To find SATs joke not very funny?

[Kokapetl]

A primary school teacher played a prank on the whole of year 6 just after their SATs had finished by telling them they had another exam the next day. They actually assembled the kids and "explained" why they had not told them about it before! Then the joke was revealed and the kids had a post-SATs treat.

I think this is a bit mean and not very funny in what could have been a stressful week for some children. AIBU?

*I think thats truly awful :(

My daughter would have been really confused by the change in plan, and doesnt like ti when she cant trust the people she's supposed to be able to trus*

Good lord, such high drama!

If you define this as truly awful, how do you go through life?

OP, YABU.

Sats are a joke. Yes.

YABU

Well done the teachers.

The staff will know who would struggle to understand the joke and would be on hand to explain it. I agree with earlier posters that they are about to move to secondary school and the end of year 6 is about making them a bit more resilient and preparing them to move on.

These are 11 year olds! not 6 year olds. special needs aside, if they can’t cope with a prank lasting 5 minutes I would be quite concerned!

My dds teacher did similar. She wrote the WALT on the board...then wrote Party! Dd loved it.
I dont like the word snowflake but i thought of it whilst reading this thread.

Boobird. My daughters autistic and I strongly suspect I am. To be honest, with difficulty at times. We do a lot to manage change. But I am surprised this area was another difference. Its great to see what people must really think of my clever, beautiful girl. All the insults :(

Malificent - that's completely different (and quite funny) to going through the motions of having another SAT they hadn't prepared for.

It was more than 5 minutes - they assembled the kids and explained why they had another SAT. Any special assmebly my daughter takes seriously and authority.

I think I may bow out of this now. She does have help with transitions and is given a timetable for any school day which isnt the normal.pattern. She will get help with tradition to sedcondary etc.

But most of my friends dont see the anxiety and she comes across just quirky. Autism doesnt just present in one way.

But I cant take more of the insults to her.

@KneelJustKneel your daughter has special completely different from a NT child. nobody would expect her to deal with a prank/joke like this. a NT child should be able to

DS1 really struggled with his y2 SATs to the extent that it has triggered investigating SN. As a former secondary teacher, I view SATs as a heap of bollocks that serve as nothing more than a stick to beat teachers and schools with. The individual outcomes are too skewed to have much meaning, so no pressure from home here. Our school isn't nearly as pressured as some, but as a probably dyslexic/ dypraxic child who can't write his name accurately, DS was floundering just from the sheer effort of picking up a pencil to write more frequently. He also had extra nuture sessions at the start/ end of the school day. We had months of intensified meltdowns, including the 4 hour one where he came out of school and exploded at me about a week before they started, and his mood didn't reset to his usual level of grouch until he was safely settled into year 3.

He's perfect at school. At 8, he recognises that he masks all his frustrations... then he blows when he's in his safe spaces, or at least out of the school doors.

An extra night of worry does matter to some children. It may be a class where the teacher knows it well and the joke is of little consequence. But a lot of children who struggle with stress and anxiety won't show their teachers the extent of it.

nobody would expect her to deal with a prank/joke like this. a NT child should be able to

If only this were true Yura. Parents of autistic children often hear things like

"She has to learn that the world doesn't revolve round her"
"We have to prepare children for the real world"
"People won't make exceptions when she's an adult" etc. etc.

The thing that is so difficult for many people to understand is the constant level of stress that autistic children have to manage everyday in school - the sensory overload, social interaction, uncertainty and anticipation anxety etc. it is very easy to look at the external appearance of the child and perceive them as being "fine", without appreciating what is happening beneath the surface.

I am both a parent of a child with ASD and a teacher. I have been at the "chalk face" and worked in training / advisory capacity (ASD) so have seen many mainstream classrooms and worked with many, many teachers.

My own dd wasn't diagnosed till 9 and her class teachers never saw the anxiety in the classroom. They saw it as separation anxiety because of her extreme reluctance to go to school. Once in school DD shut down and suppressed the anxiety, until she got home.

