View Full Version : Do MPs even live on this planet?
Jesus H!!! The education minister is on Panorama at the moment discussing SATS, the tests that children undergo in primary school aged 7 and 11 and again when they are 14.
Sophie is doing them this week. She is stressed, not sleeping, dreading school, distracted and under the most ridiculous pressure and has been since about March. I had a letter from school saying that she must have early nights (7pm was 'suggested') and good breakfasts and that she can't go off school sick this week. All this so that the school can find its place in the league tables. It makes me so bloody angry!!!! They're at primary school ffs! The sodding minister just said 'life is stressful, it's good for the kids to learn that'. WTF?!?!? They have a LIFETIME of stress looming, what is this guy on?!
I've told Sophie time and time and time again that she mustn't get stressed about it, I don't care how she does on them and explained what they are guaging but to no avail, she seems to be being bombarded from the minute she gets into school.
And while I'm ranting about primary schools....Daisy gets homework. What is THAT all about?! She's had it since they started school, they all get it and the older two get quite a lot. AND! There was a select little group picked to be hothoused after school to pass their 11 plus this year. Surely I can't be the only person that thinks this is just insanity!? If a child has to be coached to get into a grammar school they are going to struggle, and in an academic environment that's no fun at all, I've seen it. I know hindsight can be slightly rose-tinted but the 11plus in my day was a total non event, we went into the hall to do it, no notice, no pressure and our parents were told if we had passed. Ofsted now actually send letters TO THE KIDS telling them they are underperforming/below average etc based on the schools SATS results
What has happened to children being able to be children? Going out to play after school rather than doing mounds of homework? Enjoying primary school rather than being put under more and more pressure to perform for the school?
Livid from Essex.
Bugger Karyn, I can remember getting stressed doing my GCSE's, but it would seem I wasnt under as much pressure as your kids, thats just bloody awful :(
Not long after I started working at the 6th form college we saw the start of the AS/A2 thing, where students are taking real exams for qualifications both years (AS first year, A2 second) of their studies at the college. The poor students that came in at the start of the year were the unluckiest year they'd managed (through government stupidity) to be collared for every new exam and testing. One of the teachers worked out they'd had 'pressured' exams every single year from year 7 onwards, right up until they sat their A2s, then they'd hit Uni and have all the end of year exams each year there too.
What is utterly moronic about the whole thing is that exams are incredibly disruptive to learning. Teachers are having to cram the same syllabus in to a shorter period of time so that they have enough time to do revision stuff with their students before the exam hits. The college teachers were figuring on the AS/A2 split wasting 2 months of real teaching time and probably 3 1/2 months of effective teaching time once you deal with the disruption and productivity changes, with students having to change from being on a learning to a revising mindset, and back again. PLUS the exams come in May/June leaving not even a complete final term to really allow them to get their teeth into a subject.
It's the same as so many of the utterly stupid things the government does. Too much bureaucracy and red tape. After all, they have to have all these statistics to tell us how well the schools are doing, right? How else would the population know that they're screwing up education if there weren't the statistics to support it.
It's all going mad, I didn't get homework until year 6 and that was only for a major project, mainly started and secondary school. I skipped out on year 6 sats, took the year 9 ones but didn't really care about them as that was a long long time ago.
Just missed out of the AS/A2 thing, but from what I saw they cram most of the easy stuff into the first year leaving a huge amount of complex stuff for the second year so even if you get through the AS course and do okay there is worse to come rather than spending two years properly learning it all and only having to worry about mocks in the middle.
I also remember the 11plus and being totally un-stressed about it all. Mind you, I didn't tend to get that stressed out by exams anyway (probably why I did so badly at A levels - Uni didn't count as I was a dirty swot there).
It's certainly a shame that the whole school mentality now seems to revolve around exams and tests, and how pupils 'must' do well - consequences be damned, but I guess that was an inevitable result of the whole league tables thing.
As for the original question, I have no idea where most politicians (not just MPs) originate from and live, but in a lot of cases it doesn't seem to bear any relationship to what the rest of us experience.
Who can honestly say their exam results (as in SAT's and GCSE's) have helped them get where they are now? Not a single person I know has thanked their exams results for getting them a job, its almost like they never exisited :(
I have to say my lack of quals has hindered me once, but then I did stuff up my GCSEs quite spectacularly due to naughtiness. I was so bad I had to do my exams in the stationary cupboard lol! In hindsight though I dont really think good results would have changed my path at all.
