to think new changes to yr 6 sats are unreasonable

[roamer2]

Literacy is changing from 15 min reading and answer questions to a whole 1 hours reading and then get given the questions at which point they can "take as long as they like" to answer - that'll be 5 mins as ds would rather play football...

they also have to know very complicated grammar - we have 2 A4 sheets on it e.g. identify clause and subclause in a sentence

Yanbu, ny ds is year 5 and he already has had a meltdown about the targets on his iep for the new year. He will not do well in these Sats in year 6, further damaging his self esteem.

I have been told nothing about the changes, which I wish I had, as DS has just gone into Y6.

1 hours reading? DS won't manage that!

I think I shall just stop caring about his results now. The boy is fucked

When do changes start? Haven't been told of changes and DD just started y6 too?

Just went to yr 6 curriculum meeting this evening so its for current yr 6.

The teacher said he had to learn the grammar himself!

Are you sure?!? I haven't heard of any changes like the reading test you mention. The reading test is one hour long, 15 mins for reading then 45 mins for answering. The grammar test sounds more frightening than it actually is.....the children ae just being asked to show they can use or recognise correct punctuation and grammar in sentences. Yes, they will learn the names of some grammar they might not have known before but it's stuff they would have been taught to use throughout school. The grammar test is not new this year so your DC should have already spent the last year working towards it (if DS hasn't then you should be asking them about it)

DD2 has been drilled on grammar since Yr5 so knows about clauses and sub-clauses, but the reading for 1 hour and then answering questions will flummox her. She's just had her first piece of reading comprehension homework and it was nothing like the papers DD1 did for her SATs - there were no easy marks to be had, lots of inference and analytical reading, and to my mind it was operating at L6.

It strikes me that the people setting SATs are just making it up as they go along. Fortunately the school DD2 will be going to tests in the first week of Yr7 and goes heavily on teacher assessment, so I am confident she will be OK - but none of us should have to manage this much stress.

I am really not bothered by them. Ds1 has ASD and we have already been told he will not do well as he can not cope in exams. The school pile on loads of pressure with before and after school tutorials which they are expected to attend.

They do not benefit DS directly (unlike GCSE or A levels) and as the school will not give him any extra help in a normal school day then he is not having the pressure put on him to "perform" just so they get good marks for the league table.

It's not a hour reading then time to answer. The whole test is now an hour and no longer the compulsory 15mins reading. It will have 3-4 texts and start with the less demanding texts first then they will increase in difficulty. This might actually help some children (but may well confuse others to keep changing texts on different themes) as they can read smaller chunks without being faced with a large text to try and decode.

I thought the new curriculum didn't start until 2014?