To thinks SATs don’t really matter?

After a few emails and getting nowhere, I did have a zoom call with teacher and discuss it. He can't change class this term as he now has a gap in his learning due to being a term behind. I wish we had found out sooner but my son figured it out himself by chatting with friends and finding out they are learning things he isn't and sitting higher test papers. He has been given maths to do from home in the hope he can get up to speed and then hopefully he can be put in appropriate class in Y9. She said the phrase 'there's no guarantees about higher set' about 5 times which was annoying! Fortunately my son is happy to do the extra work as he wants to get ahead. He has a good attitude to learning.

Exactly this, my son is a late developer and I feel that SATs are old and irrelevant now (2 years ago) but the school still use them and it's holding my son back. He is top of his Science class and his teacher said he will get into top set, no SATs for science. Whereas he is brilliant at maths but being kept down in low class based solely on his SATs. Shameful indeed.

I hear that most schools use CATs to assess the children in Year 7. I think the SATs is made more important so primary schools can get the highest results.

SATS are important and the results follow the child through the whole of their time at high school.

I was told they didn't matter and put no pressure on my child and he didn't do well in them, kind of average. He was put with the disruptive kids at high school and is stuck with them for the whole of year 7 and 8. He has matured a lot and works very hard and is top of his maths class but is being held back by a class of kids who can't understand maths. The teacher is going over and over the same stuff and not moving onto the next subject. His class are a whole term behind and will cause him to be in a low set when they are streamed in Y9 and then it's hard to move up. So frustrating.

My second child has just done SATS and I told him they are very important and I'm hoping he will get good results and put in a good class at high school and can then reach his full potential.

Secondary teacher in a core subject. I've never even looked at my year 7s sats results!
I get to know them when I teach them based on their own merit, not from a test done months ago. We also do our own aptitude testing and subject tests in the first term that gives an idea of their ability. But at year 7 I take it with a pinch of salt anyway as so much can change between year 7 and 11.

The big thing you miss out on is that lots of kids are late developers and this early target setting really does them a disservice, it’s absolutely shameful way to school kids.

SATs are sometimes still used for GCSE predicted grades. It is very difficult to get these altered by more than a grade if this is the case. Most schools don't rely on them for sets because way too many kids get taught to the test or get too much help during the actual exam! (Yes really!)

Your child's reading age will be assessed in Y7 and this is also used as a marker for GCSE so get them reading as much as possible.

I am a teacher. They really do not matter, honestly

I’m so sorry to hear your daughter has been do poorly. My DS suffered with a lot of anxiety too (as did many of his classmates since covid. They have had their education affected further by at least 2 hours a week of art therapy, time out sessions. Pressure over things like SATs is often just too much. It’s clearly not a fair measurement of these kids. To think they might haunt them for years is horrendous.

I hope your DD continues to improve

Your tone is off. If you are a teacher you really need to stop minimising the impact covid has had in this group, it’s immense for many. I’m not the only one saying this.

im extremely disappointed that you are playing victim in this, it’s not about having a go at year 6 teachers, it’s about saying how do much teaching fell to parents during this cohorts junior years. Basically their education will have been heavily reliant on parents. Using these SATs results for anything which will affect these kids futures is horrendous. It means many of the most disadvantaged kids are fucked before they even get to secondary school. Surely you can see that?

maybe stop being so sensitive and accept this system is fundamentally flawed

I'm sorry to hear about your daughter, UndertheCedartree. Some families really, really suffered during the pandemic, and long Covid in a child is awful to think about.

Hope that things gradually get better for both of you.

Covid has had a huge impact on my Dd's junior school experience.

They were sent home in March 20 in Y3 and didn't go back until September. No work was provided not that I could have taught it to her as I caught Covid in April 20 and was very poorly for a couple of months and then had Long Covid. She went back into Y4 very upset about not going back to her Y3 teacher and highly anxious. After one term they were off again, this time with a ridiculous expectation (from the government) of how many Oak Academy classes they could get through in a day, plus Zoom calls with her class. She did not get on with working online and it was just a horrible struggle. She went back even more anxious. She went into Y5 with a teacher that did wonders for her anxiety but then at Christmas caught Covid which turned into Long Covid. Once well enough to go back to school she had to return on a reduced timetable. She's now in Y6 and is back on full days but catches everything that goes round so has had a lot of time off as well as still experiencing muscle and joint pains from the Long Covid which sometimes causes her to miss days too.

Unpleasant how exactly? All my comments have been specifically addressing what you have said from a factual standpoint whilst yours have now become personal attacks.

It can indeed be used as a hyperbolic figure of speech, which is why I originally said that hyperbole wasn't helpful in this situation. However, by all means, attempt to have another dig at Y6 teachers in general if it makes you feel better about being wrong.

