SATs revision...

[JodieWodie]

I know a few people on here have pre-teens/know of young people who are about to sit, in May, the farce that are SATs (or Standard Aptitude Tests).
Which have been kindly invented by the USA.

Anyway, an hours revision a night is advised, and this is no way near enough to get through all of the stuff they need to know.
Where did childhood go?

As you may be aware the CGP Key Stage Two books (Study and Question) are the main revising guides.
These are quite daunting and can be quite off-putting.
And the chapters in the revision books don't match the chapters in the question books (makes sense if you are in the middle of all this!)

I have devised / made a revision chart for each of the subjects that tell you which pages to revise in the R book and which pages to answer in the Q book. Taken about 5 hours, but these things have to be done

PM me to request if you need these.
Happy to help other stressed out parents

JO xx
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Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow"

[stinkwheel]

People never seem to realise.

What is the consequence of failing a SAT? Nothing, that's what.

SATs are used to set the bell-curve for the proper exam. The best thing you can do with a SAT is to get everyone to fail it as badly as possible. This ensures the final exam which actually counts for something is as easy as possible.

They stopped using SATs when I was at college after they realised what we were up to.

[carvell]

Are you genuinely making your kids revise for the year 6 SATs? (you say pre-teen so I assume year 6)

Revision wasn't even advised when I was in primary school, and the whole thing was just a tick in the box, didn't seem to mean anything.

Clearly things must have changed!
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[Annabella]

I am amazed your daughter's school has told the pupils they must revise!

SATs were introduced to monitor the school and the quality of teaching to ensure that the pupils were being taught all of the curriculum. When can children be children any more and actually enjoy school? KS2 is far too young to be stressing about exams

Good luck for your daughter Jo
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[hellkat]

Never hurts kids to learn how to study properly early in life.

Whether its worth the while of them failing to bring down the bellcurve, how bad can it be for them to learn such discipline at that age where they have to spend a certain amount of time at their books instead of at their Playstation?

Childhood is all very well, but the way its being abused these days by sticking kids in front of playstations or farming them out to the nearest relative who's not too pissed or stoned to be able to still shriek at them, how does that improve any chance of a decent life, when an hour or two of study might at least give them the opportunity to develop an interest in life other than threatening to pop caps in asses.
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Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[JodieWodie]

To be honest I am totally fu*ked off at the idea!

So much so I have voiced my concerns to my OH and DDs teacher, but all I get back is that she 'has to do it or she will fall behind'

I am a bit of a rebel, and all of the other kids have been revising an hour a night since the end of January
DD hasn't even started
I mean, she has gym, guides, family stuff, PLAYING, and all of the normal homework a few times a week too!

I don't agree with the revision, but I am trying to instill some kind of revising

The teacher says an hour + a night which I think is a bit too much

She will do about 30 mins I think, if we are not going to the gym
Which is 4 days a week

I recall how stressed she got when she was 7. She had to do tests then and she was crying thinking she wasn't good enough!! Revise, revise... or you will have a sh*t life
You are 7 now... cmon think of your career!!!!!!!!

Gods sake... she got told off for not doing her homework at the weekend, even though teacher KNEW her Dad was in hospital and we were there etc...
She even sent a letter home with a note on saying the few kids that hadn't done it I mean... wtf!?
Initials of the kids were there, not the names, but cmon... it doesn't take fu*kin rocket science to work out which kids in the class match the initials
stupid cow
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Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow"

[stinkwheel]

Well, I did no homework or revision to speak of until after I'd done my Highers. Did me no harm.

[Annabella]

We had end of year exams EVERY year all through senior school and after the first year, the novelty of revising wore off somewhat. I learnt to pay attention during the year, make good notes and cram the night before

It worked

Sounds like the teacher is desperate... It would reflect most badly on her if lots of the children in the class didn't improve from their last lot of SATs.
____________________
Avast! Pirates ahoy!
I did Cadwell!
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[The View Askew]

The sad thing is, even a GCSE is a just a peice of paper, jobs require these things for the sake of it seemingly, none of it is relavent but literacy, numeracy and a bit of grey matter.
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"Do what you always did, get what you always got"

[hellkat]

*regards stinkwheel in a skeptical fashion*


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Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[cagiva gezzer]

As above. SATS / early exams were just to decide who got put in the higher sets.

Teachers know how brainy kids are and build on it, or destroy them... Wouldn't force it until they really counted. Teach them about the world and make sure they've got common sense.

Doubt i managed an hours worth of revision for my GCSEs.

The only reason i revised for A-Levels was because i was shagging my revision partner.

Thinking about it, that goes for uni as well.

Why don't i get more exams at work!
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"because one stroke isnt enough and four strokes waste two"

[CortezTheKill...]

I'm the Head of English at a secondary school in Staffordshire. I can honestly say that if a kid fails his KS3 SATs, then they'll be put in the right set for GCSEs anyway based on their work throughout the year.

The ONLY reason we use SATs results is to aid setting. We have abandoned the Y9 SATs entry now and enter our kids in Year 8 (Second Year in old money) because they are pointless exams and it means we can start the GCSEs at a basic level in Year 9.

If a kid fails their KS2 SATs, then it's slightly more troublesome as when we receive the kids at secondary school we don't know the kids, so we rely on their SATs result as an indicator. But then, we teach Mixed Ability in Y7 anyway, so it doesn't really matter as we find out what they are capable of for ourselves in Y7 and set them in Y8.

It's only going to be a problem if they get a Level 3 as then they may well get caught up in some 'Progress Group' type of thing, and it's hard to get rid of the stigma attached to that.