Who can honestly say their exam results (as in SAT's and GCSE's) have helped them get where they are now? Not a single person I know has thanked their exams results for getting them a job, its almost like they never exisited :(
I'll be an exception to your rule then. I got my Uni placement as a result of good 1st/2nd year Uni results, and I got my current job as a direct result of my Uni placement (same employer). Admittedly, whether a worse finals result would have had any adverse affect, I don't know (I doubt it, within reason).
My SATs did nothing as far as I can tell, but my good GCSE results probably helped get me into Uni and my current job due to atrocious A-levels and a "not quite as good as I'd have liked" degree result.
Dymetrie
13-05-2008, 07:40
I've been keeping an eye on this over the past few days (can pretty much pick up BBC1 and Dave on freeview... thank SMEG for Dave!) and it's left me somewhat flaberghasted.
It's a sorry state of affairs that the Government feels the need to stress children out just so that they can categorise the abilities of schools and teachers.
The main problem with it is that exams are rubbish. They don't show which pupils are most capable at a subject, they show which pupils are most capable at remembering loads of stuff which they'll have forgotten again after a few weeks and will never use again. Coursework and projects are much better indicators and also create much less stress.
Pretty much the only subject path I followed in my educational career which assists me in my current professional career is English. And even that I attribute more to being well read outside of school...
SidewinderINC
13-05-2008, 07:53
At primary school the only "homework" I got was for big projects that were maybe once a year for each subject area at most - and they were fun.
I don't even remember being worried in the slightest about the Y6 SATS, and that's not saying something about me or your kids, it's the way they've hyped up what the exams mean.
In Y9 the SATS did actually make a difference to schooling because in my school they determined what group you were put into, higher, middle or lower ability and then the teaching was geared for that.
I didn't even stress out for my GCSEs, the only time I started stressing was A2's and my 2nd and final years of uni.
I think they're putting far too much pressure on kids when they don't need to, you can give two people the same exam but pile the pressure onto one of them and say it's the end of the world if they fail and they'll probably do worse.
One of the reasons that they're giving homework now so young is because quite a lot of parents don't care about their kids education and think once they're in school they're being taught and don't need to teach them anything at home. Wheras good parents will attempt to teach their kids things in a casual way without being prompted by homework.
That is not fair on the kiddies not fair at all :( hope Soph is ok.
My GCSEs were good, I got an A in French and thought, yeah I'll ace this at A Level - how wrong was I?! The gap in language is astronomicial and I quite literally scraped through with a mitigating circumstances grade of E (later realising that because I was 1/5 people taking French as an option, we pretty had one to one tuition).
I got low grades at A Level, had I got the higher grades I would have gone to Bournemouth Uni which does the same course as the Uni I went to, but it wasn't modular, so I probably would have flunked that.
I ended up with 12 points and went to Anglia University in Cambridge, I learnt through a modular system, most of the basic skills which I use today - Photoship, DTP, HTML, PR.
I am one of the very few in my Uni class who have though... others are Estate Agents, Tottenham Coaches and Celebrity Bookers - so they haven't done too bad either really!
BB x
Have SATs changed significantly since someone of my age took them?
Without wanting to sound like I am tooting my own horn here, SATS were ludicrously easy - I remember taking them in Primary school and again in Year 9. I went to one of the best performing (grammar) schools in the country as far as league tables are concerned and there was absolutely 0 pressure like you are describing, no letters or anything like that. All in all, the experience was quite pleasant. What on earth is going through the minds of your LEA to do that kind of stuff to kids these days? Bonkers if you ask me!
I had to endure the AS/A2 debacle though. That was a bit of an arse.
I have to agree with DRZ, there was zero pressure on them at all for me (I took my KS3/Y9 exams in 2000 or so).
I did hardly any work for them at all and was 3 marks short of an Exceptional Performance (Level 9) grade in Science and well into Level 8 for Maths. They were laughably easy back when I took them. I don't see why pressure and difficulty should have increased. I wasn't even at a particularly great school, just the better 'normal' secondary school in the area. I don't remember anything being sent home more than a letter saying i'd have exams and so my teaching hours would change for the week.
