It's that time of year again... the exam results for the KS3 SATs exams are due. Maths have already been returned (although not analysed) as their papers are the simplest to mark. English papers always seem to come in last, and have occasionally not been ready until September. The rumour round the Science department is that the Science results have arrived, and we're just waiting for the information to be passed down from the exams office.
The information comes as a long, long handwritten list. The teachers then get to go through the list and identify the students they teach and make a note of their results, and then tell the students during lessons...
This means that the Year 9 students are getting very twitchy...
... but not half as twitchy as all the teachers whose performance management reviews depend on the students' results...
Yeah, but don't ever let them see you sweat! BTW, I hope you all gave his hermaneuticalness a bang up party for his 50th yesterday.
ReplyDeleteNever!
ReplyDeleteAs for the party, it would have been difficult as he was giving a talk to priests...
...wait for his anniversary of Ordination though!!!
Have marked KS2 English again this year and all the admin was online - which was a nightmare as none of it worked properly. (They are still ringing me every day to ask when I am going to return the papers - which I sent on 19th June - all documented and barcoded!) But it has meant we didn't have to handwrite those interminable mark sheets, so maybe you will have the results delivered in an easier format - if they have done the same with KS3 Science. Here's hoping for you!
ReplyDeleteOh yes (she says smugly): I'd quite forgotten about SS... For the first time since I returned to secondary teaching 11 years ago, I didn't have a Year 9 class this year, so can watch others squirm.
ReplyDeleteThe English KS3 results have been so ridiculously variable over the years that we no longer trust them. Example: in 2004 we had 66% level 7s; in 2005, 32% 7s - but we sent them back for a total remark, and came out with 69% 7s! - and in 2006, 75% 7s. This in a girls' grammar school with a staff which was unchanging over the years concerned, and a cohort which gained a more or less identical set of GCSE marks two years later...well, we don't know this year's results yet, of course, but their mocks were identical to their predecessors.
Of course, OFSTED don't seem to share our deep suspicions...
The joys of standadized testing :)
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