SATs

I have to say that on my way home from work this evening I was a little confused. Radio Four reiterated to me that the NUT and the NAHT had voted to boycott the Year 6 SATs this year.
Strange, I thought. I was convinced that this time last year there was a similar vote during conference season.

I searched on the Internet and found the following statement.

Britain's biggest teachers' union today unanimously backed moves to boycott next year's Sats in a major escalation of a campaign to force the government to drop the tests.
The National Union of Teachers (NUT) will now ballot members to take industrial action and refuse to administer the Sats in England in 2010, defying government warnings that to do so would be unlawful.

So the important phrase was “backed moves”. Last year the two education unions decided to back moves to ballot for a boycott rather than actually boycott the tests for 2009. Apparently, that wouldn’t have been very fair on the children who were due to take their tests the month after conference. After all, that is what they had been preparing for all year.

So they decided to have a ballot in 2010.
They have now done this and agreed that there is going to be a boycott this year.

The BBC reported on this earlier this evening.
Head teachers have announced plans to boycott next month's Sats tests for primary school pupils in England.
It throws into confusion the national tests due to be taken by hundreds of thousands of 10 and 11 year olds.
Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, says the boycott is against a "flawed testing regime".
Schools Secretary Ed Balls urged heads to "think hard before disrupting children's learning".

Did everyone get that statement from Ballsup? “Think hard before disrupting children’s learning”.
Can someone please remind me what preparing for SATs has to do with children’s learning?

It’s taken rather a long time since conference season last year to the action taken this year. I am flummoxed as to why the NUT and the NAHT didn’t hold a ballot during the summer term of 2009. Had they done this, an entire Year 6 age group would not have to endure the teaching to test that some (!?) have had to cope with during their last year of primary education.

Personally, I would have held the ballot immediately after the conference to ensure that last year’s eleven year olds didn’t have to take the tests either. They’d already had their final months in primary school ruined. Would they really have felt disheartened and demoralised by not taking the tests? I am sure there could have been sensible conversations with these children explaining the moral injustice that had been placed upon them. Would they really have seen it as a double whammy if they had prepared and then been unable to ‘perform’?

The sad thing is that by not taking the ballot when I feel they ought to have, another cohort of children have had another year of teaching that has been directly relating to passing an examination that will be of no benefit to them or their school whatsoever.

I sat and spoke to my niece the other day. She is eleven and due to take her SATs this year, obviously now dependant on which union her teacher and head teacher are in.
She struggles with her maths and is currently having booster classes to get her to the required Level Four. Like her aunt, she will never have a natural flair for the subject and she will probably have to work with grit and determination to the get the required GCSE when the time comes. Whatever she has to do now, as far as these booster classes, will make no difference to the additional work that will be required when she is sixteen. There is also the possibility that if she does get the required Level Four, this will disguise her problem with maths and she may not receive the additional support in Year Seven and so on. If she attends a school that has streaming, she may be placed in a group that is beyond her natural ability. She will be further demoralised and will feel further inadequacy.

This is what we do to children when we falsely coach them to a level that is above their natural inclination.

This mathematics and booster classes is annoying but it pales into insignificance when one looks at the teaching and encouragement she has received for her writing.

She is an exceptionally creative young girl. Her drawing has both maturity and a real personal touch. One could say that she is gifted.
She has written stories since she has been able to write. She devours books and has frequently been told off by her mother for reading in bed with a small torch once she has been asked to sleep. Her stories are imaginative, flowing, beautifully constructed, eloquent and rather good to read.
Her teacher has made the following criticisms of her writing.
1. She is using too many elaborate words that complicate her sentence structure.
2. She should use more ‘ly’ words in her writing.
3. She should not start any story or sentence with a conjunctive.
4. She would be marked down if she used a start to a story such as the following sentence – “She had gone.”

My niece has therefore learned to ignore her true style of writing in order to get the Level Four, or actually Level Five that has been predicted. How ironic that she is allowed to use “wow” words if they have an ‘ly’ ending but cannot use the innovative words that she has learned to contextualise from her extensive reading.
And, she cannot use a conjunctive to start a sentence ; re-emphasising in the way so many writers do.

As for the start of a story, what precisely is wrong with, “She had gone.”
Where had she gone? Where was she? Why had she gone? What was she getting away from? Who is she with? These are just a few questions that spring to mind on reading such a sentence which makes this reader want to read on. Surely that is something that children should be encouraged to not deterred from writing?

What a sad indictment on our education system and the poor saps of teachers who are so convinced that this form of teaching is for the greater good of the pupils. Can this really be moral?

