AIBU to withdraw DD from SATS?

[ProtegeMoi]

Ok I'm not really going to do it but I'm so tempted to threaten the school with it. The pressure they are putting on them is unbelievable!

DD has a dentist appointment the week before SATS, urgent appointment as she is in agony with a tooth that needs filling and her teacher is fuming that she will be off and wants the appointment changed for 2 weeks later. So leave her in pain for 2 more weeks as she will miss a day of SATS revision, not even the actual test!

DD has also come home in tears as she's 'not allowed' to her sisters birthday party, which is the Saturday before SATS begin. Her teacher has said they are to do nothing at all that weekend as they need to revise and so now DD is upset as that includes a 2 years old party apparantly!

It's beyond a joke, my DD has been left terrified to do anything other than SATS work and the pressure is really getting to her. They have been threatened with police for time off even!

I'm going to go in in Monday and speak to them.

I'd be furious. YADNBU - waaaay too much pressure. DD2 has a massive pack of SATs-related homework to do this weekend, due in Thursday, it's utterly stupid. I have already told her she is not going to be doing any revision the weekend before - she needs downtime to be as rested and well as possible, not more cramming. Fortunately we have an archery shoot on the Sunday which will take us into the outdoors all day.

She only has to be in school for actual school hours so you don't have to take her in early for the SATS week and the school can't enforce it. Same with the after school revision.

I personally would be calling the school and making a complaint about the amount of pressure being put on the children especially about not doing anything but revision on the weekends. Everybody needs downtime to relax and pressure like that is totally counter productive.

Dear heavens. DD's school didn't do any structured revision for SATS because they had a huge staff turn over in year 6 and just marked time and followed normal lesson plans. She was completely relaxed about the whole thing.

Mind you, they dropped 20% in the league tables and OFSTED bumped them down two grades overnight....

Tempting to talk to Ofsted about schools OTT stance....
[Mind you they are big part of problem for schools].
Revising for SATs is not on at all.

Also, just in case you were worried, in 9 years of teaching, my department, a core subject, has never, ever relied solely on SATs data to set kids in yr 7. Don't worry about them at all.

Just shows you, schools with good bottom line SATs could be acting like op's school.

Another one of these things that only seem to exist on Mumsnet.

Go and talk to the Head. If the teacher actually said these things she is being ridiculous and needs to be put right- if your dd is misunderstanding , then she needs to be put right.

Oh and some schools do set based on SATs results. My ds's did.

And if she's in agony with her tooth- why is she having to wait two weeks for an appointment?

If the school treated my daughter like that, the dental appointment would be made during SATs week. Outrageous over stepping of boundaries, common sense and completely inappropriate. She does not need these tests in her life. THEY need her to sit them. Put the onus firmly back on them!

DD''s school get very good SATS results and they definitely don't act like OP's child's school. They only ask that the children get a good nights sleep every night during SATs weeks and that they have breakfast before coming to school. We are asked to avoid check up dentist appointments during the SATs week but definitely not the week before.

OP, I think you should complain your child's teacher.

We are currently suffering from SATS overload. Yanbu at all! DS had Sats practice work to do every day of the Easter hols and a piece every evening. I have not pressured him as I think it's all ridiculous.

Certainly would not take any notice of the school and would def speak with the Head.

My SIL basically told the school to get stuffed re SATs paper homework in the holidays. They were really putting pressure on my niece.

You can just refuse to cooperate with the out of school "requirements" and explain to your DD how important/unimportant you consider SATs to be.

Even if a secondary school sets based on SATs, they often set very few subjects (perhaps just Maths) and will still expect to differentiate their teaching within a set for the potential mix of abilities. They are also likely to reset after a while based on their own assessment. Each school will get a range of pupils, from those having SATs rammed down their throats to those who were relaxed about SATs. They will want to set by ability and will therefore have to do some rejigging to eradicate the impact of SATs coaching.

Martorana: Another one of these things that only seem to exist on Mumsnet

Unfortunately it is all too real, and just depends on how desperate your school is to improve or retain their SATs results. Ours is a very ordinary school, where a new Head of KS2 arrived in January 2013 determined to improve things. DS has had him since then, so two terms of Y5 and all of Y6.

