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The May 2003 KS3 Tests Our English Department has done everything possible to ensure that students were fully prepared for the new style English tests at KS3 this year. We held booster classes for Year 9 students, many of these taking place after school and during the Easter holiday. We have also prepared pupils intensively in class time since January using the materials provided by QCA. All Year 9 English teachers undertook in-service training on the tests led by the Torbay Literacy Consultant. The National Literacy Strategy has been fully implemented within the School, including our less able students completing the Progress Units. Despite all this, however, the vast majority of our students were quite unable to access the materials provided for assessment in last week's tests. Difficulties arose, particularly for 'average' level 5 students and below, in understanding the language of the three texts chosen for the Reading paper. For example, the words "desires" and "motivate" (Question 1), "shrouded" (Question 4), and "thicket" (Question 10), are not in the vocabulary of many of the students sitting this examination. Further, the phrasing of the questions on all three papers was generally unhelpful and sometimes positively confusing. On the Reading paper candidates were puzzled by references to particular paragraphs by number in the questions, not knowing whether to count the preamble to the passages as the first paragraph. Serious problems arose with the instruction for Section A of the shorter writing task for the 'Macbeth' paper, where the wording of the task is fragmented and unclear. The instruction "write a contribution" did not convey clearly what was required of students. The use of the word "villain" and the phrase "strangely compelling" in the question baffled the majority of students. Of the three Section A Shakespeare options, the 'Macbeth' paper seemed particularly unhelpful. For 'Henry V' the question in Section A gave students a choice of tasks, even providing 'props' to help students to organise their ideas. The 'Twelfth Night' task was also worded more clearly, and with a theme that would be more likely to engage the interest of students in this age group. It seems odd that students were asked to spend 30 minutes on Section A which carries 20 marks and 45 minutes on Section B which carries only 18 marks. On the Writing paper the instruction was again confusing. On their planning sheet students were asked to organise their writing in a framework of three boxes arranged very much in the style of a newspaper or magazine, with a box for a headline at the top, and three parallel oblong boxes underneath. These had the appearance of columns of print, seeming to suggest that the newspaper report students were asked to write in their answer booklet should be set out like a newspaper. At the end of the question, however, there was an instruction not to write in columns, but this was feint and not highlighted, and I am sure that many students missed this direction. I feel that our students were put through a quite unnecessary ordeal and that their confidence in English has suffered a severe blow. On a more general note, I must say that I am dismayed at the remorselessly utilitarian and obsessively technical nature of these tests, there being no opportunity for students to display their creative talents. Patrick Lamb,
Torbay ************************************************************************* Rob Miles, Dorset (Getting ready for the appeal) ************************************************************************* The connection between this "thematic" question and the relevant play was at best tenuous in all cases but I feel there was something of a lottery involved in which text a pupil had studuied. If the intention was that all children should be able to base their answers on something they recognised from personal experience, the "Twelfth Night" question on dress and fashion at least gave them a little to go on. The "Macbeth" version, however, demanded a response to a quite erudite philosophical concept. And for "Henry V", pupils were expected not only to invent an imaginary situation and the history behind it but also to write a series of unfocussed persuasive statements based on this amorphous background. Further, the wording of the questions was excessive and distracting. A large number of our students had to ask for assistance in these circumstances and I can quite understand why. Colleagues who were invigilating and saw the paper at the beginning of the session were independently of the opinion that the first question was overly difficult and demanding. Children were distressed; there was a measure of panic and some were even in tears. I have never witnessed such scenes and was confirmed in my belief that no examination is worth that amount of stress! Peter Devine, Harrow ************************************************************************* Elizabeth
