ks3 ict sats

[russdev]

someone at conference mentioned that they were taking part in the mac pilot side does anybody know what school it was??

cheers

[russdev]

also to let people know this years ict sats stuff is no longer covered by nda sow e can talk about with people

Russ

[GrumbleDook]

Ok ... moan number 1:

Familiarization materials ... yes ... they were sent late. That had a knock on effect of not being able to properly test whether the whole system worked.

Do they honestly think that the ICT Teachers can just drop what they are doing are change all their lessons around because the KS3 team couldn't get things done in time?

The familiarization materials finally worked 3 weeks before the actually tests. No way was that enough time.

Moan 2:
Why, oh why do they not say "for 30 students taking the test you will need at least a server with such and such a spec ... for 60 you want this ... for 100 you want this."
We had a machine a chunk above their minimum spec but it slowed to a crawl and resulted in many crashed tests, and we only got 63% of our results back because of this. The response from the KS3 team was that the minimum spec (including what we said our machine was) would only hand 1 classroom of 20ish machines ... they still could not actually come out with the exact spec for a server to deal with 120 students doing the test at the same time.

Moan 3:
Ok ... the documentation wasn't too bad all things considered ... but it was still written for a teacher, and if you look at the report it shows that the restructuring of who controls what. This means that the majority share of the whole project *has* to be done by someone who is not a teacher. The exams officer, the network manager, the flippin' caretakers ... but not a teacher

The installation was not as clear as they reckon. Assigning test to workstations was relatively undocumented and a certain amount of the installation was hoping that you were using RM CC3 (one support techie who we struck up a good relationship with actually admitted this ... but completely unofficially)

And they reckon that they are investigating any issues? Well, they haven't spoken with us and we had some corkers.

Moan 3:
I have sort of mentioned this already.
Who does what in the tests.

The new roles are
Technical Manger
Pupil Manager
Test Manager
Test Administrator.

Ok ... the ICT dept say that a subject specialist needs to be at hand to make sure the kids are on task and actually doing the correct stuff (we did have a few completely panic last year!)

However, the National Agreement does not allow them to invigilate outside of their normal timetabled areas. To allow for the students time to get into the class, get logged on, after dealing with initial problems you might just squeeze it into the hour-long lesson.

Then if you take into account the time spent with students who need assistance, and those whose machines crash ... add another 20-30 minutes ... and you have gone into another lesson.

So that means you need to have a specialist who is not a teacher assisting instead. Did I hear anyone say IT Support?

The more I get into things with the National Agreement with staff the more frustrating we *all* find it.

I have had a few member of staff already bite my head of this half-term of things we have put into place to conform with the NA ... and they still want to to those things, whether it is putting up displays or invigilating exams.

Ok. Rant over ...

Am I the only one who is having these issuse with the KS3 pilot?

[russdev]

no agree with lot of what you say we had numerous issues last time and we basicly threatened to go to qca (surprise surprise it got sorted).

yes time scale was very bad we said to them really we need it but end of November next year.. hopfuly they should come in next week or so..

yes the fact couldn't exit from practice tests was a really oain our lessons are 50 mins long in end had to just force the w/s to reset every time as spent half my time going around trying to end all the dam tests..

few issues that really got me where ones that should of been sorted..

also no thing in place to issue a second set of tests if first lot failed technical failed..

but on + side i thinks schools have got to do it otherwise you are going to be behind when it comes mandatery sat in n few years..

Russ

[GrumbleDook]

Yep ... the ICT SATs will be mandatory by 2008 if other people were not aware ... and then the other SATs will be pilotted electronically too ... and by 2013 all KS3 testing will be done or data recorded online.

[russdev]

for period of time while sats are on i was in at 7 and left at 5:30 ish with about 15 min break...

and now that was just ict imagine what is going to be like with all of them of them being done like this...


here there is just me now... but this is ging to become a seious issue...

Russ