Year 6 parents are you doing extra SATS revision at home?

[AreMyDucksinarow]

As per my title really?

I know school are doing a lot of work with the children at school and it’s been recommended that we do some extra at home?

I am completely torn on this as we do the homework set by school which is all geared at the sats. On top of the homework set we do extra reading, maths busters and English bits and Bobs and have really worked on dc’s handwriting.

I am expecting that my child passes, all previous tests have shown that.

Do we need to do more?

I should have added only homework over Easter was a couple of sats maths papers which we did, this is going forward from after the break.

We do extra as both of mine fell behind during covid (now both are where they should be!)

Handwriting is a big one for my year 6 so we have worked on it at home. Nothing major just 10 mins a couple of times a week with some workbooks off Amazon

We read every day regardless of school I’ve always read with them both.

I won’t bother taking much notice from the school about it then!

No. My DD has started chewing the end of her fingers at school, which only started when the SATs work kicked in. I've told them at school that if it continues; she won't be doing the tests at all, the pressure is too much for a test which counts for so little. My eldest DD had hers cancelled due to COVID...didn't make any difference to how she is performing in school now. Personally, I hate the SATs and the pressure it puts on our kids.

My ds did his last year, absolutely not. I used the Easter holidays as a chance to relax and have fun after having the SATS rammed down their throats pretty much non stop since January. Plus I viewed them as a measure of the school not my child’s ability.

I’ve asked my Year 6s to try and complete 1 revision task per day on our online learning platform (10-15 minutes) if they want to. I haven’t allocated specific ones but asked them to choose which ones they find tricky so that it is genuinely benefitting them. We’ve tried to keep things as low key as possible in school though. I’ve checked online (sad I know!) and about 60% of the class has been completing them. They’re very aware of SATS and to be honest I want them to pass purely for their confidence boost prior to high school.

I'm going against the grain as we have been doing some ten minute Sat buster tests from workbooks. School haven't set other homework since we've had these so this is instead of rather than as well as. Haven't done any in the holidays though, and school luckily takes a no pressure approach to them so it's just different homework really.

We are, not tons but we had no high school choice just one comp, so I want his Sats based gcse predicted grades to be as high as possible in order to make sure he doesn’t get left behind at high school.

SATS will determine their GCSE targets for secondary school. So partly it depends if you think having high target grades with be helpful to your child? I already did extra work with my children. I wanted them to see that if they worked hard they could achieve great results.

And this is one of the reasons why Ofsted is so toxic. It’s for the data, the evidence, for the school to show how much value they’re adding.

Maybe she wouldn’t know her score exactly but image certainly knows when she can’t answer the questions and has bombed out on several papers, which has happened on the practice ones.

Dd brought home some workbooks so this holidays she has been doing 2 pages from each book (a maths one and an English one).

I'm not arsed in the slightest about sats revision, this is about prepping her for secondary school homework (her secondary issues a lot) so I'm getting her used to it.

Secondary teacher. Had kids DO NOT REVISE FOR THESE

Plus not all schools even share targets with kids at secondary any more

They might not be telling them but if their target grade is an 7 and they are on course for a 5 then there will usually be lots of extra support offered to them. Whereas a child who has a target of 5 and is on course for a 5 wouldn't be offered the same extra support.

This is where the Welsh system of all children in Years 2 to 9 taking national tests in reading and numeracy each summer seems better. It happens every year so it’s not a big thing in year 6. In our school half the class would go out and play while the other half stayed in and then they swapped over. It was always very low key and I don’t recall any stress or anxiety being caused.

I feel sorry for the kids in England where a huge chunk of year 6 seems to be overshadowed by SATS.

That’s nonsense. By the time they’re ks4 schools look at them as learners not targets.

i’ve had kids who really underperformed in their SATs (one because their mother died), and I know (because I’m a good teacher) that their target should be higher than it is so I treat them accordingly

Also, most secondary schools do cat assessment at the beginning of year seven and far more weight is given to that than the FFT which look at postcodes fgs

This is not true. My daughter did about average in sats and is now in top sets at secondary because the things they are testing in sats for have no relevance to GCSEs or academic ability e.g. handwriting and times tables.

I didnt say anything about school sets?
Your daughters ks2 sats results will be used to set her target grades that the school and her teachers will be accessed against. This is where the schools progess 8 score comes from. Most school ime do share these target grades with pupil though some don't. If your target grades are higher than you are on course to achieve you will often find lots of extra support thrown your way in years 10 and 11.

No chance

Mine are adults now, but they both got given a pile of SATs homework back in the day. It was loads. We recycled it all.

Yeah, my ds17 was sent home with 3 sets of past papers over Easter (that’s 18 tests altogether). I sent them back. I often see his Y6 teacher on courses and he is frostily polite 😆

It’s absolutely true. The targets are set by the government, all according to what an 10/11 year old’s performance was for an hour or two in May Y6. Even worse, all other subject target grades that the school will be obliged to meet (French, History, Food Tech, whatever) also stem from those one/two hours. Crazy, isn’t it?!

Yes, that’s the bit that’s bonkers IMO. Maths and English still problematic but I could see more of a case for that but Art, Music, DT, PE?!

No don't do any more. It is not to your child's advantage to do more. The best outcome for your child is that the test reflects accurately the level of achievement they can manage in y6 after having absorbed what they can of the education available.

Artificially inflating the outcome with extra cramming will only make it more difficult for their senior school to identify and support any areas of weakness.

No. Only the very small amount of holiday homework set by school.(10 mins a day).