Single hen

[Chicken Licken]

Hmmm....expecting a bumper crop of GCSE papers to mark online in a few weeks - it seems like an awful lot of marking in a 3 week window, ho - hum. It will pay for a holiday though!!

[Linda]

It looks like you are on the same schedule as Devon,Liz

She said hers went well today, & I am glad yours did too

Same here for Lizzy. She thinks they have gone well so far. I'm just pleased she seems quite relaxed and matter-of-fact about it - I would certainly not want her to feel under pressure.

 

I hope everyone else is doing well. Good luck to everyone taking their GCSEs.

[Cinnamon]

Just a quick update to this thread, as its SATS results time

 

Devon got a 7 for her Science & is getting her maths result later today - fingers crossed everyone,please

[Helly Welly]

Well done Devon

[Guest]

Well done Devon

 

Best of luck for later, I hope you get the result you want

[Egluntyne]

Clever girl.

[Nicola H]

Well done Devon that is a brilliant score.............

[ubereglu]

I found out my Science and Maths levels yesterday. I got a level 7 at Science and a level 8 at Maths, which is the highest you could get!

 

Sadly I don't find out the English result until year 10, because they won't come back until August time!

[bronze]

I hate SATS with a vengeance,

 

No child should ever revise for them because if they do it goes against what they were originally designed for. No child of primary school age should be doing exams at all!

[Cinnamon]

Update - Devon got a 7 in her maths - she was a hair off an 8

She won't get her English until after the summer hols

 

Well done Liz on your fantastic results too!

[Geoid]

SATs - Most annoying test in the world [i reckon it stands for stupid annoying tests], Anyway, they are not to test the pupil, but to test the teachers teaching, thats why you start them at a very young age

[Couperwife]

well done for the fantastic SATS results - they really are great

[Cate in NZ]

Well done to Devon and Liz, great results

Immi did maths & english SATs this year (she took science a year early last year) but she's not aware of the results yet, we don't get them until her school report which arrives next week I think.

I'm afraid though that I'm not a great supporter of SATs, great as a practice for GCSE's but for very little else to the benefit of the child in so far as I can see. Immi's got the GCSE choices she wanted for next year, which is great, and the SATs won't affect those.

Oh, and of course there is the little fact that she won't actually sit her GCSEs

[Cinnamon]

I don't like the year 6 & earlier SATS at all, but I don't think the year 9 ones are too bad.

They at least let the child know what to expect during GCSE's & allow the school to stream the pupils more easily.

 

There is too much pressure - thats what this initial post was all about - but at secondary school level they are maybe a necessary evil?

[Cate in NZ]

but at secondary school level they are maybe a necessary evil?

 

Are they though? Immi's school doesn't appear to support SATs, they pay them lipservice and the girls sit them, but no pressure. They assess their pupils all through the years and streaming is done on the basis of their overall achievements, not SATs results. In July we get an end of year report with her achievements. In September we get anoher report based on those results and giving her predicted achievements and a meeting with her form tutor, we get another report and another set of predicted grades at Christmas and Easter. If a child falls off their predictions there's a letter home, and focussed tutoring if necessary. Streaming is done based on performance and achievements and the girls move up and down from term to term. Immi has recently worked ultra hard on her French to get into top set since she disliked her French teacher and didn't feel that she was progressing with him. She's heard recently that she's top set French for GCSE

Her SATs are entirely irrelevant. Hooray

 

Oh, and I sat O'levels without taking SATs first, I can't remember the system then really, but I'd guess they were watching pupil performance then, rather than government targets

[Couperwife]

the info I have is that KS2 SATs and KS4 GCSE's are the important ones, KS3 SATs are "half time" so probably not that important.

 

but most seem to like to know how the children are progressing.

[Cinnamon]

I agree that the SATS scores should be irrelevant, but I think just for the experience of sitting an exam,in controlled conditions the SATS must be helpful

 

To be honest without the SATS results we wouldn't know that Devon does well in exams & seems to work well under pressure (however much I don't like that pressure!)

I am very proud that she has applied herself well & got top marks

 

Well done to Immi getting to the top set in French.

Devon is doing French at GCSE & I am really pleased that she loves learning languages so much - its always good to have a language under your belt

[bronze]

Kate (A) I wish I had gone to a school like that. School completely demoralised me as I am absolutely hopeless at exams but in no ways thick. At least I wasn't then. Having children seems to have downed my IQ rather.

[Couperman]

I think some exams are an unfair test at all levels. If you have a good memory you can pass some subjects without understanding any of it!

 

I remember the first GCSE exams (we were the guineapig year), the french exam was class! A long text in french about Madonna, with questions in english about the same said article. Madonna fans did ok!

 

Kev

[xScrunchee]

I hate SATS with a vengeance,

 

No child should ever revise for them because if they do it goes against what they were originally designed for. No child of primary school age should be doing exams at all!

 

Kate (A) I wish I had gone to a school like that. School completely demoralised me as I am absolutely hopeless at exams but in no ways thick. At least I wasn't then. Having children seems to have downed my IQ rather.

 

My thoughts exactly Bron. This is part of the reason I choose to Home Educate my two children.

School suits a lot of children but unfortunately it's a sort of 'one size fits all' approach and as we all know-one size never fits all.

I am not in any way anti-school, it just didn't suit us!!

[Rhapsody]

I once read a brilliant quote on this (wish I could remember who it was) "educating a child by constantly testing it is as effective as rearing a pig by constanly weighing it"

We sent our boys to prep school where Sats were never discussed and the kids didnt know they were taking them. Previously they had been at a state school where little else was ever talked about and all they ever did was practice Sats papers. When it came to the real exam when my eldest was 7 he wrote hilarious off the wall answers to the questions because he was so bored of it all!! His teacher called us in and started to tell us how bad it would make her look because he had been predicted a high mark in English and had written such random answers. I'm afraid I just laughed at her and said I didnt bring my son into this world to make her look good We moved them by the next term.

[bronze]

Jay fancy teaching mine as well?

Now if I only had a spare million or so theres a school down in the southwest somewhere I love th elook of