Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to withdraw DD from SATS?

84 replies

ProtegeMoi · 02/05/2014 16:49

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.

OP posts:
HercShipwright · 03/05/2014 13:00

I can't remember the last time DD2 had homework. She missed her level 6 SATS maths lesson after school last Thursday because she was performing with the school choir in a thing in a town 15 miles away. She was the only one in the L6 group doing it, so they didn't change the time. And they would even give me the worksheets to go through with her myself this weekend. At the same time, they have been quite arsey about her having most of the day off to do a music exam on Wednesday - and it's THEIR fault she has to have the time off, they didn't replace her peri after she retired last summer, we had to organise private lessons with DD1's teacher, and the exam centre is DD1s school (30 miles away) so DD2 will come back to school for the last 1.5 hours on Wednesday which seems a bit nuts. But there you go. I'm going to do some maths with her this weekend anyway, using her siblings mymaths logins, because she has asked me to. But it all seems a bit nuts - either it's important or it's not. But they blow hot and cold from minute to minute.

mamma12 · 03/05/2014 13:46

You should definitely make a formal complaint about the teacher. Putting that degree of worry on children of any age is very damaging and can have long lasting effects.

I absolutely hated my daughter's teacher last year but one thing I thought she dealt with very well was not over emphasizing the relevance of SATS to the children.

The teacher sounds like she may be very inexperienced or maybe just a very crap teacher. In her defense (I know because my cousin is a teacher), the teachers themselves are under massive pressure for the children not to do badly.

My daughter did very well in her SATs but I have the common sense to know the way they're assessed is very subjective and quite meaningless.

mamma12 · 03/05/2014 13:49

ohhhh I just read the bit about the police. If it's true the teacher sounds like she needs help!

mummytime · 03/05/2014 16:39

They should not be requiring her to do SAT lessons after school! My DDs school runs any boosters in school, there is no extra homework and they have an author visit on Tuesday. Dd is doing two level 6 papers, but we know it is of limited value, the most value is of the preparation which is stretching.

HercShipwright · 03/05/2014 17:15

There are only 4kids doing L6 maths. They get no ability appropriate teaching in school at all. It's all about getting the L3 and L4 boundary kids over that boundary. The L6 English group is bigger therefore does operate in school time. The specialist maths teacher who started last September who we were promised was going to provide an appropriate maths education for DD2 and the other mathsy ones has spent most of the year on compassionate leave - which was understandable in his circumstances but royally screwed the kids. :(

ZingWatermelon · 03/05/2014 17:18

Protege

SATs are not for the kids.
they are for the schools so they can show off how good they are when OFSTED comes sniffing.

makes no difference to anything - when child start year 7 they get reassessed and the secondary school takes it from their.

Of course we tell our kids to work hard towards it, good for them to have a bit of pressure & responsibility.
but IMO it's a con to make the schools look good & test results are not in the children's interest

sod them.

go to the party, get the tooth done and reassure your DD that she is a lovely, hard working & very conscientious young lady and you are proud of her.
I'm sure she'll do well - but not if stressed out.

good luck, hope tooth ache will get sorted quickly!Thanks

ZingWatermelon · 03/05/2014 17:19

sod them - as in sod the teachers, not the kids!Grin

NigellasDealer · 03/05/2014 17:21

They have been threatened with police for time off even
bang out of order and I would be complaining to the governers

Aspiringhuman · 03/05/2014 17:25

Ya so NBU. Nobody studying for any exams, not even uni finals should be encouraged to have no down time in fact it should be positively encouraged within moderation. There's studies showing that moderate exercise and relaxation improve exam performance.

That's even before you consider these are children who shouldn't be made to be terrified of learning. Being ill is not illegal so the police comment is ridiculous and may make them fear the police which I'd also not on. Making a child that age feel responsible for their parents getting into trouble is just sick.

Aspiringhuman · 03/05/2014 17:32

Ya so NBU. Nobody studying for any exams, not even uni finals should be encouraged to have no down time in fact it should be positively encouraged within moderation. There's studies showing that moderate exercise and relaxation improve exam performance.

That's even before you consider these are children who shouldn't be made to be terrified of learning. Being ill is not illegal so the police comment is ridiculous and may make them fear the police which I'd also not on. Making a child that age feel responsible for their parents getting into trouble is just sick.

Aspiringhuman · 03/05/2014 17:34

Oops sorry.

