Year 2 And SATS: My Thoughts
My twin girls, R and M, have now been in year 2 for nearly a month, and already I’ve noticed a huge difference in both of them.
In their previous years they tended to have teachers that were for want of a better description, smiley and happy all the time, and most of their learning was done through play, but this has all changed since they started year 2.
When we asked the girls what their new teacher is like, both of the girls replied saying she shouts a lot. Of course there is nothing wrong with a teacher shouting when it’s appropriate, but in all honesty if you are going to shout all the time, kids will switch off to it and the impact of shouting at children loses its meaning. Well in my humble opinion and experience it does. I have found over the years that less is better and consequently when I have shouted at my children it’s impact is instant and I get their attention, but if you shout all the time kids become immune and normalise it, which is something I don’t want my twin girls to become. Time will tell exactly how this will work out and if they learn quicker or in fact it will slow down their academic learning curve.
This school year the girls will be sitting their SATS. This is a difficult one for me as I have never been sure as to why children as young as 7 years old should be sitting any form of test, however informal it is, or that it is conducted in a relaxed atmosphere. What are hoping to achieve is the question I ask myself constantly. I recently read some of the questions that the girls are likely to face next year, and quite honestly I struggle to believe that some questions they will fail to understand let alone answer.
Of course we are told that this is only used to help the school improve and in no way is it to grade our children into groups of different abilities. Unfortunately the cynic in me believes that this is total nonsense, and my reasoning is simple. Already in our school the girls are being grouped when it comes to reading. So it feels very likely that results from their SATS will be used to grade our children. Of course we will never be told that though.
A standard comment I have heard about SATS results is not to pay any attention to the result of the tests and just the comments made. Well time will tell if I can ignore the result, and just accept “well she tries very hard”
So the girls have started Year 2. It’s been an interesting start and I’m sure that it will get even more interesting as the school year progresses, and something tells me I may not quite agree with everything that happens.
I would love to hear your thoughts.
