Boycotting year 6 SAT's

[notasinglefuckgiven]

My 11 year old DC are due to do year 6 SAT's in May.
The pressure and the build up to these tests have been horrendous and have turned my DC from a happy, confident, outgoing child into a tearful , anxious
I

Sorry posted too soon.
I am seriously considering boycotting SATs and having a week of fun things with them
Instead. AIBU?

Definitely not unreasonable. My daughter didn't do year 6 SATS (she was the year that loads of schools boycotted them) and it hasn't done her any harm.

Will the school make your DC do them by themselves when they get back to school though? And therefore miss out on all the end of year 6 activities?

Doing exams doesn't get any easier as you get older. Not sure what good it will do to teach them its ok to opt out. Just help them cope, its a part of growing up.

I would just tell them that you don't give a f* what results they get, and just to do their best. Make sure they understand that these results won't affect their future in any way.

They'll be doing exams every summer for at least the next 5 years, 7 if they do A-levels, and at least 10 years if they go to university. A bit of exam practice is a good thing.

The focus on them is mad. I have a dc with ASD and anxiety who cannot cope with this build up. I have said I will, if MH requires withdraw them. Knowing that seems to helping take the pressure off and we are starting to discuss how doing them would look. I place no value on the results over and above it showing them that exams can be accomplished.

Walkingdead except SATs have no real relevance for the child, they don’t influence anything, they’re purely for the school. GCSEs and A-Levels are very different.
The pressure is horrendous given how little relevance or influence they have on the child’s life.

Yes, teach them that if something's tough they can just not do it. That everything in life is optional and that if something is hard they should just "have a week of fun".

Also make sure they know that school isn't important and that Mummy always knows best.

I work in a secondary school and we use SATS results as a basis for several different areas of student progression including what options would be most suitable for them to take, particularly relevant for different science and maths opportunities and they are taken into account a long with other things as to what tier paper would be most appropriate for them to take at GCSE. So whilst I agree some school hot house far too much they are important and they aren't just for the primary school.

I would let your child do the SATs. However, tell him they do not matter to his long term future and therefore treat SATs week as a normal week of school, regardless of teachers adding pressure.

Your child will have been taught the subjects in the test papers so tell him to do his best but once each test is over, not to think any more of them.

Secondary schools test kids in the first few weeks of starting to check knowledge anyway.

My eldest did SATs a few years ago and once we told him to ignore any pressure from teachers and just do his best he took them in his stride. They really were not a big thing.

I can't believe the pressure heaped on kids in some schools for SATs. We are in an eleven plus area so there was plenty of preparation for that exam, but nobody gave a rat's arse about SATs and I was barely aware DD1 had done them.

YANBU at all. It's not all children who are built for exams. One of mine is and one isn't. Terrible for the kids who don't take naturally to that environment.

We're no longer in the UK but if we were then I would certainly not make my 9 year old sit them. She's NOT good under pressure.

You’ll need to take them out for 2 weeks. Otherwise they’ll have to sit them when they get back. And you’re child won’t avoid all the pressure and build up because they will still be in school for that.

You can and should be fined if you do.

You should also do a little reading; the first thing you'd discover is that SATS don't exist. Secondly, your boycott is illegal. Thirdly, telling your children that because something is tough they don't have to do it is extremely backwards thinking.

Decent secondary schools will baseline students again at the start of year 7 as they know just how much coaching goes into SATS and that the results have little bearing in reality. I agree with PP on just telling your DC not to worry too much and that the results are far more important for the school.

I told my DS that the SATS were exams to show how well the teachers were/were not teaching the curriculum. Before that there was a lot of build up and he was starting to show signs of stress but once I explained that the results don’t affect him at all he was ok. He was told that he had to do his best and nothing more. I’ve always told him that if he does his best then I would be proud of him no matter what the results were. We were only talking about grades the other day and he asked me if I would be proud of him if he got A’s in his GCSEs. I told him that if he tried his best and got an F I would be so proud but that if he didn’t put any effort in and got an A/B then I wouldn’t be proud as he’d let himself down. We also spoke about the fact that it’s himself that he should do it for and not to impress anyone else. My parents always told me that as long as I did my best that’s all that mattered and I did much better than classmates with pushy parents.

Personally, if I were in your shoes, I would send my DC but make it clear that you don’t care what the results show as long as they tried their best. The results don’t matter and as long as your DC understands that the school are putting pressure on them to do well because the overall results show how well they are doing their job etc then it should ease the stress. I think it is a good way of showing children what exams will be like at high school without them having to worry about actual results.

I hope your DC manages to see that they don’t need to worry about them. Good luck.