Goldmandra · 03/05/2014 17:41

When SATs pressure got too much for my DD1 I had a word with the school.

It didn't help so I called again and told the deputy head that if she came home once more upset and stressed about SATs I would get my GP to sign her off school with stress until after they were over.

She was expected to get high levels so they panicked and backtracked very quickly. The pressure was reduced on all of her class and they were all much happier.

Nocomet · 03/05/2014 17:47

Ridiculous. I'd be tempted to put in a complaint to Ofsted stating the school clearly has no faith in it's normal teaching for the last 6.5 years and has to rely on last minute cramming to get it's results.

DD1 did a bit of SATs practice because she was offered a scribe at the last minute (another bit of sharp practice, but very to her being it).

DD2 didn't do any extra for English, but did L6 lessons one evening a week, for not long enough. She did nothing at home. (DD2 would have got L5 English if she hadn't gone to school for the whole of Y6, so I can't see why the dentists or a party would have mattered).

SilverDragonfly1 · 03/05/2014 17:48

I would love to see all parents getting together to refuse SATs and homework in junior school. To be honest, I bet the teachers would be over the moon as well. It could only be a positive step for everyone involved.

Nocomet · 03/05/2014 17:48

Being it = benefit

CrystalSkulls · 04/05/2014 21:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Nocomet · 04/05/2014 23:00

Last minute cramming has it's place, for History dates and DD1's horrible Geography specific examples of dams and volcanos.

But SATs aren't like that, there are no facts, dates, diagrams or French vocab. You can learn your tables and practice past papers, but bar the shear luck of money or telling the time clicking the night before the exam, they are not that sort of papers.

purplelilac · 04/05/2014 23:20

I can well believe this amount of pressure from a school.

When I obtained a statement of SEN for my ds, who has ASD's but is academically able, I had to chase the school to enquire when they would be putting in place the necessary provision for him. They said that they wouldn't be doing this until after the SAT's were completed-this was some 7 months before the tests were to take place Angry.

I soon put them straight as to what their legal duties were in regard to the statement however this just shows what emphasis was placed on the SAT's. They are for the benefit of the school rather than the child and in my experience school's do not always act in the child's best interests but their own.

GoblinLittleOwl · 05/05/2014 16:11

This amount of pressure is ridiculous,and unproductive, but I know that my local primary school placed two teachers on competency measures because their classes did not achieve the targets set for them in the practice SATs, before Easter. SATs results have implications for salary increments and promotion, as well as the possibility of Academisation for the school. But it does sound rather extreme for your child to have the whole day off for a filling in her tooth; she's not having a general anaesthetic, surely? My son had a tooth extracted and went back to school in the afternoon, with no ill effects.

leedsgirl231 · 05/05/2014 17:13

yanbu. I remember when my mum wanted to take me out of school for one day to send me to the doctors and the school threatened legal action. I did not revise once and got alright grades. I wasn't being part of the pressure they were putting on us, it was so bad. Mum wanted to me revise but I didn't for my GCSEs either. I just don't see the point in them.

SoFetch · 05/05/2014 17:17

Bloody ridiculous. I'd be tempted to actually pull her out! I know you can't technically do that, but those bastarding sickness bugs always seem to come at the wrong time...

ZingWatermelon · 05/05/2014 17:47

SoFetch

yes, those bugs are just everywhere.
and if one is under pressure one is much more likely to catch something like a sore throat...can't be helped Wink

SuburbanRhonda · 05/05/2014 18:09

So are you going to tell to the school that you're keeping her at home during SATs week (as per your thread title) as you haven't posted much about that.

Just that, awful though the school sounds, it would probably backfire massively on your DD if you did.

I'm not sure it's just schools in a category that put pressure on the children. Even an outstanding school can get a one-off set of duff results, which could trigger an Ofsted inspection.

mummytime · 05/05/2014 20:32

For those suggesting a sickness bug or sore throat, you DC will just do the tests later, when everyone else is doing something more fun. A change from when my older DC did the tests.

Ineedmorepatience · 05/05/2014 20:50

My Dd3 is in an outstanding school, one teacher puts ridiculous pressure on the children. she has been talking about SATS since the week they went into yr 6. She has made Dd3's last year of primary a misery Sad

The local secondary cannot even set the kids off the SATS scores from the 3 feeder primary schools because the SATS scores are inflated and inaccurate.

Dd3 came home with a lev 6 paper this weekend and I told the school she was not doing level 6 back in December!!

It is all crap and needs stopping.