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

Their secondary school do CATS. Do you plan to boycott those?
I know it's tough and the school does set a great deal of store by them.
Our school had an outward bound away week recently to help let off steam and a voluntary preschoolday club to help with technique.
Good balance in my view.

You need to speak to the school if they’re putting this much pressure on the kids. My daughter did them a couple of years ago (first year of the new ones) and they attended extra classes but the pressure wasn’t there and the school still got fab grades.

Op, I'm totally with you in terms of disliking SATs (particularly though for Y2, my ds is 7 which seems ridiculously young to start testing them). I understand why you're considering it.

But I also agree that it's not helpful to children to learn that they get to opt out of challenging situations, or learn that their parents can undermine the teachers - who often hate the SATs as much as parents.

Ds doesn't seem worried about them. I gather that his school takes a very low key approach to them. That said, they still sent a letter home telling parents there were books available to help the children prepare. As far as I'm concerned, the only preparation ds needs is to know that the results don't matter to me or dh, academia is one aspect of development and we are enormously proud of the boy he's become, whatever his results. I've explained that I don't agree with testing children so young, but that I expect him to do his best - just as I expect him to approach school in the same way every day.

We don't be boycotting, but there will be no stress in our house. Ds is relaxed about it all.

You cant compare CATS to SATs. CATs happen within a few weeks of arrival at secondary school with no fanfare or preparation at all.

I really disagree with SATS in principle, however, exam based assessment becomes more and more common throughout secondary as the children prepare for GCSEs and personally I wouldn’t want to start sending the message that it’s ok to opt out because it’s tough going. However, the OP’s child sounds extremely anxious so I’m not sure ultimately what I’d do there but I’d definitely be looking at ways to manage anxiety and stress first before making a decision on SATS. I’d also be worried about they’d cope at secondary so in my opinion I’d definitely look at ways to help them as a prority.

Shovingleopard
Unfortunately have been round parenting forums since before ds was 5 , he is now 22! I do get the vibe that hating sats makes you a good parent and you need a pat on the back for it. We had exams end of . primary back in the 60s, my mum sat grammar 11+ and county tests back in the 1940s.
My mum made it to grammar school only for her mum to pull her out of olevels at 15 (or whatever they were called in in the 50s) and put her in a job, because she didnt want my mum stressed by them (medical issue that my mum would have grown out of but wasnt well understood in those days). My DM adored her DM but i still think she really regretted not being able to take them and it affected her self confidence.

CATs happen within a few weeks of arrival at secondary school with no fanfare or preparation at all.

Not necessarily as DC school set them in July before they started secondary school , this upset DD far more than her Sats because she had to miss the afternoon performance of the school play they had been doing as end of year 6.

YANBU AT ALL. Taking DC out of school DOES NOT demonstrate that they can get out of anything that is tough. What it does is demonstrate critical thinking and independence of thought - as someone who designs employment assessments of the future I assure you these skills are far more useful to your DC then mindless conformity e.g taking pointless exams because our hugely out dated education system says so!

We need to teach our DC to make proper choices and work hard towards meaningful goals..and that these goals will be tough, but as long as they are right goals that is ok.

My DC will be taking Y2 and Y6 SATS at the same time - except they won't as I have decided to take them out of school for six months and go travelling. Perfect time as they'll just miss cramming not meaningful education

I don't think it's the SATs that are the problem, it's the excessive time spent on prep and the importance placed on the results. We arrived in the UK in year 6 and one school offered to take my DS but only after SATs, this was in March! We went with another school and he sat the SATs without any stress and minimal prep.