I'll happily accept the label of "pedantic" if doing so means that we recognise that facts are facts and treat them as such.

Have a lovely day.

Oh you’re being ridiculous and unpleasant, I really hope you’re not a teacher.

Once you factor in things like poor mental health, repeated isolations etc, trying to level kids up etc then, yes very large parts of junior education have been missed and not been experience as they could. Quite frankly teacher input for many was worse than useless during the lockdowns. Granted int might not have been exactly half (it can be used as a figure of speech you know too - maybe that’s why some primary school teachers struggled to understand the questions on the year 6reading test😀).

anyway have a lovely day and go take your pedantic nature elsewhere love.

Oh I'm not minimising: I'm presenting a realistic picture back up by measureable data. You, however, are claiming that the average child in the current Y6 cohort went on to isolate with parent-delivered education (so no teacher input on any of it at all) for a further 13 to 15 months on top of the national lockdowns. That's roughly 37 further individual isolation periods of the maximum recommended 10 days during the two years that isolation was recommended.

If you are going to pull out statements like "we’re looking at a cohort who have had nearly half of their junior school education delivered by parents" you should expect to be challenged on it and need to be able to back that up with evidence. If you can't, don't make the ridiculous statement in the first place.

Yep. I've written a long post upthread about how my dd not getting her SATs results (whole year group annulled - not their fault) led to low teacher expectations, her getting moved down sets in KS4 as the school didn't need to show her progress, and meant that her predicted GCSE grades were lower than her mock results meaning that she missed out on a conditional sixth form offer that she was hoping for.

I'd love to say that they don't matter, although maybe they matter less if children are given targets that at least vaguely correspond to their previous attainment.

Not really, my sons school were in and out, while classes off because of covid then individuals off because of covid, isolation because family members off followed by the child having covid. Impact of mental health issues because of covid. Parents had to deliver the education whether or not the teachers sent out worksheets.

it really doesn’t help you minimising the impact of covid on this group.

if these SATs results are used to predict GCSEs it will be a travesty.

SATS absolutely don’t matter and In my experience having no baring on the ability of a child - there is a reason why so many secondaries do their own screeners!

@Postapocalypticcowgirl

Good post

A lot of Ofsted "good" schools will do this sort of thing, because progress 8 can have an influence on the outcome of an inspection. Having good data means you are more likely to get a good grade as a school.

SATS are used to determine the national target grades secondary schools are measured against. Currently, progress 8 scores are quite important to schools, and have been for a while.

Therefore, some schools invest a lot of time and support into students who are failing to meet their targets, even if they're already achieving, say 5s/6s- whereas if their targets are 5s/6s the support may not be offered.

Of course, this may all change over the next 5 years, and not every school operates this way, but it is very much a thing.

YANBU
SATS are not important past the point of taking them. I've had two children go through them. I told them they should always do their best but not to worry about the results. The first didn't do very well at all & he didn't stress about it. The second did well but stressed he hadn't done well enough. Both were retested when they got to secondary school (different schools & 6 years apart). The SATS seemed ignored by secondary school.

I work in a primary school & our head encourages all children to do their best f& it's good practise for taking 'proper' exams later on. He said to me yesterday "I don't know any job interview that asks what your SAT results were".

Btw my eldest excelled at secondary & came out with A* in his GCSEs gone on to a very happy career. The second is doing a masters at Uni. They haven't a clue what their SAT results were now.

Treat them as a practise & the results as a snapshot in time.

In most mainstream secondaries, I would say the very bottom set is usually students who have SEN or other challenges that prevent them from fully accessing the curriculum, and they need additional support. Often, they're a much smaller group than others, and schools will try to have a TA present, so there is a lot more adult support than in other groups. In the past, although less so now, there may be more than one TA present due to ECHPs.

(obviously not all students with SEN will be in bottom sets, but nearly all students with significant challenges will have SEN, whether diagnosed or not).

Because of the small group size and the extra adults, there is often less "low level disruption" than in other groups. What does/can happen is more high level behaviour incidents (e.g. walking out etc) due to frustration/not being able to cope with school and so on.

The students who don't care/don't work tend to end up in a lower middle set, and yes, that can have significant behaviour issues. Some of them still end up in middle/upper middle sets, because at least in KS3, a naturally able child who doesn't do much work can still perform reasonably well at assessment- and at this age, very few children do no work at all without there being significant issues at play.

In my experience, middle sets tend to be the worst for "low level disruption", although this can be so constant it prevents others from learning.

Some schools will also try the tactic of moving significantly disruptive students into top sets, because they believe the higher level of challenge/being surrounded by more able/motivated students will cause their behaviour to improve. Of course, this only stands a chance of working if the top sets are actually well behaved. Some students can be very able and very disruptive at the same time.