The SATS con and our education system

[Fred_Quimby]

One of my ex teachers worked for the JMB (exam paper authors) as an exam marker. He said, at the time, that the top x number of students got an A, the next x number got B and so on down to E. So it wasn’t down to what percentage you got in an exam, it was where you ranked alongside your peer group doing the same paper, and it was done this way to even out different difficulties of papers between years. That means every year should have roughly the same number of people getting each grade, but clearly the system changed somewhere (I’m guessing when GCSEs came in) so that everyone gets an A or A* or A** or 1 or whatever they use now.

Very true. I was a marker for both Y9 SATS and GCSE Maths and this is true. They just move the grade boundaries.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

Neil Degrasse Tyson said of education that it isn't what you, it's how you learn and how you are given the skills to be able to problem solve for yourself.

Direct quotes:

"The school system is constructed to praise you if you get high grades. And if you get straight A's, you're the one that everyone puts forward, and they prognosticate that the straight-A person is the one most likely to succeed, because that's the way the school system is constructed and conceived".

"When students cheat on exams, it's because our school system values grades more than students value learning".

"The only way you can invent tomorrow is if you break out of the enclosure that the school system has provided for you by the exams written by people who are trained in another generation".

He's a smart man.

 

[Keeper!]

I loved exams as a kid, the pressure to pass or fail a whole year’s (or 2 years’) work in a 2 hour period. Or 4.5 hours for a Tech Drawing exam.

We’re all different I suppose.

Learning seemed less important when I was a kid and my parents were largely absent from the process, just a “good luck” on the morning of the exam, and “how did it go” afterwards.

I rarely helped my kids with homework and they’re doing alright now. I tried helping my daughter once with Maths and it ended up in an argument, they were teaching them very differently than I was, but the teachers were telling them to ask their parents for help if they got stuck! Lazy fu..

At the end of the day exams mean jack sh1t.

I know many people with lists of exam success with poor jobs and very little intelligence, yet I know lot's of people who failed miserably at school yet had incredible success after.

The ability to learn and problem solve is so much more important than exams and qualifications in my humble opinion.

 

[Blue Maverick]

At the end of the day exams mean jack sh1t.

I know many people with lists of exam success with poor jobs and very little intelligence, yet I know lot's of people who failed miserably at school yet had incredible success after.

The ability to learn and problem solve is so much more important than exams and qualifications in my humble opinion.

Totally agree but try getting into a university or a degree led job with fuck all, it doesn’t happen, sadly.

 

[Keeper!]

Totally agree but try getting into a university or a degree led job with fuck all, it doesn’t happen, sadly.

Many degrees are essential, Medical, science, law etc but a vast majority of students at University should not or need to be there.

When I left school in the 80s you had to be seriously clever to get into a Uni, no longer, they are now a money making scam and I feel for a lot of students who fall for it and leave with mountains of debt and their dreams shattered when they go into the real world.

 

[Citizen of Legoland]

At the end of the day exams mean jack sh1t.

I know many people with lists of exam success with poor jobs and very little intelligence, yet I know lot's of people who failed miserably at school yet had incredible success after.

The ability to learn and problem solve is so much more important than exams and qualifications in my humble opinion.

The exam is measuring your ability to learn and/or problem solve, shirley, but I think I understand your point. I was good at exams but I kept myself grounded by being jealous of those with sporting, musical and language skills. I learnt very early on that we're all different.

 

[Keeper!]

The exam is measuring your ability to learn and/or problem solve, shirley, but I think I understand your point. I was good at exams but I kept myself grounded by being jealous of those with sporting, musical and language skills. I learnt very early on that we're all different.

Disagree, in modern education the exam is to put ticks in the government departments to show they are doing the right thing for the population, they are not producing what the country needs.

 

[117 M34]

As an ex-primary school teacher who taught kids to SATs and made money tutoring kids for SATs (not kids I taught), they are a complete waste if time and their only purpose is to compare schools against each other.

 

[Blue Maverick]

The exam is measuring your ability to learn and/or problem solve, shirley, but I think I understand your point. I was good at exams but I kept myself grounded by being jealous of those with sporting, musical and language skills. I learnt very early on that we're all different.

I don’t agree, these days it’s a measure of being able to pass an exam not your knowledge, I fucked up my French back in the day because I had a mental block on the oral (oh er), for two years I was good and that 20 mins meant I failed! Obviously the year after exams changed and course work gave you many points towards your final score (I’d have pissed most of my exams if that had been in). You don’t even have to get the answer right these days as long as you show your reasoning and working out you get points!

 

[Keeper!]

I don’t agree, these days it’s a measure of being able to pass an exam not your knowledge, I fucked up my French back in the day because I had a mental block on the oral (oh er), for two years I was good and that 20 mins meant I failed! Obviously the year after exams changed and course work gave you many points towards your final score (I’d have pissed most of my exams if that had been in). You don’t even have to get the answer right these days as long as you show your reasoning and working out you get points!

