SATS do you give a shit or do you not?!

[MidnightVelvetthe5th]

I do not. I have a Year 6 & a Year 2 so both are doing SATS this year. The Year 6 has had special class meetings about them & is worried about his potential scores, my Year 2 has come home with workbooks in English & Maths that were given to him 'as a present' by the teachers & he says we have to do them over the half term.

The school have put on special evening meetings for both year groups for parents to talk about how to improve their childrens scores' (I was working so had a good excuse for not attending) & I've had pages & pages of stuff come home in bookbags for my DC to do in their spare time.

My 10 year old was getting far too worried about them so basically I've taken the line that the results the children get are not important for the children themselves, they are for the school to show how good the teaching is and the new Head that has something to prove So I expect my DC to do their best certainly but I don't expect to be deluged with the bloody things or to have them encroach on holiday time.

Where does everyone else stand on them, are there parents who frantically work their way through the extra workbooks & I'm being weird by not doing so?

[PerspicaciaTick]

I was in your position last year. I told my DCs not to stress, to do their best but that the results were for/about the school not them. It didn't stop my DD getting infected by all the flapping and comparing that went on among her Y6 classmates. It made the 11+ look and feel like a complete doddle in comparison. Just do enough for your children to feel relaxed (which will depend on their personalities) and keep reassuring them.
Some of the staff at our school were telling Y6s they wouldn't get into the secondary of their choice if they didn't do well. And the parents believed them. Really cruel IMO.

[angelcake20]

I don't care about them and yr6 dd knows this (it was the same with yr8 DS). Thankfully our primary is (at least outwardly) very laid back about them so they are not putting pressure on the kids. In the last couple of weeks she has had 2 half days out of school for sports competitions, a trip to see a show at a local secondary, a talk from a marine biologist, a visit from a choir and a Chinese dance workshop. They're are designing and making biscuits in D&T and doing a big topic on rivers, which is their only holiday homework. They're haven't started doing half the SPAG that everyone else is panicking about; DD's teacher says they will do it after Easter. I'm horrified by the focus on SATs that we hear about from some posters. DD's spelling is so atrocious she will struggle to make the "working at" standard for SPAG but she is not doing any extra work compared with the rest of her set. None of the local secondaries use SATs for setting (and dd is going to an independent). Our primary is "outstanding".

[ArkATerre]

I didn't allow any extra workbook time beyond regular homework time for my DC's SATS. Attended one general meeting to show willing and be polite but not any breakfast clubs etc. Downplayed it at home and considered Home Edding in the last term to avoid all the boring revision, but the school did try and vary the activities they did so that wasn't necessary. Told DC the secondary they had got in did CAT in first week so not to be at all concerned about SATS as they weren't important.

[ShipwreckedAndComatose]

I am a secondary teacher and a parent of a year 6 and I don't give a shit either. I have told dd that the only thing that really matters is that she tries her best and beyond that, the results won't mean anything. I have explained to her how she is being tested on a new curriculum and that she will not have covered everything in the new tests over her time in primary, that it's unfair but everyone in her year is in the same boat.

She hates the practises they do but doesn't seem overly stressed. I am keeping an close eye on her though.

[MrsTedMosby]

I had y6 last year. They weren't bothered I told them what they were for. I was going to ban after school club but they were invited to Maths and wanted to go as they like maths, so I let them as it was their choice.

I do hate the SATs though, I know my two are really laid back so it doesn't bother them, and they did really well.

My youngest is y4 and I know it's going to be so different for him - he's not laid back like the others, and he has ASD. So if the school tell him the SATs are important, then he will believe them (because school and teachers only tell the truth, you obey the rules there to the letter in his eyes) he's also immature compared to his peers, and below ARE in most subjects. His handwriting is also horrendous (illegible if he joins) and I understand that's part of the new tests.

I am seriously considering HEing for y6, maybe y5 too so he can get 1:1 attention with his writing, and other subject before he starts secondary, rather than constant SATS papers for y6.

[ChalkHearts]

It's all very well if your child is average or ahead not to worry or care about SATs.

But if your child is genuinely behind you should know that secondaries really struggle to teach the basics like reading and writing. Daily interventions are very rare in secondary.

So if your child is struggling you should do everything you can to help them catch up while they're at primary. It is a billion times harder (to catch up) at secondary.

[yomellamoHelly]

Generally didn't give a toss last year. My only concern was the secondaries using them to set benchmarks on where they should be aiming for come GCSE time. As it was the school ds got into used CAT (?) tests just before half-term - so once they'd settled in - to do that. So it worked out in the end. (Ds had walked out of 3 of his SATs due to the pressure he felt under from the school.)

[Obs2016]

No.
Not when I found out that secondary do their own computer test on the day they visit, plus another test in the autumn term.

[ErgonomicallyUnsound]

Hmm we have 11+ and Y6 SATs are basically just laughed at in comparison.

