To rip up SATS results without looking at them

[Mangetoutrodney]

School have said that DD might not pass her SATS as she is below the expected level. She’s not that confident anyway & I don’t think knowing that she had ‘failed’ them would help her.
Aibu to not even look at the results - to rip them up without looking at them so none of us know them. I kind of feel like I want to protect her & build up her confidence in other ways.
Apparently secondary school re test anyway so do i need to know them?

The year 2 SATS I never looked at they were binned immediately no questions asked as the kids didn't really know they had actually done them.

Year 6 however they know from the beginning SATS is what they are working towards throughout the whole year, so for that reason yes I would share the outcomes as they have worked hard and should be acknowledged (I say this as a parent who's child is also likely to fail)

Then discuss all the exiting things we are going to do in the holidays and what expectations they have for secondary school.

@msjudgemental is that true? I failed my gcse maths the first time & could only do foundation, got a C at second attempt- did A’ levels & then got a 2:1 degree in psychology....

Do you have the scores for her 'mock' SATs?

If so, then simply use them as a comparison to her actual SATs results 'Look, you got 5 more in Maths than in your last test because you worked really hard at that, well done'.

Show her that it is all about progress and hard work, not about absolute levels, and show that you value that progress, rather than meeting some particular standard. If what she comes out of Y6 with is a view that she can improve how she does by working hard, and that you value that hard work, then that's a really good thing to take into her secondary education.

There are some myths around SATs - the one that 'they only measure the school' is a particularly prevalent one. Like it or not, your child's individual progress in secondary - in all subjects - is measured from the baseline of her SATs. Because of this, schools set GCSE targets based on SATs, in order to get a good progress score. Yes, they do often also test at the start of Y7, but progress is ALWAYS measured from SATs. If you adopt the same approach - that progress from this point is what matters, not absolute results - then your child, rather than 'always being measured against some absolute standard they may not be able to achieve' can succeed against a sensible measure. And that's something you should celebrate, not rip up.

I hate the argument "you can't tell your child SATs are a pile of crap, because then they'll take the same attitude into GCSEs and A levels."

Of course they won't. Because SATs are there to score the school and (SPAG test I'm looking at you) quite a lot of what they test will never, ever be used again.

I also hate the way they're used in secondary - one of our local secondaries said on their open day "we use them to stream on entry - so for instance, the weakest children don't get a foreign language, though if they go up a group, they can always start late." I stood there with my jaw on the floor thinking "so you're going to take the children who are struggling most and put an extra hurdle in their way?" It's as if the move to comprehensive schools, and the move away from setting children's life future in stone aged 11, had never happened.

@fermats in our local secondary, they don’t stream at all in year 7 and test again so I think that means they don’t use SATS in that way

This is what concerns me, I was a late bloomer academically, struggled through primary and got top marks in the school at a level.

I personally would rip up the papers if she’s worried, keep an eye on her at secondary and fight them to push her as she progresses rather than accept a lazy attitude of not expecting and change in ability from 11-16.

As other people have said it’s not a matter of pass or fail. It’s a record of the level she is working at. Secondary schools automatically get access to the KS results of all new students but IME (academic database manager for a secondary school) take them with a pinch of salt.

Why is she not likely to reach the expected level? If it is because she is not academically clever or good at a particular subject it wouldn’t be a bad thing for her to be in a lower set for that subject. Better to have her confidence boosted by doing well in a lower set than for her to struggle in a higher set maybe.

Fermats, I would say that the streaming you describe is rare - DC's comp sets (not streams) for Maths after a while in Y7, but all other subjects are mixed ability for the first year. A few children with significant SEN don't take up a second language in Y8 - with that time being used for intensive interventions etc - but from entry on SATs alone is rare IME

My DD did SATS last year and her school told them and the rest of the class what everyone got.
Year 6 was hell for my DD, so much stress associated with the SATS, she really felt the pressure, she was emotional all the time and just seemed lost.
Yr7 has been completely different and she is like a different child.
Her high school reports, online system etc all list the SATS results as they use them as a marker for the level that they begin yr7. You are best off telling her the results as it us unlikely that you can keep her from seeing them, however if you emphasis their irrelevance then she will not be worried that she has 'failed

SATS are only important for schools and parents who are too bought into a system that they don't understand what is important about education. TEAR THEM UP. No-one in Wales does them.

@fermats
They do that at my daughter's school - she got 99 in her English SATS so is doing extra literacy classes in replacement of a modern language.

Is this the first time you're hearing she's struggling academically, or is there an ongoing difficulty, (for want of a better term)?

DS1 has SN EHCP etc, he didn't pass maths, but did pass the English exams, failed both the teacher assessed ones for Science and writing. He's now in Yr8, maths is actually going o.k., English really isn't! He does get a lot of extra help but the skills needed for English really are a bit beyond him tbh, which is a shame as he can produce some amazing work. But it is what it is. Science also going well.

My main concern would be her confidence and self-esteem. Do you know what the pastoral care is like at the secondary she's going to?

