Taking DS on holiday 2weeks before SATS 2020

[Beanybye]

We’ve booked a much needed family holiday to Florida for next April. It’s a once in a life time trip and the only way we could afford it is to go during term time.

DS is a bright lad,no concerns raised about his academic ability. I can’t remember the terms they use now but he’s ‘above’ where he ‘should be’ in maths and reading and at the ‘right’ level in writing. Not that any of that’s relevant.

Anyway, this holiday is 2 weeks after Easter so he’ll be off for a month then in school for a week and then it’s SATS.

At first I wasn’t bothered, DS gets stressed about these assessments so missing the build up to it (i think) will be a good thing. School don’t use it for secondary school streaming it’s used for league tables.

Being a goody goody myself I’m now a bit worried they’ll give me a hard time over it. Any experience? I don’t want to give you all a sob story but this holiday means a lot to us.

They also usually do mock sats! How much more prep can Go on in two Weeks.

Usually a child will be well taught, have done some mock tests and in fact a rest before will be beneficial.

To PPs who've asked: the school had Easter school over the holidays to prepare for SATs. Everyone who wasn't going away was expected to attend. She would have been away the first week, but family circumstances meant that was postponed until yesterday.

Would I hell send my child into school over the holidays! Regardless of what we were up to.

Aragog I didn't make her go, and I don't take her in, she goes by herself. If she hadn't gone she'd have been given the homework to do in the holidays anyway, and it was her choice to go. Something nice came out of it, she and her best friend went to Tesco's before school one day to buy stuff for a packed lunch.

But the school shouldn’t need to hold holiday session.

Op, don't kid yourself by saying this is a much needed holiday and the only way you can afford it is to go out of school holidays.
No doubt it will be a great, if very expensive, holiday, but you could have equally as good but cheaper holidays with the family without the need to take your child out of school.
For all of you that say SAtS don't matter to the child, you're right. However, when a school has SATS results that are not as good as they should be then those staff and schools are held to account by Ofsted ultimately. Schools can and are downgraded by Ofsted. Then those very same parents who want the best schools for their child decide that school must be crap and look elsewhere.

Soontobe read the OPs posts a bit more carefully before you go on about “a much needed holiday”

I'm banging this drum on every SATs thread at the moment, I know. But my yr6 DD1 is currently in her room unable to sleep and in tears, convinced she's having a heart attack because she's dreading going back to school tomorrow and all the prep they'll be continuing to do.

Go on the holiday, I bloody wish I had. Life is too short.

@Soontobe60 - any school putting 10 year olds under such pressure is a crap school.

@Rockbird - hope your DD is ok.

Soontobe60 is right though. Those same parents telling children SATs aren’t important are the ones losing their shit when the SATs aren’t good enough.
There’s a higher than average number of children with SEN at one of our local schools. Parents can’t seem to understand that this impacts the SATS as the published statistics don’t make any distinction.
So it’s all pitchforks and torches on secret WhatsApp groups whilst they work themselves up into a frenzy about this ‘failing’ school (which it isn’t)’

Having been through SATS in my experience they pretty much mean bugger all to the child unless the child is having difficulties. Go in the holiday. Don’t let your kids get worried about SATS.

I agree Cheeky. The teachers guilt trip them into going, and into going to the boosters. DD missed 2 SPaG boosters, and the teacher said "make sure you come to the next one."

The teachers put enormous pressure on Year 6 kids - it's appalling and I know that they are pressured into it by the HT and the system but it still doesn't make it ok. I had to threaten to pull my kids out of school to get the Year 6 teacher to back off - their job is worth less than my dc's mental health. The situation is bloody ridiculous. Year 6 is really awful in some schools.
Op I'd go - enjoy Florida - the school will just have to deal with it.

My parents did this when I was around 12 for some science exams and I remembering not being very impressed by that choice especially faced with the stress I had on coming back from holiday and cramming revision in.

Funny how 'much needed family holidays' are always to somewhere really expensive and therefore only affordable in term time. If your family is in that much need of a holiday an Easter break in the U.K. would do the job perfectly well

Yup. Not to mention a holiday in itself is a luxury, don't people spend much needed family time at home?

Most parents judge a school on its ofsted and results when they choose a school so moaning they test is ridiculous.

Way to say up yours to the school that has taught your ds for however long he’s been there and the year 6 teacher who will likely have some form of PRP relating to sats scores. Fair enough, one kid dipping or not doing as well as hoped unlikely to have a massive impact overall, so long as is not a tiny intake. But still - if everyone did this it would be pretty crap for the school.

All the secondaries near us use mix of sats and cats for setting, but gcse targets are linked to sats results because they’re the closest national tests to each other - a means of judging the secondary school (unfairly) based on performance in year 6 linked with performance at end of ks4.

The job of the school is to teach to a decent standard consistently up to that point so there should be no need for stress and cramming.
The only extra above standard school work should be looking at a few past papers to understand the format of the test.
Kids do not need to be put under so much pressure, and our job as parents is to make sure they don't.

As a primary governor, I wish that we could let our kids be kids, ask any governor, teacher or headteacher to be honest about their thoughts and they will tell you that the amount of assessments and testing we do in our children is absurd, and it actually gives no benefit to the child.

Off the record, your son will benefit greatly from those 2 weeks with his family, both physically and emotionally, my children are in year 2 and reception, would I take them out in term time? Yes, yes I would, if the circumstances presented as having to in order to give them the trip of a life time.

The LA can fine you, but let’s face it, the fine is still less than the extra cost of going in the school holidays 🤷‍♀️

On a side note, if you’re a fairly large family going self catering, you can eat relatively cheaply at a buffet restaurant called portofinos, it’s got every dish imaginable and was amazing when I was last there, enjoy your holiday 😁

@philomenabutterfly

Found you!! Hope all’s well