Del Lardo
15-05-2008, 03:57
I was in the first year to do SATS in year 9 when they were introduced. Our English teacher freaked out and put a load of pressure on us but our Science and Maths teachers were great. Our Science teacher took a few of us aside and told us that she was putting us in for the hard test as she had confidence in us but not to worry and our Maths teacher told us it was a load of bollox and not to even bother revising. I heeded his advice ;D
Have SATs changed significantly since someone of my age took them?
Exam wise I'm not sure, but pressure wise, yeah. A schools funding can be critically affected by their league position, so pressure is put on teachers to ensure the students get good grades, which naturally ends up on the kids as well.
My school was a University prep school, so we took PSAT's every year from year 7 until we did the actual thing. Thankfully they didn't put too much pressure on us...most of my classmates had intense parents who put the pressure on at home so the kids practically killed themselves with studying before they graduated.
We did take some exams when I was in grade school, but they were always really relaxed. I remember liking them because we got cookies and special treats from the teachers.
Well maybe I'm alone in theis thread that I agree with SATS and I totally appreciate what I learned at school and it has helped me in my working life in many ways.
I had SATS style exams at 7, 11 and pre GCSE exams at 14 to see if we were good enough and which sets to go into for GCSEs. It did us no harm at all other than to prepare us for working hard. We were told from about age 9 that we were working towards good GCSE and A level grades.
I had homework from about age 6, it's probably why I can read and write properly. I'm not having a dig at your kids Pebs because they're bright and well rounded, but you only have to look at the likes of OcUK and you can see that a lot of people aren't getting taught much at school.
Don't knock SATS. A bit of stress early on in life makes stressful situations later on in life a lot easier to deal with and really prepares them for more important exams. If you're used to doing exams they are easy, if you're not you'll be stressed out and unable to think.
I think that makes sense, I'll come back and re-write this tomorrow.
If you're used to doing exams they are easy, if you're not you'll be stressed out and unable to think.
Sorry but that's nonsense in my opinion. I've done exams ranging from SATS up to my Msc and not once have I felt any less stressed. I've always been very stressed with exams. Luckily I tend to do reasonably ok in exams but that doesn't stop me being extremely worried over them regardless of my age or the type of exams they are.
From what I've seen, it's exactly the same for my friend who's doing their final medical exams this year and must have had countless exams for the past 10 years nearly.
Good teaching makes intelligent children, not teaching them to pass exams, and there seems to be far too much focus on getting to the next step as opposed to learning and appreciating learning.
Everybody gets stressed doing exams, but imagine how much worse it would be if you'd never done one before. You don't walk in there shaking not knowing what to expect, you know the score because you're accustomed to it. Nothing wrong with a bit of practice in my opinion.
Why should 7 year olds or even 11 year olds have to face so much stress though? They're kids, they have an entire lifetime to be stressed and worried about things.
Im just glad that when I did my SATS, it was just a guide to see how I was doing at the time.
SidewinderINC
15-05-2008, 23:10
Well maybe I'm alone in theis thread that I agree with SATS and I totally appreciate what I learned at school and it has helped me in my working life in many ways.
I had SATS style exams at 7, 11 and pre GCSE exams at 14 to see if we were good enough and which sets to go into for GCSEs. It did us no harm at all other than to prepare us for working hard. We were told from about age 9 that we were working towards good GCSE and A level grades.
I had homework from about age 6, it's probably why I can read and write properly. I'm not having a dig at your kids Pebs because they're bright and well rounded, but you only have to look at the likes of OcUK and you can see that a lot of people aren't getting taught much at school.
Don't knock SATS. A bit of stress early on in life makes stressful situations later on in life a lot easier to deal with and really prepares them for more important exams. If you're used to doing exams they are easy, if you're not you'll be stressed out and unable to think.
I think that makes sense, I'll come back and re-write this tomorrow.
I don't think that anyone is saying that SATS are pointless and that people don't appreciate the exams.
What people don't like is the extreme pressure that teachers are putting on pupils now.
I wasn't stressed during any of my exams until A2 level and I think I've turned out well, I was taught well at school and at home. You don't have to be stressed to be taught well, and you seem to come across as thinking that you do.
