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" Hurray! Hurray! Well done NUT.

Now all we have to do is support this boycott."

1 | Posted by: ' Pat Dewar ' on 28-03-03 18:49
can't believe what I have just read in the body of the TES! Doug McAvoy is not prepared to support a boycott of the KS1 SATs!! Then in the letters page you read that schools no longer get the funding for marking these SATs!!
ARE WE MUGS OR WHAT!?!?!
z
I am spitting.
1. Our school budget is dire and we may need to lose staff and have mixed aged classes.
2.No money for non contact to mark SATs.
3. The writing is harder this year and so is the maths.
4. We seem to be setting children up to fail.
5. So we administer, mark, moderate and report all for no real help to us asl we already know very well how our children are acheiving.
6. KS2 send their away! to be marked.

All this and never mind the 3000+ ticks in the foundation stage.

I wish Tony Blairs Leo was school age maybe then he would see sense.

Surely we must do someting. I urge you all to write to your unions, LEAs and MPs. Lets stop taking this C*** and start showing what a force we are.
2 | Posted by: ' furrycreature ' on 28-03-03 19:17

A long time ago, all the schools in the local authority where we lived refused to do the KS1 SAT's. I can't remember exactly why, I think it was something to do with there being no money for cover or something. Can't the school or group of schools just refuse to do them?
3 | Posted by: ' da iawn ' on 28-03-03 19:55
you all have my deepest sympathies

getting rid of KS1 SATs was the best thing that happened here and its made no diff to assessment except we've got more time to do real ones

4 | Posted by: ' sandyjohn ' on 03-04-03 22:42

What are other Y2 teachers feelings on this issue. It is very quiet here is that because they don't care or are they too busy getting ready for SATs!
5 | Posted by: ' Compote ' on 05-04-03 19:44

KS1 SATS - What worries me as much as the possible stress on the children, is the effect on the teachers.

Everybody really knows that some people are better at one thing than another and few people are good at everything, but strive as they might teachers cannot make everyone level 3.

If we don't, we are seen to be failing the children, bottom of the league tables etc. If we do, the Y3-4 staff appear to be doing nothing, and that's not true either.

It'll be interesting to see how the new SAT spelling test and maths tests affect marks.
6 | Posted by: ' Pat Dewar ' on 21-04-03 10:15
Hurray! Hurray! Well done NUT.

Now all we have to do is support this boycott.

7 | Posted by: ' mistee ' on 21-04-03 12:35
Speaking as a parent of a child about to take the SATs tests, I wondered if I could 'opt out' of them. I asked the DfEE if it was possible and got a resounding NO WAY.

As a parent I'd like to be able to do something, but it seems parents views aren't listened to. A few of the teachers at the school my child attends have indicated that they do not agree with the tests either.

I've seen the news about the possible boycott of the SATs and I'm frustrated that no-one is asking parents what they think..why is it that our views aren't important enough to be heard?
8 | Posted by: ' ClareP ' on 21-04-03 14:11
Dear Mistee!

I definatly hear what you are saying - It makes me soooooooo mad.

you as a parent PAY the government TAXES to employ these people to give the best possible education to your child and yet they dictate to you about what will happen to your child.

If we applied this situation that are in to any other service that we pay for from holidays to buying dishwashers we would be outraged if the company turned around and dictated what we had to buy or where we had to go - we would ask for a refund and might even go as far as sueing them!

Our children are of course so much more important than these things yet its seems that we have less control over what happens

I am currently training to become a teacher and have seen in many schools how soul destroying testing young children on all involved can be.

I remember distinctly being in a year 1 class where the class teacher had spelling tests to 'get them used to being tested' so many times I comforted children so bewidered constantly worried about 'getting in wrong'. All tests are about looking at what has been 'learnt' not about 'actual learning which is taking place right now' which is what I thought education was all about.
9 | Posted by: ' sandyjohn ' on 21-04-03 18:27
Mistee you are right. As a parent you should have the right to withdraw your child from an exam if you so wished.

However you could go on holiday in May!! Not that as a teacher I should encourage this but the SATs for KS1 have to be administered in May.

SOOOOOOO....
Thursday 1, and Friday 2 give us 2 days.
Tuesday 6 to Friday 9 give us 4 days.
Monday 12 to Friday 16 give us 5 days
Monday 19 to Friday 23 give us 5 days
then it is half term!!
So all in all we have only 21 days!

To find out nothing new!!