to take ds yr6 out of school for the summer term?

[ingeniousidiot]

We've talked about it for months, spoken to his teachers, school governors and a couple of people that work in that sort of area. We've spoken to him about it, he want's to do school work at home. He's due back tomorrow, I've just rung the LEA to speak to the Education Welfare, got put on hold and put the phone down.

i am not sure that this is not giving the message that is something is potentially a bit difficult, a bit pressured, a bit like hard work then its ok we will give it a miss ?

what happens when your DS is facing gcses ? and he gets low predicted grades ( possibly) and a teacher says he may not get into 6 th form or a good job or whatever ?

I am not against testing younger children, and agree with other posters who say it is very much about how it is presented . If parents tell parents to not worry but to have a go and give their best shot and that whatever they are proud of them ...well that to me is the right message

DD2 was so utterly miserable with her (relentlessly negative and unpleasant) class teacher in Y6 that, if I hadn't been at work I would have removed her at the summer half term. SATS weren't the issue for us, but I can totally understand why parents may choose to do this.

I'm in education and never let my children miss school; in fact I am so insistent on full time attendance that I once refused anaesthetic cream before a blood test for DD because that would have meant an extra hour of lessons missed! (Something she reminds me of regularly...)

If I didn't teach I'd take mine out as they will have the SATs but none of the fun stuff like the big residential etc because they don't leave until year 7.

I kind of agree with RealityCheque, and I am the proud owner of a Year 6 child.

What the frick is going on in other schools re: the SATS that you think withdrawing your child seems like the best answer?!

Madness. It's just a one set of tests- the results of which will have absolutely no bearing on the rest of their lives.

Theredjellybean That isn't comparable. SATs isn't about them earning a qualification for their future. It is testing by the government that says all children should be at X point by the time they leave primary. Which isn't a bad thing in and of itself. The school will have had 7 years to get them there. Except. This year the government has said all children must now be at Y and thrown in a whole pile of new stuff and the children have to learn if all in less than one year instead of building them up to it.

Son's school is brilliant at handling SATs and normally the children won't feel pressure. But not this year. The school is cutting so much of the good stuff they normally do just to focus on these very limited things.

So yes I would happily take him out and educate him at home if I was in a position to do so.

My children don't do sats , not in state system, so was not aware goal posts changed so much. It is a shame as taking tests/exams/ learning to deal with these situations is valuable, and I would want to know where my child was in terms of attainment etc.

I think for me it is more a message that is something is unpleasant then don't worry we can just give it a miss...

Are you prepared to home-educate him for secondary school as well?
If he has this term out, for whatever reason, is he going to want to go back to full-time education, in a new school, for which he has had no preparation?
Is his present school going to allow him to dip in and out?
Will he do the SATs at all?
If not, how will his secondary school feel about that, because the results are used to predict GCSE grades, among other things?
The fact that you have left it so late to make such a big decision shows how undecided you are.
It is your decision but your child's education.

Thered. Im a secondary teacher and not against testing. If you read around a bit, especially threads here by teachers or parents you will see that as schools are assessed on sats what's happening is the whole curriculum is being squewed towards the sats content. Also towards repeated practice tests and obsession with them all year. The content includes things like fronted adverbs in English and other delights I managed an oxbridge degree without. So it's a mix of disagreeing with content as well as the obsession with them children are being pushed to perform in a test rather than educated.

I can't afford a lovely small private school with an exciting curriculum and tons of sport but I could home ed for a year.

I nearly took DD out of school after Christmas Y6, because she was having a dreadful time. In hindsight I wish I had done it, as it only got worse for the next two terms. However ... Just saying to DD that I was happy to take her out at any time and home educate her did help her a bit.

I nearly started a thread with the same title this morning.

I am seriously considering this for my 11 year old. He nearly refused school this morning having spent an hour and a half in tears with DH and I trying to get him in shape to go. It's not the first time. He's bright (got a place at superselective grammar which he is desperate to take up) and bored to death of the "SATs" revision, bored of not learning anything new, demotivated and demoralised. It's killing his love of learning, and if anything I think he will do worse in the tests after another half term of this than if he'd taken them at the start of the year.

I share the concern about sending the wrong message re knuckling down and doing what you have to. It's 5 weeks then basically party time. But on the other hand I think it might be the chance to do some amazing enriching learning that we won't have again.

G1raffe....i whole heatedly agree that making it that schools are judged by sats results is ridiculous and of course teachers/heads etc then feel pressured to skew things to teach children how to perform well.

It is sad really ( well IMO ) , i can remember doing end of yr tests in my state primary 35 odd yrs ago...we just went into the hall one day and were told about exam conditions and turned over paper and got on with it...afterwards back to normal lessons ! that was it...

testing and assessing is good for many reasons , but not just so the government can produce league tables !

and is one of the reasons my children are not in state system.

I don't think taking them out of school sends the right impression. It's terrible that teachers are saying stuff like that (the thugs comment) about SATS, but hopefully you can get the school to set that right and hopefully you've set it right at home. Surely the best thing to do is just to encourage the kids to do as best they can in the exam while letting them know that it's fine whatever happens and that school is for learning, people learn at different rates, secondary school is used to people at all different levels, people move up and down levels all the time, levels don't matter at the end of the day etc etc etc. I think that taking him out of school because he thinks he might fail actually just sends the message that failing would be a huge disaster. Better to just say, well yes, you may well not get the mark you want- but the world doesn't end if that happens, and the risk of failure is not a reason not to try. I'd be worrying about escalating exam anxiety by doing this at this stage.

