Rewards for completing SATs

Nope all the kids in school did them. It's nothing special

Nope not normal. We didn’t even incentives GCSEs. Do your best every day. One friend did pay her child a certain amount per grade for her GCSEs. I can’t afford sh*t like that.

No, we had a busy week that week with work stuff, her sats, my youngest got a golden certificate at school. So on the Friday night we went out for tea as a rare treat. Not terribly exciting but both my kids enjoyed it

Don't be daft. They don't have any choice, and they don't have to do any revision or put any real effort it, so what exactly would you be rewarding??
Don't set that precedent.

A mum I know bought her son the latest iPhone for doing his SATs. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Exactly. The message ‘it’s a test of the school not the child’ may be said to children to calm them down, but it’s not really true. Yes, it need not be the defining factor in your child’s life but to say it is inconsequential to the child is not correct. Sure, in an ideal world schools would be intervening to help all children achieve their potential but unfortunately that potential is defined at 11 (or 10 as it was in my child’s case) and captured in a metric. In a large school, teachers focus on that one metric to determine which children they need to asisist.

My child brings home a summer report with grades achieved of 4-7. Early autumn, report card comes home and we are back to the flight path grade, maximum 4, as it’s so early no class tests have been done. January parents evening, class tests have been done and we are back to 2 plus grades above the flight path and the teacher is reassuring us there is nothing to worry about, no need to do any more or anything differently as my child is doing so well. Rinse and repeat. I should also
add that my child finds the early autumn grade really discouraging. He swears blind it is based on nothing more than the teachers impression and the flight path grade. Second time this happened I monitored Google classrooms to see if there were any tests that the grade could have been based on. There were none. I did contact the school to see how the grades were arrived at and got palmed off basically.

A friend of mine got really hurt by the flightpath thing. Her daughter is bright and assessed as such all through primary. Did inexplicably badly on her sats (possibly just so nervous) and the school said not to worry about it.

Turned out it caused problems all through secondary as she was always massively exceeding her flightpath basically by showing up. Expectations for her were really low.

It may not be true for your secondary but it is is certainly true for my child’s and at least two other people have posted the same. Some
schools may supplement with their own tests but SATs scores are in the mix.

every parent’s evening we get ‘they are doing SO well’ as they are 2 plus grades ahead of a rock bottom predicted grade/flight path. The grade predictions includes French/german/computing/art/drama/PE and all the other non-SATS related subjects taught at secondary. Teachers are less likely to have considered stretch/intervention as they have already exceeded THEIR metric.

Some schools may also place children in sets based on the results. Ours doesn’t set at all so that isn’t so relevant, it is the flight path/expected grade that will have consequences. Secondary is not some sort of fresh start or clean sheet with ability considered anew. There can also be negative consequences for SATs high flyers as not meeting an expected grade can result in pressure to improve. I’ve heard parents say that their child only got the SATs grade as they were hot housed or developmentally ahead at that point, the path wasn’t sustainable for their child and they became stressed.

my advice would be not to dismiss the consequences of SATs but not to go crazy and drive your kid crazy either. That said, a few years into secondary, I do feel like my child failed the 11+ when I didn’t even know they were sitting it. I feel like we are constantly on the back foot. The estimated grade stays on the report card forever so we are caught in a cycle of child does better end of year than estimated teachers are amazed. Clock resets in September, last years grade is not referenced ever again, the estimated final grade is so teachers is amazed and congratulatory all over again. This would be inconsequential were it not for the fact that the stretch and feedback to go up further grades is not offered.

Support comes in different forms though and children are also different. For my son who isn't going to get good results in SATs no matter how much effort he puts in, supporting him is balancing out the pressure placed on children by schools and reassuring him that it is a test for the school and that SATs really, really don't matter in the long run.

That isn't dismissive for my son and has made him feel better about it because he was dreading Year 6 up until that reassurance.

