Posts by Isabel Hitchings
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Someone needs to cross-reference all the people who have claimed loved for their PATs, with those people bitching about standardised testing on the 'Soundbite to Policy' thread, and send them a 'please explain' ;)
I quite enjoy filling in forms and I tend to be good at tests (sometimes to the point of doing significantly better in exams than assignment work).
Liking something doesn't mean it's good for our long-term well-being though (see also my relationship with sugar).
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I never had a clue what the tests were used for and never knew hos I did either (except when my third form English teacher told my parents about my high reading comprehension result). I just liked filling in the forms.
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Ooooh I loved those PATs. I longed to get to play with the teacher's marking sheet that fitted over the answer form too
But then, tests were always a chance to show I'd done well. I looked upon them as self-esteem affirming events. Unlike Cross-Country.
Or netball.
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Which you can trace to already knowing most things that they were teaching well before they started to teach it to the class.
Which is not a reason to hold a kid back but__ is__ a very good illustration of why you should teach kids as individuals and not expect 30 little people to all be working at the same level all the time.
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We were lucky that Crispin's teacher had worked out he could read within a week and had formally assessed him within two weeks (even I was surprised by how well he actually could read). He had two terms of just reading every suitable book the school possessed at which point they reined him in a bit and got him working on comprehension and retelling.
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Back then the official thinking was parents should not teach kids to read before they started school but should leave it to the experts.
I'm trying to figure out how one would stop a kid who was ready to learn to read from doing it themselves. Unless you just stop reading to them, never answer their questions and remove all printed material from their vicinity. I can't imagine that was advocated even back in the day.
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Before I start reading can you clarify which National Standard my answer is going to be marked against?
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Good schools teach that with sensible rules and teachers who can tell you which one you broke and what you need to do about it, and will listen if it turns out they've misunderstood something.
Really good schools get the kids involved in forming and evaluating the rules.
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In the 5th form, I was the chair of the divisional council, and thus able to conjure excuses to be out of classes I was bored with.
Between conveniently timed flute lessons and a couple of jobs I "helpfully" volunteered for I managed to only go to about 1/4 of my fourth form social studies classes.
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The times when my parents stood up against teachers who were bullying me were very very good for me. A sadistic teacher can do a lot of damage to a young person's self-esteem and to have someone stand up and say "I believe you and I believe you deserve better" can go a long way towards healing. Having my parents on my side is the only reason I got through my schooling without becoming completely neurotic.