To not understand the point of SATS?

[SweetSakura]

I'm lucky I guess, DS has tended to do very well on past papers etc so has been quite relaxed about them. But he has been bemused by the fact teachers /TAs have been going round giving a lot of help with answering the questions!
In two cases he said the TA definitely got it wrong as well. (his friend from another school, also very able was over and agreed with DS about the question and the correct answer )

Surely they are pointless if this happens in some schools (DS friend didn't see it happen in his school to be fair)

My child is year 2. I’m absolutely fucking disgusted that the DFE think it’s appropriate to implement national tests for a cohort that have yet to have a full year of school

Cheating isn’t normal and you should report it. One of my DC did theirs this week and the process was very strict. There was no cheating. Cheating is a terrible message to show to children. I don’t agree that league tables show which schools are prepared to cheat at all.

It's awful and we should transition to teacher based assessment. I've seen upset Y6's all week.

Please report it.
Things like this have a knock on effect on the rest of the children on a national level. Actions like those of the staff in your child's school will lead to some children missing out on achieving what they deserve as they affect the grade boundaries.

No upset Y6 children at our school.

The pupils don't practise and we tell them they are of no importance.

They all know that if they can't answer a question, it's probably a stupid question.

Each day is about an hour or 90 mins of tests, then wall-to-wall fun.

If your kids are stressed, they're at the wrong school.

My son has just done his year 6 SATS. He wasn't bothered in the slightest and nor was I.

some parents got their kids tutors for ten - totally pointless!!!!

This whole SATS thing sounds awful. Can parents opt their children out of this? I see zero benefit of this to a child and if at all preventable would not want my child hothoused for pointless exam at such a young age. So can you as a parent say to the school, sorry DC will not be sitting this exam and keep them off?

Schools are usually very supportive of Y6s whilst doing their SATS, and they normally give breakfast/snacks. The only thing DS remembers about his SATS are the snacks!

Retired secondary teacher here...

I have been helping with SATS at my DIL's school this week.

I was in the main hall with the bulk of the students so not involved with those with access arrangements.

We were straight up with the rules. We could read the question in the Maths and SPAG papers, but nothing else, and we genuinely did follow the rules.

I see the value of SATS. I have taught almost exclusively in small independent schools and used SATS papers for end of year assessments (which we marked ourselves). It gave us a very important benchmark against national standards.

No, parental consent is not required for the SATs. If your child is in school during the test week or the week after, they will have to sit the papers.

However, hot housing isn't something that has to happen. As a Y6 teacher, I have never narrowed my curriculum and absolutely would not do it.

SATs do have an impact on the child as their GCSE targets are set from them. A child without results will still sit their GCSEs, of course, but they won't count towards the secondary school's progress scores so, unfortunately, when the school is allocating resources such as teacher time etc. a child that "doesn't count" will not be seen as a priority.

We had a moderator come in this morning and there was a brief moment of panic, but because we know we do everything correctly we just did what we have done all week and she left very happy with what she had seen (including the breakfast we serve).

Wow that’s awful. What a messed up system. I did not move to the UK till university and am thus not familiar with how things work here, but it sounds so sad. No wonder every second child on mumsnet seems to have an anxiety disorder. I will seriously have to think through what I’m going to do once my kids hit school age. I don’t want this for them. I had no standardised ‘this-will-determine-the-rest-of-your-life vibe’ kind of exams ever (literally not even our equivalent of A-levels was that crazy). I went to uni in the UK and had nothing but distinction. Am educated to doctoral level. I am so glad I did not have the fun in learning tested out of me age eleven.

I had no standardised ‘this-will-determine-the-rest-of-your-life vibe’ kind of exams ever (literally not even our equivalent of A-levels was that crazy). I went to uni in the UK and had nothing but distinction. Am educated to doctoral level. I am so glad I did not have the fun in learning tested out of me age eleven.

It doesn't have to remove the fun aspects of learning nor does it have to have a "rest of your life" approach. It's about balance in education and openness about what the tests are and how they work. Unfortunately, it's the external pressures from the DfE, the Government and Ofsted that prevent some schools from being able to find that balance.