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Children's Education: Sats! - A Daunting Educational Yardstick |
By:
Dr. Noel Swanson |
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Children's Education: Sats! - A Daunting Educational Yardstick
Dr. Noel Swanson
It's time again for the dreaded and stress inducing SATS. Teachers and students across the UK are stressing. The principal or head teacher wants to look good on the national league tables. The teachers want everyone to know that they're the best. As for the students, they've heard so much about these tests that they're terrified of failing, or at least not doing their best.
There are some children who excel at tests and love them. At the other end of the spectrum are those who become completely stressed over exams. Most kids could live just as well without them. If your child stresses to the extreme, how can you help?
SATS (standardised achievement tests) were introduced as a way of assessing schools rather than children. The British government wanted to answer two questions: how well are the nation's children doing, and how well are individual schools doing? To do this, they test children at age 7 to get a baseline score. The children are then tested again at age 11. The difference between the two scores is how much the children have learnt through their four years in school and is referred to as the "value added". The aim is to raise the overall level of education among eleven year old, and SATS give the government a way of measuring this.
So how is this relevant to your child? It isn't! The SATS have almost no relevance to an individual child. The secondary school will not use the SATS scores in planning their teaching - they will do their own assessment of each child. Besides, the scores on the SATS, called levels, are so broad that they do not really tell you how well your child is doing. The average eleven year old is supposed to score at level 4. But if your child is at level 4 you still have no idea if your child is the high end or low end of average. If your child scores at a lower or higher level, that too is unlikely to be news to you. Even without the SATS you would almost certainly have known if your child is ahead or behind the rest of the class - and so should the teacher. So your child's individual SAT scores will not affect his or her education in any way.
now you are probably wondering what to tell your child if she's worrying about the SATS. Make it clear to her that it's the school being tested, not her. Whatever her level, it won't really matter. Tell her to just do the best that she can, but don't coerce her in any way to study or practice for it. She'll have plenty of tests in her life that will make a difference in her life.
If reassurance is not enough, then it is time for a visit to the teacher. Explain your concerns to him and discuss how the SATS are being approached in the classroom. Together you should be able to work out a way to support your child better.
If you have concerns in general about your child's school progress, then have a talk with the teacher. You may even need to talk with the head teacher or the Special Needs Coordinator (SENCO). Take action instead of silently worrying.
Worried about your child's performance in school? Thinking about http://www.good-child-guide.com/special-educ-needs) special educational needs? Get more of Dr. Noel Swanson's helpful articles, at his http://www.good-child-guide.com/ parenting advice website, and check out his book and free newsletter.
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Article Source: http://www.statssheet.com/articles/article69674.html |
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