Malcolm McLean's Blog: Faith schools and Catholic culture. - Posts Tagged "sat"
Testing at 7
In Britain, we currently have formal public examinations known as SATs which children take at 7. Really the school rather than the child is being examined, since children don't use their SATs to determine entry to secondary school. They have now been eliminated.
The problem with British education policy is that every management procedure which the government (of either party) brings in is immediately subverted by gaming of the system. Education lends itself to that. Measure schools by SAT, and children will be drilled endlessly and uselessly on SATs. Then there's the issue of how hard to make the SAT. Too hard, and there's no point in entering the weaker pupils for it, they might as well be sitting a Cambridge physics final paper.
The answer is that the SATs should stay, but be reformed. Essentially you are testing whether children can write and do simple arithmetic - reading is tested automatically. So all the English paper needs to be is "write a story about a unicorn" and you can go from there. No arguments about fancy paper design. The arithmetic paper is much less important (because children need English to access the rest of the curriculum, but the time they need non-trivial maths for science is many years away), But it just needs to be a few expressions to simplify. Again, the more it is designed, the more vulnerable to gaming.
But teachers also need to be able to exercise their right not to enter children for the examination, If the child transparently can't make an attempt at the paper, he mustn't be forced to sit like a monkey reading Shakespeare. That's just commonsense. Of course he has then failed the SAT, which you need to know.
However the SATs at 7 should be thought of as just a preliminary check. The tests that really matter, as far as a primary is concerned, are the tests taken as children leave. You judge the cake when it comes out of the oven. Children must be literate and ideally should be numerate if they are to progress to secondary school. If they are not, they shouldn't be allowed in a regular secondary school, because those are also the children who undermine discipline and damage the learning of others. Their place is in a special school for illiterate 11 year old's.
The problem with British education policy is that every management procedure which the government (of either party) brings in is immediately subverted by gaming of the system. Education lends itself to that. Measure schools by SAT, and children will be drilled endlessly and uselessly on SATs. Then there's the issue of how hard to make the SAT. Too hard, and there's no point in entering the weaker pupils for it, they might as well be sitting a Cambridge physics final paper.
The answer is that the SATs should stay, but be reformed. Essentially you are testing whether children can write and do simple arithmetic - reading is tested automatically. So all the English paper needs to be is "write a story about a unicorn" and you can go from there. No arguments about fancy paper design. The arithmetic paper is much less important (because children need English to access the rest of the curriculum, but the time they need non-trivial maths for science is many years away), But it just needs to be a few expressions to simplify. Again, the more it is designed, the more vulnerable to gaming.
But teachers also need to be able to exercise their right not to enter children for the examination, If the child transparently can't make an attempt at the paper, he mustn't be forced to sit like a monkey reading Shakespeare. That's just commonsense. Of course he has then failed the SAT, which you need to know.
However the SATs at 7 should be thought of as just a preliminary check. The tests that really matter, as far as a primary is concerned, are the tests taken as children leave. You judge the cake when it comes out of the oven. Children must be literate and ideally should be numerate if they are to progress to secondary school. If they are not, they shouldn't be allowed in a regular secondary school, because those are also the children who undermine discipline and damage the learning of others. Their place is in a special school for illiterate 11 year old's.
Faith schools and Catholic culture.
The blog deals mainly with my book Adam and Abagail Go to St Tom's. Like many British Catholic boarding schools, St Tom's is a monastic school. I intend to deal with issues concerning education, and h
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