Basically, state education is poor (despite the best efforts of most teachers) and the SATs are just a way of classifying kids at an early age as 'academic' or 'vocational'. The picture that emerges in Key Stages 1 and 2 is kind of stuck to throughout KS3 and KS4. So in that sense it's important to make sure your child gets a level 4. But most primary schools in my area coach the kids intensively before the exams so that their performance figures look good.

And about 3 years ago there was a huge delay in receiving the Y9 SATs results. When we finally got them, we noticed that anyone who was just beneath the Level 5 threshold had had their mark raised so they were in Level 5. The QCA had obviously done their calculations based on the marking, realised they weren't going to meet the government target and artificially raised the marks of a huge number of kids to make the government look good. They'd just put a line through the original mark and added 3 to it so they crossed the threshold into L5.

SATs are pointless.
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Current number of wheels: 0 (not including a bicycle).

[ncrn]

KS2 Sats mean nothing, don't worry about them to much, I didn't really do any revision for mine, I seem to remember my dad making me do something in a work book once, which added up to about an hour in total, I still came out with 3 5s, not that it matters really.

The KS3 ones are slightly more important, well they were for me, as my school based what sets you went into on your performance, but I still didn't do that much work for them, I still ended up in the sets I wanted.
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[JodieWodie]

It ticks me off that kids as young as these are doing exams!
But, I guess we all have to be sheep
Do as we are told

My daughter has always been stressed in exam conditions
So, she is bright.. very clever (struggles at maths is all), but give her a confined pressured environment, BAM
Can't think!

I AM going to complain about the letter with the kids initials on though
Throwing stress at a stressful situation I think
Agree?
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Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow"

[fenton]

The SAT's are piss easy, i got 3 5's and did no revising what so ever, i dont like revising for tests.

Just dont put any presure on her, they wont make any differance during highschool, because you do a different test which decides which sets you go into. Just tell her to stay relaxed and not worry about them too much and she'll fly through them.

Fenton

[stinkwheel]

A word on teachers.

There are an odd few teachers who do the job because it is their vocation. They do it for the pleasure of imparting knowledge, a love of the job and a desire to spread their own enthusiasm about their chosen subject. These are rare and worth their weight in gold.

In my experience, most teachers went to university without knowing what they wanted to do. They then dossed about and graduated with a crappy, low grade Arts degree that is virtually worthless. Certainly not good enough to get into a top job in industry.

So, what do they do with this crappy degree? Well, they are offering good money in teaching. So off they go and become a teacher, taking all their chips on shoulders and underlying feeling of inadequacy with them. They then proceed to take this out on their pupils.

Sounds like you have one of those. It makes them feel big to make their pupils feel inadequate. They are deeply unhappy with their own life and compensate by trying to prove theri own superiority to a bunch of kids.

A mate of mine told the above to one of the biology teachers at my school who had just failed her entire sixth year studies class in their prelims (me included) to 'teach them a lesson'.

Actually his exact words were "Just because you got a shitty 3:2 degree and landed up with a job in teaching that you hate is no reason to try and fuck up everyone elses life too.".

Now we were all grade A students at higher. An A at higher gets you a C at sixth year studies so for the whole class to get grade D or E was pretty unbelievable. These prelim results were also used for university applications

She burst into tears, stomped off and refused to teach our class again. Fine by me, we got the other teacher who was of the former 'vocation' sort. The papers were re-marked properly.

[CortezTheKill...]

Erm, I got an Upper Second BA (Hons), knew I wanted to be a teacher at the age of 12 and love my job of helping pupils to further themselves and develop into solid young adults.

Be careful with those generalisations, Stinkwheel.
____________________
SV650 - TRASHED
ZX636R C6F - SOLD
Current number of wheels: 0 (not including a bicycle).

[Ste]

[stinkwheel]

[JodieWodie]

I am trying to write this complaint letter but am stuck...
what can I say at the end>
I need smart words ..

D**** (**) left school today with a letter, which upon returning home I have read.

This letter, I must admit, has appalled me.

Dated today, it states that some children had not completed a piece of homework at the weekend. The children were then ‘named’ by initials.
Now, forgive me if I am wrong, but it does not take rocket science to work out the children to which these initials refer to.
I am sure this contravenes confidentiality ..???!!???

BLANK

Help!
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Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow"

[nrml76]

[Fran]

Yep couldnt agree more there Cortez, I wanted to be a teacher from age 14, and got a 1st in my degree, it didnt change my mind I still wanted to teach, what other job is as good for a biker? the whole summer! free to go out on the bike everyday lol

From my experience the reason some teachers are so fed up is because the kids think they can treat you like they treat their own parents, and when they get knocked back down to earth and taught some cold and hard manners they dont like it. If more parents upheld old fashioned respect then teaching would be a far more pleasurable experience.

It truely is a shame, when you say in disgust, ' would you talk to your mother like that?' and they say 'yeah!.....SO!

Oh and wobbly head syndrome is a classic hahaha usually coupled with Miss, yeah... but.... no.... but!

[hellkat]

I'm sorry to upset your comfortably rebellious little applecart, Jodie, but I think you should get a grip, act like a grown-up parent and just make your kid do its fuckin homework.

You'll be moaning next that she never does what she's told.
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Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[JodieWodie]

[JonB]

I didn't even revise for A levels. Perhaps a quick scan 10 minutes before the exam and that was it.

For KS2 SATS, I recommend getting your kid pished the night before. They will still do well.
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