he comes home and that is it. There are no mad parties, no going out with friends just him with his college work and research. At his age, I was out every night enjoying the company of friends, he sees that as a waste of time, energy and money. As long as he is happy I suppose......