My youngest Dd is in year 6, I asked her about what has been said about the SAT's, she said they had done some practice and not much else. I asked if she was worried about it all, she said no. and went back to what she was doing.
Not much seems to phase her though.
I kept Ds 2 out for his testing, told the teacher I didn't agree or want him tested as he was a huge worry wart, he'd get stomach aches, that would set off vomiting and all kinds of old problems he had. His teacher loved it, she hated all the testing too. I had to sign papers in the school office when I refused.

Have you not all told your DCs that SATS don't matter to them at all, that the SATs are how the teachers are assessed, so they are worried about them, but it doesn't effect your DCs at all?

I'm not at that stage, but when DS has mentioned them (because older friends have been worried about them), I have said they are a test for finding how good the teachers are at teaching.

It helps that round here, all the secondary schools are either grammars (so are more interested in 11+) or they all have their own tests they do in the first week (one does it over the summer) in order to set the children. No secondary school around here pays the slightest bit of attention to the SATs for setting. And frankly, if your DC 'fails' it and ends up in the bottom set, if that's not the correct place for them, the school will quickly move them to a higher set.

My friend home educated her DD for the last term of Y6. She'd already gained a place at a grammar school and was looking forward to it. She had a great term learning in a much more relaxed environment and learning a few life skills as well. (Rowing, cooking etc.) She did go in to do her SATS though. It didn't seem to do her any harm. She's currently a trainee doctor.

oh and I'd be putting in a formal complaint about the bottom set comment - children in the bottom sets are there because of their educational ability, not because of behavioural issues - there might be more children with behavioural issues who also struggle accademically, but there's probably a few children in your DC's school who will end up in the bottom set no matter how hard they study because that's the correct set for their ability - it's frankly terrible for the primary school to massively undermine the secondary school before the children have even started!

testing and assessing is good for many reasons , but not just so the government can produce league tables

This pretty much sums up my attitude to the SAT's. The school has been fantastic until year 6. My DS is not at the top or bottom of the class but definitely sits below average, he enjoyed school until this year. He now has to miss music and art to do extra maths. Because it's a small school, he did the exams last year too - and came home in tears after the third day. It was the first time he'd cried about school. Some weeks he's been sent home with three papers to correct for homework. Stop weighing the pig, keep feeding it!

It seems a wasted year in his education - I too remember primary tests being handed out, completed and never mentioned again. I do think that this year will be the worst as such, due to teaching staff having to get up to speed with VERY short notice which puts them under stress too - but hey, at least the government can make a pretty table with the results......

It's pretty much done now - I've had a very long and informative chat with the education officer and have written a letter to the head. The secondary place is secure and he can attend the transitional activities with his classmates.

I do worry that it's the right choice, and also that we've only given him 4 days to think about it - it was something that we've (parents et al) talked about since October, and my only regret is not doing it sooner.

ingenious....you can always change your mind if it doesnt work out...i have both my children ( well one young adult !) moving to very different educational establishments in sept....one a specialist school and one going from private to state grammar ...we have said over and over...lets do this, we are sure you will do really well but if it doesnt work out we can change back or change our minds..both dds excited and confident about the changes.

your ds can always go back to school if he wants !

I'm inclined to agree with Reality & Saucy tbh, but you know your DS and his school best.

I'm surprised DD's school (she's also Yr 6) aren't putting more pressure on them as they are recently academised and trying to drag themselves out of special measures. We've had a parents meeting and they've all been issued with revision books but it doesn't seem too hardcore - either that or DD is unfazed by it. We have made her aware that whilst we'd like her to do as well as possible for her own satisfaction, its really more a test of the school than the individual.

I've nothing against home schooling btw, but removing for the last term of Yr6 seems a bit pointless/haphazard to me personally.

They are reassessed in the first few weeks of secondary to see where to put them in streamed subjects - what will you do if your DS isn't happy with that? Whether or not you agree with the principle of these tests, kids have to learn to cope with them at some point.

A few cross posts, but this isn't being worried about failing an exam or quitting when it get difficult. This is about doing a crash course mostly in grammar and maths. I have other children and work, and they have sporting commitments, so once homework/reading is done there has to be some downtime somewhere doesn't there?

On a personal level - I though sats would've gone before he got to year 2, saddened to see them still here in yr 6, and gobsmacked at the sudden movement of the goal posts. All I've ever told ds is that the government needs to test the teachers to make sure that they've taught him something between yr 2 & yr 6. The pressure has all come from school, from one teacher in particular with very negative comments.

How will this work with the resits in year 7? Will the stress just not transfer?

My school is running a pilot of it so our year 7s will resit in December.

I don't think so penny. Turning up and sitting a test in the course of the day just because is so so so different to a whole year of training for one test.

I'm both pro home ed and school but there seems little education and lots of unnecessary stress for most of year 6.

revising for SATS =/= learning

Any time spent practising for a test is time lost from actual education. I would take my child out of school the moment the emphasis switches from education to test passing.

For one thing, the child will do better on the actual test if they spend that time productively rather than not!