At my school we’re increasingly using the school website and Facebook pages to communicate with families, particularly aiming to reach those who are not so easily able to attend after-school meetings and events.
I also sometimes wonder if parents meetings don’t end up being overly long-winded because we feel that if we’ve dragged parents into school then we ought to make it worth their while coming; nobody wants to travel 20 minutes each way for a 5-minute meeting. But sometimes, 5 minutes is enough.
I have now put together two videos for parents of our children in Y2 and Y6 to give them an overview of the National Curriculum tests. I’ve stripped out the school logo, etc. and am now sharing them for anyone who wants to make use of them.
You can link to it via your school website or facebook page using the URL (https://youtu.be/nF1n1g4CePI) or the YouTube sharing tools.
EDIT – I’ve now added a KS1 video too:
Again, you can link directly (https://youtu.be/M8MjPFWRQs0), or share/download the video as you wish.
The videos are available for direct download from my Google Drive via the links here, for schools who wish to top-and-tail with their own content or school logo, etc. I do ask, though, that you leave the main body, including the final slide with my details, in tact – or contact me directly if you want to make other changes. The downloads of the full videos are available from these links:
Key Stage 1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxDHhjOLp-QWeUlnSUJjTTItb00/view?usp=sharing
Key Stage 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxDHhjOLp-QWbHFRZ2FISi1aQ3M/view?usp=sharing
To download a copy for your own use, click the small download triangle at the top of the screen.
You may also be interested in the free booklets for parents that explains the tests in more detail. These are available from the Rising Stars website at
Tagged: 2016, ks1, KS2, national curriculum, tests
Ramblings of a Teacher 
Argh! You’re quite correct… I need to change that.
Great
This will be useful to me as a parent
Thanks
Thank you for sharing this. It is very clear and provides excellent illustrations.
“nobody wants to travel 20 minutes each way for a 5-minute meeting”
Also nobody want to travel 3 hours for ….
I do sometimes wonder about the logic of training courses. A school can spend hundreds of pounds plus travelling expenses sending a teacher to the other side of the country. The whole day is spent gleaning just a few nuggets of information to be fed back which could have been sent by video or just written in a pdf. Of course the training company wouldn’t be able to justify the expense then. Sorry for being cynical but I have had some pointless trips over the years.
Many thanks. It is very generous of you to share the resource. Th s will save lots of time for parents and teachers.
Thank you, this is a really useful resource.
Thank you, I wish I had your video editing skills. I have no clue how to “top and tail it with my own content or school logo”.
It’s now on my schools website, thanks again.
Reblogged this on West Tytherley Special Events.
How do you know which parents have seen the website or Facebook & how does that help you to produce printed correspondence for those parents that may still require it? It would seem that solutions like ParentMail would offer the extra functionality to really solve the problem and save the school money at the same time.
We don’t try to track these things – our intention is to provide information in as many accessible formats as possible. I’m not sure that the problem you imagine actually exists 🙂
Thanks Michael, you are doing a great job on sharing information about all this. Did you see that SATs retakes will come in from 2017 (so for the cohort after this one).
Thank you so much” very helpful indeed.
Thank you so much for these – your generosity is very much appreciated.
Wendy
Enormously helpful, many many Thanks
A great resource and you’ve saved me so much time too. Thank you for sharing.