My sons year 6 teacher has told the class what figure (100) is the ‘pass mark’ so he’s well aware that he’s all ready ‘failing/a failure’ as he’s yet to reach that mark. It’s heart breaking that he’s walking around actually saying he’ll fail & is a failure this morning!
I previously suggested that it might be better for me to disclose his results to him than his teacher as it may be less traumatic for him (he’s in SEN for maths & Autistic). However after seeing him troubled this morning & knowing how anxious & stressed he’s been for months about this I’ve emailed the school to ask if I decided to how would I formally go about not making him sit them as I read today they’re not as non compulsory as I thought & would need the Head Teachers permission & she would make the final decision for this even if I am able to request this, or even if it’s possible in his school to do this.

As other people have said it’s not a matter of pass or fail. It’s a record of the level she is working at. Secondary schools automatically get access to the KS results of all new students but IME (academic database manager for a secondary school) take them with a pinch of salt.

Why is she not likely to reach the expected level? If it is because she is not academically clever or good at a particular subject it wouldn’t be a bad thing for her to be in a lower set for that subject. Better to have her confidence boosted by doing well in a lower set than for her to struggle in a higher set maybe.

Caring,

I intensely dislike the way SATs distort the end of primary education.

However, by the time they are taken, the damage is done. You might as well klook at the results and use them to praise her progress.

If this was a discussion about whether a child should be moved at the end of Y5 into a school that doesn't do SATs and has a wholly different curriculum - in fact, just the same curriculum as for Y1-5 would be fantastic - then I'd be in wholehearted support. However, once the preparation for SATs has ruined the year, both withdrawing the child from the tests and showing that you don't value what she has been made to work so hard for are pointless - the damage is done.

(I would also say that the welsh education system is not, perhaps, a huge advertisement for the benefits of no SATs, long warnings before school inspections etc. IIRC, it underperforms quite significantly compared with Scotland and England)

If you rip them up and don't tell her, she'll 'know' that they weren't good enough.

If you rip them up and don't tell her, she'll think she failed even if she actually did really well in them.

Once they get to senior school, they'll see the levels they are on, anyway. So she'll know one way or another, how she compares to other kids her age.

I don’t think there’s any significant benefit in telling your child their SATs result. The results WILL be transferred to secondary school and that school MAY set for some subjects based on the SATs score, but it’s not until GCSEs that results have any meaningful impact on an individual and their future life chances.

I was a secondary maths teacher for nearly 2 decades. SATs results were used as a guide to set for maths in year 7, and were definitely taken with a pinch of salt. There would usually be lots of re-shuffling in the first term based on our own assessments (CATs, teacher assessment etc) because SATs results aren’t necessarily indicative of a child’s ability. They tend to reflect SATs prep and a huge focus in year 6 on maths, eng, sci, half of which is forgotten between the SATs exam in May and starting school in September.

I have a year 5 child myself, who is already getting stressed about SATs next year. I’ve told him I couldn’t care less what score he gets, as long as he works hard in school. I’ve told him that SATs are only there so the gvt have something to measure a school’s performance on (which is true, IMO. Lots of teachers, schools and education professionals disagree with the tests, even though the system is set up so that they have everything resting on these results). It makes me very cross to realise that my child will be spending pretty much all of next year being prepped for a test that is not for his benefit.

MC98,

Look at the ARA:

Section 6 is the bit you want to see whether your head should be entering your son or not. Basically, if he can answer the easiest questions on the paper, the guidelines say he should take it - but with suitable access arrangements to cater for his SEN.

That was wrong of the teacher OP.
I agree the teacher should not have said she failed, because it isn't a pass/fail exam, but the children should be given their marks and told what they would have needed to score to show they are working at the expected level.

Right now I think I'd be more concerned about why the teacher anticipates a very low mark.

My son didnt pass his SATS! He was upset but since been at high school he's come on leaps and bounds at parents evening they asked me why he didn't pass as he's way above the level that the says put him at. You should read them it doesn't mean you have to tell your daughter.

DD got 99 - so not far off on the scaled score in the maths paper - not sure about English as they only got told the maths result

I think you should look at them. You may be pleasantly surprised and even a little bit of an improvement from her mock results can be used to bolster her confidence whether she 'passes' or not.
She really needs to face it front on. Hiding from the results isn't going to prepare her for her future as she will have many more tests she has to face.

What a lot of parents don't realise is that poor attainment in maths at KS2 can result in being stuck in bottom sets for maths, which means only studying foundation maths

My DC won’t sit SATS as they are at a private school. So what happens if they then go on to a state secondary? They won’t have any KS2 SATS results to stream them or base predicted GCSE’s on. So they must make use of alternative assessments somehow.

The only thing I’d be looking at is any analysis of performance. I’d be looking for anything that could be helpful to future progress. Being told at 11 that you’ve failed and that you’re rubbish at maths (or anything) is not helpful. But being told, for example, that you need to practice x tables, or that you need more work on ‘time’, that’s something you could help your child with over summer.

I used to spend my life trying to make sure children who struggled at maths thought they were amazing at it, because then they’d be more likely to engage and enjoy it and actually make progress.