Am i being over protective or do I have a right to be cross.

[lovingmy2]

My 5.5 yr old cam home last week (year 1) and said he'd been doing tests at school. I dismissed it the first time he said it but then he came home again the following day and said he'd done another. Another after a lot of diliberation i rang the school and spoke to his teacher. She verified that he had been doing SAT style tests to assess where her class where at . I asked why teacher assessment wasn't being used and was it appropriate for a 5 year old to be sitting such tests. Her reply was that the school had always done them from year one and that the chiren where unaware of them being tests.

DS hasn't been bothered by them and is fairly bright (top set) but i am still a little cross when they are supposed to use teacher assessment until Year 2 SATs.

I am being over protective or should i have been concerned?

[munstersmum]

I guess as you say DS wasn't bothered then I wouldn't be too bothered as a parent. We hit the same thing in year1 last year. I was gobsmacked when told they had done a science test (literacy & numeracy I kind of expected).

I feel it's mainly about poor communication between school & parents. Do we only find out after the event because they don't want to talk to us / trust us? If you feel strongly over the principle then it's the head you need to chat to.

The teacher is possibly pushing it a bit saying the children do not realise it's a test . Yours did & so did mine last year. We all know kids see through colour codes/ animal names for tables in the class as a means of seating by ability.

[lovingmy2]

I suppose I just thought I had another year or so of him not being confronted with such tests. It's just hard to believe that 3 years ago i was potty training my baby and now he's sitting tests.