I’m not just trying to raise mine to pass exams. I want them to enjoy school, take pride in their effort, respect authority, I want to build their self esteem, learn how to reward themselves for effort. I’m not expecting you to agree, but for me, being positive about SATs and supporting them did those things. Im just trying to think how I’d feel if my parents told me the thing I was working hard for didn’t matter, apart from the fact I don’t believe it’s true, I just find it very dismissive.

I’m glad your grandchild is blossoming, but so are mine who were encouraged to do well in SATs, I don’t really see the correlation. That kind of proves the point they dont make any difference.

My son got a holiday. But that was already booked for the end of SATs week, because we knew he would go through absolute hell in sitting them and would need some time off to recover properly. The school even authorised it as they could see how much he struggled during SATs week. He literally shook and cried every single day, the only reason he was able to get through them was the thought of that holiday.

We went out for dinner after they were done just as a sort of phew thats over.

That’s your interpretation, with a ND child I was always appreciative of any intervention that was provided, it may have been with the intention of supporting SATs predominantly but ultimately it supports improving their learning which I can’t really get cross about? I’m glad your grandchild is blossoming, but so are mine who were encouraged to do well in SATs, I don’t really see the correlation.

I'm 52. Never got any "reward" for any school or exam success. Shocks me when I see what parents dish out for their little darlings crossing the road these days.

If someone is telling your child they aren't good enough and should be doing extra work after school instead of playing outside it's perfectly reasonable to tell them that's not true and SATs results won't affect their life. Once he started secondary school they did their own tests anyway and he just blossomed.

what others do shouldn’t really affect your own decisions.
but yes we celebrated sats, with meals each night that he especially enjoys, and talking about how proud we are in respect of his attitude and efforts at school.

we’ll do similar when the results come out

we wouldn’t prioritise a holiday labelled as a reward for doing exams. and we wouldn’t buy a gift for him doing them .

but he definitely knows we are proud of his work ethic and we marked the occasion together as a family.

I don’t disagree with most of what you’ve written. But supporting your child when they’ve finished something does not equate to telling them they’re the most important thing in the world.

The SATs system is here whether you or I like it, it is my job as a parent to support my child and support the school. I think it’s entirely unhelpful to just tell a child something is unimportant, it’s quite dismissive actually, especially if it’s something they want to take pride in, I know I did, I was very proud of my SATs, I remember my grades to this day. Supporting and comforting a child doesn’t need to mean pressuring, MN is always so extreme.

I did my 11 plus in 1966 which is a guide to my age. We weren't prepped or coached at my school and the whole thing was over in a couple of days - yes, I passed.

I am now a retired teacher and I think SATs should be scrapped, it puts unnecessary stress on children and teachers and is meaningless. My youngest grandchild was told he needed extra booster classes for SATs which he didn't do. I don't even know what his KS2 results were but he has absolutely flourished at secondary and is predicted good grades at GCSE next year. It's a good job he was told not to worry about SATs.

Not true. Secondary schools here do their own tests and set accordingly.

This. SATs are pretty meaningless as far as the child's future goes and they shouldn't be expected to have to 'work hard' for them.

At GCSE reward the effort if you want not the results. The results are their own reward.

Yes that’s what I think, I imagine a lot of kids get laptops this age ahead of high school. More of an acknowledgement of moving up from primary to high school I should think, SATs just probably felt a nice celebratory and symbolic time to do it.

Honestly you do have to wise up a bit. They are resting your child, and the results will be used to flightpath their expected performance through KS3 & 4. If you underperformed at KS2 sats you will be held to a lower bar at GCSE as expectations on you will be lower.

That’s fine of course and if that’s what you had said I’d have ignored your post, but it’s absolutely nothing to do with resilience, I can guarantee my kids have had more thrown at them than a lot of adults, they’re not lacking resilience.

I rewarded my daughter after gcses as she worked so hard. Will do for A levels too. But for Sats I really wouldn't go over the top. As many have said its more for the schools benefit. My kids had to sit exams administered by the secondary schools to determine their sets.