LOL French oral exam, that brought back memories, horror ones!!!

 

[Citizen of Legoland]

I don’t agree, these days it’s a measure of being able to pass an exam not your knowledge, I fucked up my French back in the day because I had a mental block on the oral (oh er), for two years I was good and that 20 mins meant I failed! Obviously the year after exams changed and course work gave you many points towards your final score (I’d have pissed most of my exams if that had been in). You don’t even have to get the answer right these days as long as you show your reasoning and working out you get points!

If you retook the exam and passed then fine, but if you retook and then had another mental block then you either cannot speak French or need to study some more. Surely that means an exam has done its job and giving you a grade will tell you whereabouts you are in that study. Being able to say I knew the words two months ago so I should pass doesn't work for me!

EDIT: Unless you can say "I knew the words two months ago" in French to the examiner, I might let you off ;)

 

[Blue Maverick]

LOL French oral exam, that brought back memories, horror ones!!!

You know what screwed me, the name for bike, velo, we had a whole conversation about a bike although I didnt know what velo meant (I’d had a brain freeze on that word) so the conversation made absolutely no sense. After the tape finished the teacher looked at me and asked what the hell was I on about, I just knew then I’d failed!

 

[Keeper!]

You know what screwed me, the name for bike, velo, we had a whole conversation about a bike although I didnt know what velo meant (I’d had a brain freeze on that word) so the conversation made absolutely no sense. After the tape finished the teacher looked at me and asked what the hell was I on about, I just knew then I’d failed!

As soon as I walked into the room I froze and just kept repeating Bonjour Madame, the teacher was doing her best not to piss herself, FFS that was a long 20 minutes!!

 

[Blue Maverick]

If you retook the exam and passed then fine, but if you retook and then had another mental block then you either cannot speak French or need to study some more. Surely that means an exam has done its job and giving you a grade will tell you whereabouts you are in that study. Being able to say I knew the words two months ago so I should pass doesn't work for me!

I never retook it, I got a D instead of a pass, although these days it classed as a pass! The ability to retake if I remember correctly wasn’t there then, 1985, so I just went into do A levels which clearly weren’t for me.

 

[Blue Maverick]

As soon as I walked into the room I froze and just kept repeating Bonjour Madame, the teacher was doing her best not to piss herself, FFS that was a long 20 minutes!!

Ha ha, brilliant.

 

[Citizen of Legoland]

I never retook it, I got a D instead of a pass, although these days it classed as a pass! The ability to retake if I remember correctly wasn’t there then, 1985, so I just went into do A levels which clearly weren’t for me.

Yes, re-sits weren't encouraged but I think you could do them around August. I think you had to pay for them and only if the school agreed to let you do it. I never did one, mainly for those who failed English Language or Maths as these were crucial for further study.

 

[Scottyboi]

Joined up handwriting is the devil, me being a lefty smearing all my writing was shit! Soon as you go high school you get to write in print. My poor lad suffers the same affliction he has his SATs in 12 days time.

 

[threespires]

As soon as I walked into the room I froze and just kept repeating Bonjour Madame, the teacher was doing her best not to piss herself, FFS that was a long 20 minutes!!

I'll join the roll call of shame on this one; I have little recollection what the teacher actually wanted to discuss but I seem to remember I wanted to talk at length about petit pois. Not my finest hour.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

One of my ex teachers worked for the JMB (exam paper authors) as an exam marker. He said, at the time, that the top x number of students got an A, the next x number got B and so on down to E. So it wasn’t down to what percentage you got in an exam, it was where you ranked alongside your peer group doing the same paper, and it was done this way to even out different difficulties of papers between years. That means every year should have roughly the same number of people getting each grade, but clearly the system changed somewhere (I’m guessing when GCSEs came in) so that everyone gets an A or A* or A** or 1 or whatever they use now.

It basically comes down to what you're trying to measure. Are you trying to compare people to their peer group, or are you trying to figure out if they've learned the things on the curriculum. They basically switched from the former to the latter. And for good reason, really. How my friends do on the test has no bearing on how much of the material I've learned. Imagine if the driving test worked like that. "You only got 5 minors, but unfortunately for you, most of the other people today got 4 or fewer, so you've failed." Or worse "I know you almost crashed three times and stalled twice, but John ran over a granny, so you've passed."

 

[PragueBlue]

I never retook it, I got a D instead of a pass, although these days it classed as a pass! The ability to retake if I remember correctly wasn’t there then, 1985, so I just went into do A levels which clearly weren’t for me.

It is at A level but quite low UCAS points. It's equivalent at GCSE is a 3 which is still a fail as far as I understand.