It’s the schools putting extra unnecessary pressure on the kids that is the problem. Sats do matter, they affect targets for gcse’s that (as far as I know) can’t be altered. In some secondary schools they base sets on the sats results when they start in Year 7.
My eldest has low target grades for gcse’s as he didn’t put an awful lot of effort into his sats - so he’s always “exceeding targets” on his reports. Luckily he doesn’t have setting in his high school and with half termly tests his teachers know what he’s capable of - but can’t alter those base figures that say where he was and where he should be at the end of year 11.
I’m sure there will be schools out there that rely more heavily on these prediction figures and that could work negatively against a child.
It is what it is; love them, loath them or just accept them.

The SATs do (and have, IME) made Year 6 a bit shit for my own child. I refused extra tuition for her as well. I am not against tests by any means (DD did the 11+, she does dance and music exams) but it's the atmosphere around these.

DD feels that she should be practicing though, and runs through practice books at home. If it eases her stress, I'm happy to do that and help her with anything she needs. But she should be enjoying this last year of primary before moving up to the secondary setting and she's not. It's a shame that her last memories of her school are going to be this.

Yes Cotswold my middle child is in Year 6 and the curriculum this year is very sats based - not much music, art, history or geography. It’s heavily English and maths and lots of sats practise. Boring is what she says, I’m hoping that after the exam week it’ll all be fun and interesting for them.

I had a chat with my dc last night, dc is such a worrier so I explained the results don’t matter, the test doesn’t matter. I said I think it is best to do it so that we know where dc is and so dc can see how hard work pays off. I did explain it is so the Government can see how the school is performing, it is more of a test for the teachers.

I have been tempted to go on holiday on that week, but decided against it.

Medusa, I agree, it isn’t a rounded education!

I've got a younger child but I'm finding this book amazing for strategies to manage anxiety - especially the delicate balance between constructively supporting them to do stressful things without avoiding them: The Opposite of Worry

*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.*

^ Exactly this. This will be the first of many tests and things in life that stress him out/make him anxious. Help him through it, support him, reward him no matter the results, but don't teach him he can opt out of things he doesn't like. YABU

Since SATS don't have any real-world impact on the kids I told my two that it's just a fun trial run for exams when they get older. They've treated it that way and the experience has really helped them as they've entered senior school - now they're quite relaxed about the whole exam rigmarole.

After all they'll have meaningful exams most summers from now on so teaching them that the only options are 'get really stressed' or 'opt out' probably doesn't set them up well for those.

I don't think your being unreasonable to do whatever you feel best is for your child. I do however think you are being unreasonable if you expect the school to change their methods to suit just your child. The SATS exams in my opinion do play a role in helping the next stage of education place your child at the correct level of learning and also help the majority children cope and get used to the pressure of exams (I do accept that some children find this too much). I did my SATs in 2001 and we never had this level of pressure and stress placed on us, I do wonder where it's came from sometimes, is it possible that parents more then the schools are placing pressure on children during exam time ?

YANBU. We are homeschooling DD after easter, its perefectly legal.
Do what is best for your child, too many parents prioritise the school and exams over their childrens happiness and health.

Home school as a last resort is an option I consider (secondary school place drama) but not because of SATS.

I did explain it is so the Government can see how the school is performing, it is more of a test for the teachers

See i dont think is that good a stratergy for alleviating stress as my dc would worry more that they would be letting their tteacher down

upsideup I hate to tell you this but al the build up, stress etc that is going to happen will happen before Easter. After Easter it is pretty much do the tests themselves and then get on with all the interesting and creative things that got ditched from the school day in the lead up to SATS.

No one likes SATS. It drives me mad when people say ‘they don’t benefit my child’. Of course they do - they indicate how the school is performing and parents measure the school by that. If they had a holistic. pupil-first approach it would be under-performing and parents would be up in arms about that too.

Write to your MPs.

Yanbu. The only issue is they spend so much time working on them in the run up, it feels like a drop in the ocean to boycott them and it means all their hard work is wasted.

There's a lot more to how schools perform than measuring maths, English and science. I bet things would be different if they were also tested in music, drama and all the other subjects that get largely ignored for most of year 6 sucking even more fun out of school.