Ridout, Sutton ************************************************************************* The Shakespeare Paper - Friday 9th May 2003 The exam was started at 9.10am. By 9.15am it was clear that a large majority of students were confused about the task in Section A. Masses of students raised their hands and told invigilators that they didn't know what to do. Unable to help them and seriously concerned, the Exams Officer for Prince William School immediately sought help and advice from the Deputy Head, the KS3 English Co-ordinator and other English Teachers. Knowing that we were unable to assist students in interpreting the question we could only advise that we reassure students to try their best and try not to be unduly worried. In our Learning Support Centre, staff were frustrated and angry that many of the students receiving support simply could not understand what they were being asked to do. We are particularly outraged that one student, a girl with a chronic form of cerebral palsy, was so distressed she dissolved into tears and was unable to write anything in the whole test. Throughout the day, English staff were faced with children who were worried and upset thinking that they had failed. It became clear that many of them had written little or nothing for Section A, therefore jeopardising 20 marks. It is entirely clear to us why this happened. The task in Section A has many flaws, as identified below. Inappropriate
wording of task Overall, the language of the task appeared well above level 4 in complexity, thus youngsters who had worked hard to achieve a level 4 were not able to show what they were capable of. Difficult
to ascertain the actual task 'In real life, no one wants to meet a villain like Macbeth, but in books, on stage or on screen, villains can be strangely compelling. After all …' Their misunderstanding was not helped by the fact that the sentence ends '…' suggesting that the students continue the sentence with their own writing. The interior box includes a letter to an English teacher. Many students, unable to see clearly what they were being asked to do, wrote a letter to the editor in role as the English teacher that included contributions from make-believe students. Those students who correctly deduced that they were being asked to write a contribution for the book that they would give to their English teacher, were then confused what form their contribution should take. They were confused by the fact that the letter asked them to 'analyse' and yet to do so in 'short pieces'. They knew they were writing for 30 minutes, so were unsure at what length to write. The actual task, 'Write a contribution for this book,' although in bold, is placed inside the text box and is therefore difficult to identify as the instruction. Students
unsure of the form their writing should take The task
distressed students Teachers and Learning Support Assistants have spent many hours building the confidence and self-esteem of children with learning difficulties. All this achievement was destroyed within the first few minutes of this exam. Several of our supported students were distressed, one extremely so. The nature
and timings of the exam were flawed The writing task in Section A was worth 20 marks and was allocated 30 minutes. The Reading task in Section B (based on Macbeth) was worth 18 marks and yet was allocated 45 minutes. We understand that the longer time for Section B, despite being worth fewer marks, was given so that students could spend time reading the extracts. This, however, was not made clear in the instructions for the exam, nor in the 'Notes for Teachers' and it was another point of confusion for students who have been encouraged to assess the value of questions and allocate time accordingly. This is a skill that is essential at GCSE and needs to be consolidated securely at KS3. Students were
not given any guidance or examples in the exam paper. If a task is of a complicated nature, students should be given some guidance or prompts to help them answer. Carly McQueen, Prince William School, Oundle, Northamptonshire ************************************************************************* Even though I had told them that it would be the case, my students still struggled with the concept of spending 30 minutes on section A (worth 20 marks) and 45 minutes on section B (worth 18 marks). And what sort of joke is it to have half a "Shakespeare Paper" which does not test their knowledge of Shakespeare? Add to this the inordinate amount of time that I felt it necessary to spend on the Shakespeare play and the whole thing becomes a joke. I knew that it would be like this but the 12th Night section A question didn't even loosely relate to the play. The writing paper had instructions to write a newspaper story but not to lay it out like a newspaper - then it put in a writing frame laid out like a newspaper. It took some pretty careful explaining. Quite a bit of head-scratching going on there. Doug Jenner
I'm attaching Pat Thomson's lovely piece about taking a SAT on her own story, and "failing to understand the intentions of the author..." This makes the key point that SATs dumb down and make students into worse readers: less nuanced, responsive, sophisticated... It's a version of her speech to the packed fringe-meeting at NUT Conference. A teacher of KS1 students told me she has to award marks for the writing test on the basis of writing-by-numbers: a mark for an adverbial clause, a mark for sustained imperatives etc. etc. This isn't writing, it's Mechano or Airfix... Patrick Yarker,
Norwich ************************************************************************* Paul Lindsay-Addy,
Redbridge *************************************************************************
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