He is just so focussed on test scores and results, very much to the detriment of the year group in my opinion.

I am extremely envious when I read of all the posters with children at more chilled out schools.

So this is not in people's heads, nor is it an affliction of a certain demographic or whatever. Very much luck of the draw, as when DS started this school nearly 7 years ago now, there was a different head, and almost all the teachers have also moved on over time, so the culture is quite different to the school as it was when he started reception.

Oh, come on, mixedpeel! Threatening children with the police if they have a day off school, and expecting a child to put off a dental appointment that she needs because she is "in agony" for two weeks? Telling a child she can't go to her baby sister's birthday party? Really????????? Do you really think the OP is getting an accurate account from her dd?

Popping on quickly to answer questions.

Dental appointment can't be an emergency one as she has to be sedated and there is a wait for that.

The school has very good results previously, no special measures etc. and was ofsted rated excellent, never had any concerns until now.

Mortarana - obviously there is a risk I'm not getting the full picture from DD hence going to speak to them. However the additional school hours and additional homework I have witnessed. I was also told SATS are hugely important when I said I would struggle with the extra school hours by the teacher, the same teacher that asked me to change her dental appointment to after the SATS as DD shouldn't be missing revision, this is despite the fact she knows DD is taking paracetamol three times a day due to the pain.

Your daughters health should be your primary concern, stuff the SATs as they are a means of grading the school. The more pressure the school applies, the more likely the kids are to fold under the pressure unfortunately. I'm very glad my dcs are past all that malarkey.

This is insane. I'm not in the UK, but our testing in the next couple of weeks and there's nothing like this. My class has done one practice test, and the rest has just been integrated in to their regular curriculum learning. The only thing we ask is that children try and get a good night's sleep and we provide breakfast in the classroom before the tests so that we know everyone has eaten. Pressure is NOT going to help children perform their best. My class just assume it's business as usual and I always get good results, because the students aren't stressed and worried about it. In my experience, the teachers who put huge pressure on their students don't end up with the best results.

PrincessBabyCat

Nothing to do with college, the idea is that these tests give the government information about 10/11 year olds achievements and that in turn is supposed to tell them about the school and the percentage of children achieving or not.

Some schools do what is supposed to happen which is present the tests as puzzles for children to 'see how you do'.

Some of the schools basically stop teaching for a couple of weeks and become a hot house.

Theoretically secondary schools can use the results to set students, but because of the ways schools sometimes cram the SAT levels are totally skewed.

I threatened to do the same last year when my DD1 did SATs. The pressure she was put under was beyond ridiculous.

She was told all sorts - that SATs counted towards GCSEs, they could affect her A levels, what university she went to, that employers asked about SATs, etc. I had her in tears most nights unable to sleep as she was so worried about them

I had a meeting and told them if it didn't stop I'd simply withdraw DD from school. Fine or no fine.

High school completely ignored the SATs results, they know they're taught to test and not reflective of their general ability, and when she did her CATs the results were way different

Why can these primary school teachers get away with heaping so much unnecessary pressure on children? I would definitely complain about the teacher being so heavy handed. All this talk of police and making them come in for extra work is ridiculous.

They are just tests, not actual exams which may determine their future. Hell even GCSE's can be resat until you get the grade you want or need. Nothing is set in stone or final with exams.

If SATS are to test their ability then they shouldn't be cramming for weeks before. Some kids ability is poor and some are brilliant the schools have to accept this and stop pushing them so hard. All that stress could result in kids being sick during SATS week with stress induced illnesses.

I can see you are sensible and you won't add to your DD's workload so just let her have fun and enjoy the birthday party.

When I was at school we took end of year exams from the age of 8. There were no SATs, but the end if year exams continued until we did GCSEs. But the key thing about our end of year exams was that they were very low key. There was no fuss about them, no call to revise outside class time and no change in timetable to give more time to the exam subject. That was our introduction to exams. I think that approach meant that we were calm and used to exams when GCSEs came.

This approach to SATs seems like a great way to give pupils a lifelong aversion to exams.