Sleepless nights, head aches and stress... the usuals I imagine. Oh and not forgetting the added pressure this year of marking the writing tests ourselves just to throw in to add to it all!!

 Still no lesson planning so every cloud has a silver lining!!

Not got a clue what to expect, except that the thresholds will go up. Is it just me or do they seem to sneek them up by 1 or 2 marks every year? We are having the writing externally marked so will still be craming on Monday!

We are marking the tests ourselves but it's still stressful! I gave a feeling the thresholds will be higher for Marhs this year! 77 for a level 5 was generous last year!

groovyshell83

Still no lesson planning so every cloud has a silver lining!!

Unless you teach year 5 too and have SATs, planning and reports to get through! No marking as ours is being externally marked too but I can see my borderlines falling below rather than above this year

I taught mixed year 5 and 6 in my first two years. It is a nightmare. I can sympathise!!

Try the whole of key stage 2 in one class!

I'm busy planning for a variety of TAs and cover supervisors next week so I can be with my Y6s for the tests, and then I'll have to mark the work the years 3-5 did!

 

 

 

elizabeth1972

Try the whole of key stage 2 in one class!

I'm busy planning for a variety of TAs and cover supervisors next week so I can be with my Y6s for the tests, and then I'll have to mark the work the years 3-5 did!

 

OK, you win the sympathy stakes!

LOL - wasn't looking for sympathy!

elizabeth1972

LOL - wasn't looking for sympathy!

You have it anyway. I taught 3/4/5/6 for 3 months on supply and it was tough! ( Mind you, my first post was R/1/2 which was just as bad!)

How about doing them twice? Once in present school and then drive to do them as interim head in another! Given up this weekend trying to finish writing reports, too hassled! Fingers crossed for tests that help all children show their true potential and they enjoy!

The agony of getting to the end of the 15 minutes reading time and seeing that half the class are still ploughing through the first half of the first extract; the willing them to move on as they get stuck on filling out some table....wrongly; the knowledge that the love of reading that you have successfully instilled in reluctant readers, the progress they have made in their reading stamina and skill count for sweet FA as they try to tear their way in the last remaining minutes through some brochure intended for a middle-aged, middle class reader ..... Aah, the reading test.....the one that has the bonus this year of having the air of mystery attached to it as we wait for a decision on it's contribution to the Final Judgement.....

[edited by: gelster at 20:50 (GMT 0) on 12-5-2012]

I went to a moderating meeting recently (we're marking the writing tests internally) which said that the moderators who'll be coming will definitely NOT look at the writing tests themselves as evidence, but we teachers can use the tests to inform our judgements. The moderators can, of course, then question these judgements and ask for evidence, but it seems they will not consider the test scripts themselves as evidence and will not look at them...

It seemed a bit weird to me - I came away wondering WHY exactly I'm going to be going to the trouble of marking the wretched scripts if I can't use them to show why someone's the level I say they are. Wish we'd had them marked externally - okay, so the marking quality was variable, but at least someone else was doing it and I had only my normal marking workload to take up my evenings and weekends at a time when I'm also supposed to be writing reports.

Now I feel like I'm going to spend the next few weeks of my life marking test papers for the government - unpaid, too - and at the same time continue to set and mark more extended writing to use as evidence AND try to get my reports done. And Mr Wilshaw thinks I'm not stressed?

Do you think I can get away with scrawling a red lin at the end of each script and writing some random numbers on the front, like the real markers do, or will I need to do as the moderating manager suggests and highlight copies of the markscheme for each individual script and annotate everything, just so that the moderators can just ignore it all? 

Bah! What a stupid system! 

And moderation includes levelled work across the curriculum ( who on earth levels writing in history for literacy objectives!) whereas external marking doesn't.

I know the "old" system was a shambles but the new system is even worse!

Ah reading. My old nemesis back to haunt me again. Bleeding hate the thing and I KNOW this year it will be stupidly hard , probably half in Japanese or about spending most of your weekends skiing in the Pyrenees - which my inner city crew can relate to ooooohhh... about as much as, say, caving in davely dale. Still, they've worked their socks off and have the skills to tackle whatever is thrown at them. Bets around the school say Olympics themed but I reckon that's too similar to 'you can do it' from a few years back. Definitely poetry I think and some sort of narrative as last year was all non-fiction. Who knows! Being on Friday and pizza for Lunch! Good luck year 6s around the country!

You could be right! Olympic theme would be good for our children! As long as they don't throw a poem in about usain bolt! Can't wait to hear all the views on the papers this week! We thought maybe something to do with the royals? That would be painful!

I've been thinking Olympic or Royal Family themed, but then I think that's playing into something the majority of kids would know about whereas they tend to stick to a subject for the minority.

I am definitily thinking poetry related. Yikes!!! As for the writing??? Any ideas? Setting description maybe for short?

For those internal markers among you...are you still doing writing on Tuesday? And do we have to mark the spelling ourselves too?

groovyshell83

For those internal markers among you...are you still doing writing on Tuesday? And do we have to mark the spelling ourselves too?

We're going to do the writing towards the end of June, despite being moderated. I'm assuming that the spelling is in with the short writing, and that we mark it internally too, but we haven't had any firm information on that.

It's all such a shambles!

 

 We did ours last week. The spelling is in with the short writing.