Oh and the "we need to help her build resilience"!! That was the most thoughtless. The resilience needed to just get through the day is more than most people can comprehend and the failure by school staff to understand this resulted in my dd having a complete breakdown.

Maybe our children go to the same school, her class were actually filed into the hall for their fake exam.

She told me about it with much eyerolling and sighing but clearly got it was a joke.

Rafferty thats such a helpful post. They only noticed my daughter might be autistic at 9. I used to teach psychology and hadn't made the links...

Her previous teachers (and I ) had seen it as anxiety /v intelligent so quirky.... its not "obvious" in the ways people think it is.

And yes most teachers have had the same expectations of her up til now as she doesnt have a sign above her saying "autistic." She's v bright and well behaved. People just dont realise...

KneelJustKneel

If children that age are getting anxious over an exam then there is a bigger problem. Either the school or the parents are too pushy or the child has some kind of issue that needs to be addressed.

Well yes there is a bigger problem - teachers everywhere hate SATs and the effect its had on the curriculum and how many schools have to push their kids to reach targets. Maybe you're not aware of that?

And yes all schools with have kids with an anxiety and special needs in and need to be aware of that. Especially around high stress times and transitions.

If children that age are getting anxious over an exam then there is a bigger problem. Either the school or the parents are too pushy

The other day I was at an event and sitting near some very pushy parents who were talking to friends about how their son is stressed about the exams and how they have been telling him that if he doesn't revise he won't achieve and that he's missing some social events because of the need to revise. I assumed he was doing GCSEs until the father said something along the lines of 'he's only 9 but we want him to do well so he has to work hard'

FFS, poor kid.

I feel very sorry for your children if you find this late April fool prank offensive.

The problem isnt the joke. The problem is that children this age should not be getting anxious about exams. It's terrible that education has come to this.

But this was a teacher. a teacher!!!!

So your family you never tease each other? what a miserable existance you must lead.

PuppyMonkey
You should ring the school tomorrow and make a formal complaint to head and tell them you’re taking the story to the Daily Mail. Leave them stewing on the phone for five minutes then say: “Only joking.”
Brilliant! 😂😂

I'm pretty shocked at some of the dramatic responses on here. I don't know how some of you get through life

I would hope that the teacher knows her class well and would have protected any children they knew wouldn't cope with the joke.

I'm pretty shocked at some of the dramatic responses on here. I don't know how some of you get through life

I think a good proportion of people have absolutely no sense of humour. I don't mean 'don't find x funny', I mean simply can't recognise that something is intended to be light hearted/humorous and get upset and angry about it.

Notice LadyRannaldini has taken my really, really obviously joking PP as agreeing with OP and is annoyed at me for being miserable. I must say I love responses like this.

I can easily see how this 'joke' was at the very least in poor taste and teaching staff should be resilient enough to learn from their mistakes.

The school/teachers occupy a position of structural power in relation to pupils and should act responsibly. Schools and teachers need to be able to handle the stress of SATs which measure their effectiveness without playing cruel jokes on DC that are caught up in this (temporary) policy.

People in positions of power should not tell lies that are intended to cause distress albeit shortlived. The fact that the same source of the distressing lies then plays the role of hero/rescuer by making it all alright (ie revealing the truth) actually makes things worse.

Imagine the HT calling a special meeting of teaching staff to announce a surprise visit by OFSTED the next day, watching the ensuing panic, and then says it was a joke (ie lie).

Or a manager calling work staff to a special meeting and announcing redundancies/closure/official inspection, watching the response for 5 minutes, and then saying 'gotcha - you are so gullible, lacking in resilience'.

Or a partner wanting to talk and announcing they were leaving the next day and then saying 'just joking - I've booked a table at a restaurant.

Or a parent telling their child they have minor surgery the next day and then after 5 minutes saying 'just joking, we are really going to the cinema'.

This sort of behaviour teaches mistrust, not resilience.

Primary school children expecting an exam should not be feeling the same level of stress as a teacher expecting ofsted!

KeepOn thats exactly how I see it - even if my daughter wasnt autistic its inappropiate use of power in a way that isnt funny. I completely agree with your examples too!