I'm seriously considering homeschooling for the second half of year 6. My kids' school, which I generally think is pretty good, spent most of a term cramming them for the year 2 SATs and it helped turn my kids off school when they had previously loved it. I told them I didn't care about the results and the school claimed they didn't pressure the students, but my kids were really anxious about them and it had a really detrimental impact on a lot of aspects of their lives. I don't know that there's much point in just taking them out for the week though - it's all the run up that I think is the problem, not the tests themselves.

Taking her out for the week of the tests isn't going to acheive your stated aim.

She'll still be going through the build up, so you probably need to take her out now. Because that's what the whole of the rest of year 6 is going to be about.

it'll put her out of step with school,friends, who will get through this together.

I wouldn't say SATS aren't just for the good of the school, btw. Because I don't think that being in a school that achieves good SATS results makes no difference to each pupil in it.

Hairymcclary your school uses SAT results to decide what options a child should take Three years after the exam has been taken? I find that shocking to be honest and if my child went to that school I would be putting a call into OFSTED. That is getting to the system where we wrote children off st 11 when they didn’t Pass their 11+.

As for SATs when you become education secretary it is the first thing I am going to scrap!!!

Secondly, your boycott is illegal.

Please link to the legislation that covers this

Secondary schools, however decent, won't be able to ignore SATs results as their GCSE results will compared to SATs results to 'prove' that students have made appropriate levels of progress between the two. This is the madness that is our education system. I had a boy in my class last year who had a target of a grade 9 based on his SATs results. He had to be in top set because he was one of only two students in the cohort with that target. He never came close to it and one day asked me why his target was so much higher that others', who seemed to find the work easier. I told him it would have been based on his SATs results and he replied that that was odd as he hadn't really done the SATs - he'd broken his arm and a TA had written for him .

OP - it's not a good idea to let your dd opt out of things she finds difficult, but schools shouldn't be pushing students to get scores that aren't a true reflection of their ability either. That does no one any favours in the long run. They also shouldn't be reducing students to tears or ramping up the pressure and anxiety. You should speak to your dd about doing her best and no more, and reiterate that the results won't impact on her future, and then speak to the teacher about the way dd is feeling about school atm. Maybe he or she doesn't realise how much anxiety the approach they are taking is causing.

DD has exam anxiety so the pressure of SATS in Y6 was awful... at first.

However, it actually helped her. Exams became more normal and that has really helped her in secondary school as they have constant tests, quizzes, end of term exams. They are now not so stressful for her.

Also you would have to take your DC out for two weeks as they will just do the tests in the 2nd week if not.

Also, Y6 kids aren’t daft. If you take them out to avoid exams you’re setting a precedent and they’ll not miss that. Don’t teach them that you avoid challenges. It’s a bad life lesson. Teach them resilience and hard work instead. Teach them they can only control how much effort they put in and that whatever results they get you’ll be proud of how hard they worked.

Lastly many many secondary schools use SATS info in some way. Without them they’ll be fine but it may affect sets/banding/pathways etc depending on how the secondary school works.

Hairymcclary your school uses SAT results to decide what options a child should take Three years after the exam has been taken?

I imagine the pp means that the school has 'pathways' - perhaps ebac and a more vocational one, and the SATS are (hopefully just in part) used to determine which pathway a student takes, rather than individual subjects. So someone with a very high score would be strongly discouraged from taking the vocational route and forced guided onto ebac. Not defending it... In our school, if a student had a lowish score but had done well in the subject once at secondary school, they certainly wouldn't be barred from taking it though.

The problem comes when students have high scores they don't live up to once with us because they are then seen as underachieving. If the school is not a 'safe' one regarding past results and reputation, this will become an 'issue'.

Obviously all this ignores the fact that some primaries produce unrealistic results and some dc flourish after 11, or have other factors in their lives that impede progress after 11.

If the stress is bad then take them out now. And keep them out.
Not just for the exams.
Terrible to study hard for exams for months & then not do them.
Talk about vote of no-confidence in your DC.

I wish more parents were like you, OP.

Testing is necessary but the emphasis placed on them now is ridiculous.

When my ds did his sats in year 2 is it? He had nightmares, cried, his behaviour changed, he faked illness nearly every day, it was horrendous. In the end I called a meeting with me, him and his HT, HT wasn't being very sympathetic so right in front of her I told DS "the sats aren't testing you, they are testing the teachers and how well they have taught you, so if you don't pass it's not your fault. I don't care if you pass, no one does really" I was so angry that she didn't care that my young child was carrying the stress of a grown adult. He needed to know I stood by him, and you're just doing the same in your way.

Yanbu