A few years ago my child was taking his Year 6 SATs. He had a vivid imagination and had a similar experience to his cousin. His unique and exciting writing was too quirky for the exam. It didn’t follow the rules. He used too many words that were allegedly above his comprehension despite the fact that he contextualised them perfectly.

At the end of Year Five, his teacher declared that he had actually shown clear evidence, through teacher assessment that had been verified by other tests, that he had achieved a Level Five in writing. I jokingly asked the head teacher what they were going to do with him for a year before he took his SATs. She haughtily responded that they took very good care of gifted and talented children in the school.

I spent months awaiting the sort of freedom to which I felt my child was entitled. I wanted him to be able to wander off using his imagination to the greatest of effects. Instead there was little differentiation between what he was asked to do and that of his friend who has moderate dyslexia and a Level 3C going into his final year.

I didn’t want special privileges for my child. I just wanted him to be taught and encouraged to develop his style, his originality, his skill. Instead, all I saw was reams and reams of photocopied sheets and boring exercises that he could almost do in his sleep.
Meanwhile, getting him to write a story of his own volition was now proving to be difficult.
It is now three years since I have seen him write for fun in the way he used to.
Now that is immoral, and going back to Ballsup glorious statement today, nobody thought about the interruption to my child’s education by making him endure an entire year of pathetic teaching. In fact, one can hardly use the word ‘teaching’. He was taught nothing.

The head teacher wondered if I wanted to enter him for the Level Six test.
I looked at her incredulously and reminded her that it was only loyalty to her and the school that was making me send him to school during the SATs week.
Had I had the support from others, I would have sent him into school with the option of sitting there and writing absolutely nothing. I wanted to subvert. I wanted him to sabotage his own paper, and I would have done this had I managed to speak to the head teacher of his secondary school to explain what we were doing.

Madness, sheer madness.

The last time I taught Year Six we had tests coming out of every orifice. At that time, they were playing with SATs and we had tests for DT as well as some optional tests for other subjects. I can say with hand on heart that I never taught those children to pass a test. Thankfully, I was given the freedom to teach them how I wanted and how they wanted to learn. We had fun and enjoyment. The focus was still very much on activities rather than the outcome of a standardised test. I never had the children in rows. I hardly had them in groups but I still managed to differentiate the work.
We had debates and discussions about contemporary issues. Entire days were spent scrutinising newspapers over their response to a particular subject. We made bridges and created all sorts of masterpieces of art. We listened to music together and watched extracts from films and television programmes. I taught them how to make notes and how to use these notes to paraphrase and create.
We had competitions in sports between the girls and the boys (their choice, not mine).
We had such fun, and I am sure that if you asked any of these children, who are now approaching thirty, they would say the same.

What was the difference between these children and my child and niece? They all had to do SATs but the difference was that there were no league tables for my Year Six group.
We had the test papers and sometimes, they had their uses to confirm that my own teacher assessment was correct. I would say that I was probably right in my predictions to the tune of 99%. I was not an exceptional teacher. I just knew my children and had the opportunity to use my knowledge to the greater good of the children themselves; their individuality, their skills, their needs.

Today, I congratulate the teachers unions for their decision but once more they have been too slow. Haste was of the essence to prevent another group of children enduring the horror not of the tests but of the teaching that accompanies them.

Each of the main parties are still clinging on to this notion that the SATs give us an indication of how well the children have been taught. Did the SATs a few years ago give any indication that my child had been taught well? On paper, one could argue that he was a success and therefore he had been taught well. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, he had the most appalling year of stagnation and a distinct lack of quality teaching.
SATs do not even tell the story that their damn statistics allegedly indicate and that is before you even get onto the debate about the teaching and learning that cannot be tested and the enjoyment and enthusiasm that should empower young people to want to learn – if only teachers were allowed to do this.

Mr Balls, please have a think before you open your mouth. Why didn’t you, your party and the previous government “think before disrupting children’s learning”? Why did none of you listen to experts? Why did none of you listen and look and see? Why did none of you make any correlation between the UNICEF wellbeing results and the fact that our stressed out children are feeling this pressure?

Why did no-one listen to what Robin Alexander was saying having actually spoken to children and sensed their fear, loathing and trepidation? Why did you not even listen to the government appointed yes-man of Jim Rose who also said that the curriculum was “open to abuse” of being too channelled because of the SATs? Well, dear Jim may not have said that but anyone with half an understanding of education can read between the lines and realise that is what he actually was saying, even it if was by default.

Let us hope that the teaching unions have finally found their voice and they are going to be prepared to use it over the next few months, whatever the outcome of the election.