The point I'm trying to make is we were deliberately put through exams to accustom us to the environment, so that we know what the examination procedure is like.
So looking at at SAT and NCA exams it looks like they assess kids' levels at maths, reading, writing and how they deal with practical problems. Well no wonder teachers are stressing out about it, it's a direct reflection of how well they are teaching.
The point I'm trying to make is we were deliberately put through exams to accustom us to the environment, so that we know what the examination procedure is like.
So looking at at SAT and NCA exams it looks like they assess kids' levels at maths, reading, writing and how they deal with practical problems. Well no wonder teachers are stressing out about it, it's a direct reflection of how well they are teaching.
Both the Tories and Labour have continued to do a superb job at screwing up the education system with their unending determination to meddle in things. The real reason kids are failing to get to grips with maths, reading and writing is because the government keeps screwing up the syllabus, and at the same time stopping the good teachers from being innovative.
For the most part SATs are just yet another way the government is producing statistics and information to publish to the country to show just how well they're running the stuff... and then when they see real figures, burying them in the sand.
Its no different from the stupid amounts of paperwork the Police have to produce so the government can say "violent crime is on the rise", or the NHS say "waiting lists are climbing"
Instead of ending up with a generation of kids able to think and learn and reason we get automatons that recite stuff. Gone are useful skills like critical thinking, source analysis and so on, with the emphasis being remembering stuff instead. We've got generations of kids coming up who know how to cram loads of information into their brain and keep in there for a few days. The emphasis on education has gone from depth to breadth.
Funding is becoming a complete fiasco. Instead of having a simple single pot of money set aside, say on the scale of £xxx per student, it's split between hundreds of pots with schools having to spend ages producing statistics and corroborating evidence to explain why they deserve to be able to take from certain pots. The result is the schools with the sneakiest support staff figure out ways of taking from extra pots whilst the schools without are stuck with less and less money to spend per pupil, whilst having similar outgoings. At my previous employers the principal spotted that if we put every student through a first aid course we could make a nice significant bit extra (more than the course cost) so that all students would be advantaged. The amount of administration time involved in claiming that pot was daft. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of pots like this.
The government routinely makes Caesar's Gold announcements about how they're putting money in education for high fliers, intellectuals and whatever, but the reality is they're taking out of the main pot for all students and putting it in a specific one, one with stupid amounts of paperwork required to claim from, disadvantaging the many for the benefit of the few.
I have to agree with DRZ, there was zero pressure on them at all for me (I took my KS3/Y9 exams in 2000 or so).
same here.
I wouldn't say that the school was too intense through GCSE either - obviously they stressed the importance of a good result, but they weren't too intense on their delivery. which was nice :)
its all about league tables now though. :confused:
Jonny I don't disagree with SATS in principle. WHat I do object to is the pressure that is piled on the kids. How is 3 months of intensive learning, including letters saying 'we think your child would benefit from coming to a maths crammer after school 2 evenings after school per week', which is what I got for Sophie, an accurate reflection on the teaching standards?? If kids aren't learning to the required standards in day to day schooling then they need to look at those teaching standards, not pile pressure onto young children.
And I also disagree wholeheartedly that children at primary school need to learn how to sit exams and cope with stress. Children should be given time to be children. Heaven knows it passes by in a flash, and in so many other ways they are children for shorter and shorter times.
They were talking about this on Question Time the other week and many said the same Pebs. Testing kids is fine, but pressuring kids to meet certain standards so early on is not right. And let's be honest, it's not being done for the kids sake but so schools hit targets. It's all wrong.
semi-pro waster
24-05-2008, 13:08
Everybody gets stressed doing exams, but imagine how much worse it would be if you'd never done one before. You don't walk in there shaking not knowing what to expect, you know the score because you're accustomed to it. Nothing wrong with a bit of practice in my opinion.
I'm not sure that is entirely true for everyone, exams have never really bothered me and I don't know quite why. I think that a lot of people put too much emphasis on them, sure they are important (at least for getting to the next level) but it is very rarely the end of the World if you fail an exam.
It definitely isn't fair putting really young kids under pressure to achieve in exams, some people naturally aren't academically inclined, such is life. I also don't think that league tables are a terribly useful way of measuring schools, as with any standardised measure they tend to ignore individual circumstances.
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