[senco-forum] KS 1 reading task level 2

Barbara's last comment reminds me of a Year 10 pupil in a geography class.  The teacher was explaining how many people visited Majorca each year; the pupil asked whether if they all came at once the island would sink.  What really worried the teacher was that none of the other pupils laughed!

Barbara

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk on behalf of barbara
Sent: Wed 5/16/2007 7:45 PM
To: 'Ruth Newbury'; 'Gill Gray'; senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: RE: [senco-forum] KS 1 reading task level 2

The answer is to move to Wales ( if you all come we might sink but so what)
NO SATS! Barbara ht

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of Ruth Newbury
Sent: 16 May 2007 14:04
To: 'Gill Gray'; senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: RE: [senco-forum] KS 1 reading task level 2

I am only just starting to see the full horror of the Literacy papers.

Personally I am over the moon with the progress of my four students in Yr3 -
working on comprehension and processing skills with me - and learning some
words from the KS1 lists too.

Yesterday - they did a "practice" literacy paper - all tried hard - kept
their noses to the grindstone - and we are all terribly pleased with them -
however - to achieve levels 2A and 2B - I wonder what everyone is doing it
for.

And this morning they worked their socks off for me - 4 cards of "things
under the sea" - four facts - in some details - with some really hard words
deliberately put in - and twenty questions to solve - took the first child
18 minutes after we had looked at the passages together - and they've all
gone away with some "things I will never forget".

But why are we asking little children to do this rubbish?

Why are teachers forces to give children things like this to do - I looked
at the text level - and boy does it vary depending on which paragraphs you
look at.

But mostly I look at children "bothered about their levels" - "bothered
about their targets" - and having examination pressures which 16 year olds
find hard to deal with at Year3 and Year 4.

What disturbs me even more is the fact that QCA - the DfES - the Government
- and probably the general public think that this is "education".

I have yet to meet a parent who "likes it".

I wish that the parents would have a revolution - and that no-one would send
their child to school on SATS days.

And apparently our local middle school - will send out LSAs with those
bloody exam papers to absentees who are sick - so that they "won't miss the
SATS".  However - this is only child reported to me - but someone must have
said it to him!

I would not mind quite so much if the SATs told me something new about a
child.

Does anyone else agree with me - that at KS2 time - if they are going to do
tests at all - please might we have some proper screening for all children -
so that what we might learn would be about who had specific difficulties
with any aspect of their learning and the way they learn.

Now that would be really useful - and the Government would then have a set
of far more accurate statistics about just where and who - are those
children - who are going to find real education a struggle without the
appropriate differences being made for their teaching and learning!

Regards

Ruth - who has just got a whole load off her chest!

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of Gill Gray
Sent: 16 May 2007 13:32
To: senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: [senco-forum] KS 1 reading task level 2

Started these yesterday, alarmed by difficulty of text as these are the
pupils that find the comp paper too hard. Did a Fogg index check on the
running records  of  100 words and the results ranged from 7.5 to 9.5 years
reading age needed!!!!! Did afew from last years titles and the range was
even bigger. Is anyone interested enough to check my results and comment on
how government stats can be based on such an arbitrary set of books that the
children get to choose themselves? Who chooses the text and on what basis?
The very experienced year 1/2 teacher says she she has seen these texts get
harder year on year. What is this about? 
On a different note the KS 2 reading comp paper today was the worst we have
ever seen. Gill Gray SEN tutor.

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