DS just been sick & has SATs on Monday

[nicemarmot]

DS has year 6 SATs starting on Monday. He’s been feeling bit under the weather and has just come down to say he’s been sick. Does anyone know what happens if you have to miss one of the days due to illness?

Whilst I don’t worry about SATs - there is some impact on your child. State schools will use that info (plus lots more info regarding demographics) to set their target GCSE grades. Cynically, I wonder how that means schools then treat the children. ( I work in a primary school so could have this all wrong).

I thought secondary schools did/do something called progress 8 and a lot of that was based on SAT scores? Obviously a child can determine their own results but I wonder how a child who is seen to be performing either side of their predicted grades is affected?

Nothing will happen.

SATS should be scrapped.

Year 6 SATS 🙄

Secondary schools can also easily set targets for children who have never sat SATS, be it one missed test or never doing any of them.

DD's school didn't do SATS. They all has predicted GCSE targets set at the various schools they went to, both in the state and private sector. Every single school,also used teacher assessment to do initial settings and then did their own internal testing in the first term or two.

Any half decent school will be assessing children regularly, formally and informally, and will move children between sets.groups accordingly. Only poor schools will have rigid fixed groupings.

Yes they do!

SATS scores and the GCSE targets they generate are the bane of our life.

Little Finley may well have got a high score in Maths in Year 6 but that doesn't mean he is on track to get a level 7/8 in GCSE Art, Drama, MFL or whatever else.

Presumably, this is based on government guidance, not the schools own choosing?

And of course they deal with children that haven’t sat SATS - doesn’t mean they don’t use SATS info for the majority that have.

Quite!

At a school where I used to work, a Y6 girl came down with chicken pox the weekend before SATS. They made her come in and do tests in an isolation room... I'm pretty sure that school would have had your puking son doing tests with a sick bowl next to him!

Ring the school Monday morning (possibly actually email in this evening as well). He probably shouldn't attend having been sick 24/48 hour rule, don't want rest of y6 ill, but they may for example be happy if he comes in to do the tests in a separate room, if he feels well in himself.

Yes! The SATS based GCSE predictions are a horrible idea. In year 7 my son was predicted all 8/9 in every subject based on his SATS so his end of year 7 report was covered in red "working below expected" because funnily enough the fact he did well in his SATS didn't mean he was great at art or geography. He was so upset.

I hate the SATS. I am passionately anti them, I have a daughter in year 6 and the pressure the school put on them is disgusting when the grades are of no consequence. Even if it determines the sets they are put in at secondary, that's not fixed for ever! So if a child flakes on their maths SATS and is put in a lower set than their true abilities, this will soon become obvious and the child can be moved!

If your son is ill OP he can't go in. My only concern will be how upset he will be about it, depending on his school if it's been drummed into him that these are super important he might be worried or upset to miss it. I know my daughter would be as her school has been awful about it all.

Hope he feels better soon.

@Littlepond That is more of an issue with your secondary. There is no need to tell kids their targets based on SATs, and certainly no need to cover a report in red!

I have setted children in year 7 based on their GCSE targets which were based on their SATS scores. But I've also moved around children due to a wide array of social and/or academic reasons as the year has gone on. Even if he is put in a year 7 set based on these scores he can be moved around if it isn't working out for whatever reason.

This is slightly misleading. SATs aren’t repeated in year 7, although schools may do their own tests.

Honestly, I wish my son would be ill and miss SATs. He’s beyond stressed about them and I’m worried that if he does too well, he’ll have even more pressure put on him at secondary school.

They need scrapping. They serve no purpose for children, only as a means to test schools.

Little Finley may well have got a high score in Maths in Year 6 but that doesn't mean he is on track to get a level 7/8 in GCSE Art, Drama, MFL or whatever else

Or, bizarrely, Year 7 PE. Wonky-kneed asthmatic DD was permanently ‘below target’ for sports.

DS1 was sick on his Maths SATs paper because he was so stressed. He was sent home but we were told not to let him speak to any of his friends or his cousin, who is the same age, and to take him to the HT's office the next morning so he could sit it.

It doesn't have to be school pressure for a TA to come to the house or a child to sit in a medical room to do the SATs - quite a few children actually look forward to writing the SATs, to show what they've learned after a year of work, or because they enjoy tests/challenges/puzzles, or because they want to feel 'part of things' when everyone else is doing them and enjoying all the treats of SATs week like extra playtime or special breakfasts, etc. If they're expected to do really well at them, they might be disappointed not to get that chance. My school didn't do SATs ,but similar things, and I'd have been disappointed to be ill and miss them - I enjoyed doing a morning of maths papers more than normal lessons!

Different if children really are feeling stressed by them of course, and many are. But don't assume that special arrangements being made for a child to sit them are always awful or because of school pressure.

DD was too ill to go to school on 1st SATs day. She blitzed thru tests Tuesday onwards instead.

He’s still not feeling great- no longer being sick though. Obviously not his fault but always has really bad timing for when he’s unwell. Just done LFT which is -ve.

@BotCrossHuns yes, I think he’ll be a bit disappointed to miss any of the tests. He’s done really well when they’ve done practice papers in school. I think the secondary school he’s going to put them into sets from yr 7 but they also do CAT tests to help make sure they’re in the right group.