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Monday, 19 January 2009 21:57 Last Updated on Wednesday, 28 January 2009 17:37
Are UK schools to swap SATs for multiple choice question based test? Asks TiES International Teacher Recruitment
A think tank has suggested that the essay style questions included in Primary school SAT papers does not give an accurate picture of how individual children or indeed schools are progressing.
The centre for UK Policy Studies’ report, “Ticking the Right Boxes”, published today, suggests that multiple choice questions will be a “reliable, faster and cheaper alternative to SATs” .
The think tank stressed the importance of maintaining a system of testing eleven year olds in the key subjects of English, Maths and Science and emphasised that external examinations must continue as they are the only way to way to test performance and provide accountability.
After the debacle of the UK 2008 SATs for eleven and fourteen year olds when children had to wait months, in some instances, for their results; changes were to be expected. Ed Balls, UK Children's Minister, began by scrapping the tests for the 14 year olds and responsibility for the 2009 SATs for eleven year olds was awarded to Edexcel.
Much of the problem lies with finding enough good exam markers to mark the English papers in particular. It would appear to be easier to get markers for Maths and Science as these are less subjective to mark where, in the main; answers are either right or wrong.
English essays on the other hand are open to interpretation and according to the think tank “full of gibberish”. Surely educators should sit down and discuss the purpose of these tests, especially in English.
Are we testing a child’s ability to structure an argument?
If that is what we are doing then I have yet to be convinced that this can be done by ticking boxes. I will be interested in hearing from any teachers who wish to comment on this subject. Please register with TiES, loging and make a comment below.
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If we are to do the children justice in marking effectively it has to be done thoroughly, contextually and to a common standard. Far better than spending thousands on banks of markers, or shipping papers overseas for marking, couldn't our government invest in developing a common model for marking (something like the Ros Wilson Criterion Scale) and train the teachers who spend the time, effort and care to do the job accurately - people who rather amazingly consider it part of their paid responsibility anyway?
It's all about the value of professional judgment. When politicians trust us to do the job and provide good quality backup, our children will truly get the first class education they deserve.
It would be well worth the government looking into a common model for marking instead of spending the thousands they do shipping papers overseas.
Teachers are in the best position to assess the children in their care, lets face it we know more about our pupils than tests tell us!
What a pity we can't encourage a government representative to join our chat!