My DS was a bit competitive with his friends over results but it wasn't stressy at all.

[Micah]

If i thought they affected anything id be bothered- secondary banding, whatever. Someone did tell me they use them to set gcse grade expectations.

But as far as i can tell theyre purely to measure primary school performance. So no, not bothered.

[BaconAndAvocado]

We also have the 11+ here and, as a parent, it definitely takes precedence over the SATs.

As a teacher, it's the total opposite!

[Hrafnkel]

Secondary teacher here, with a dd in year 2. Couldn't give a shit about sats. They have plenty of time to worry about exams that really do matter to them and not just the school when they reach secondary.

[Biscetti]

Couldn't give a shit. Y2 and a severely dyslexic DD. Considering refusing for her to take them if I can. She might be dyslexic but she is very clever, ridiculous general knowledge and can real off facts in all sorts of subjects, just can't write the shit down, let alone read properly.

Dyscalculia too, for added fun so basically fucked. She's fully aware of the SATS and is already in a tizz about them. No matter how much I tell her it's not important, she is still very worried.

Way to fucking go DforE and your poxy tests. If I can't pull her out of them, I might suggest to her that she just draws pictures all over them. She's good at art. 😁

[Mrsbadger77]

As a secondary teacher I actually hope my daughter doesn't do too well at SATS as this would mean she will have ridiculously high target grades to achieve at GCSE. I have seen the effect of such high expectations; it can go one of two ways either the kid sees the pressure of achieving A grades as unachievable and they totally switch off and stop trying. Or they work endlessly and end up totally miserable and stressed.

[Buttwing]

Nope. Really not bothered in the slightest! 11+ area here too and it pisses me off that our school go on about their fabulous sats results. Yes because the kids have almost all just had a year of tutoring and parents making sure they have filled in any gaps.

[gingerdad]

Didn't give a shit when ours did them. They are only really useful for the school. Wife was a teacher.

Made it clear to both the head and class teacher i wouldn't tolerate any excess pressure. High school didn't seem to use them.

Totally pointless in my eyes.

[SmaDizietSma]

Absolutely no shits given here. Not thrilled about homework; extra tuition = never.

[TeenAndTween]

I'm with Chalkhearts

My DD2 is sadly not at old Level 4 standard. Having had a DD go through secondary already, I am concerned DD2 is not yet 'secondary ready'

So I care about getting her standards up from where they are now so that she has good enough foundations for September.

As such, I care about the maths and comprehension more than I care about the SPaG tests and new assessment scheme for writing.

[karaokesmokey]

As per my thread- I do give a shit, in that I hate them.

I sat them, and had such a poor experience of the whole thing, and how it affected me, and my peers, for years during school and after (and I'm not exaggerating), I don't think they're "just tests". I think they are a particularly pernicious part of our education system.

[ShipwreckedAndComatose]

I get that teen, I do. I want my dd to be secondary ready too. But I don't believe that has anything to do with the SATS exam they are facing.

[ChalkHearts]

It's because school teach to the test (as evidenced by the fact they do no academic work after SATs)

I'm really sure that without SATs struggling children would get less help than they currently do.

Also evidenced by the fact that when these struggling children start secondary they don't get the help they need.

SATs were certainly a good thing for my DC - because it meant they received much needed extra help.

[ShipwreckedAndComatose]

This year, they have to teach to the test because the criteria that students will be assessed by has changed only last year. Suddenly, teachers have to prepare them for work they were not expected to know under the old national Curriculum.
Here

[ShipwreckedAndComatose]

Darn! link failed!

[Muskey]

To be honest I worried a lot about the year six sats (yr 2 not at all as I couldn't believe that little people's test results would be that good and certainly nothing a few more years in school couldn't put right).
For year 6 I got it into my head that somehow there would be dire consequences for dd if she didn't do well (some of the threads in here didn't help eg my little Johnny got level 6 in everything type of comment - my excuse I was new to mn then and didn't get it that sometimes people on mn are economical / exaggerate the truth) however when I realised dd school weren't that bothered (private school) and didn't put dc in for the level six tests I realised that I was being a bit stupid. In hindsight it was really easy to get sucked into the hype which is government led to make us believe that we are failing our dc if we don't help the schools to get the dc through the tests, whatever it takes

[Theknacktoflying]

Are they still SATs or just some equivalent?

I am just so annoyed that my daughter has spent 6 years going through school with the whole SAT 2 tests looming to find out last year that they were being scrapped and replaced with another set of measures that weren't clearly defined.

The amount of testing and prep done precludes any proper tutoring and the 6-8 week holiday (along with the waste of a Summer term as Yr6 spend their time doing plays, and other unnecessary time fill) means that the infernal testing will start again in Yr 7 ....

This is all from a school that told me taking my daughter out of school to visit her overseas family in Yr2 would mean I should expect a lower GSCE level ...

I know I should care, but I don't