... to hate SATS?

[Jourdain11]

Year 6 SATS, specifically. DD1 has barely been at school since Easter, what with one thing and another. SATS are next week and she's been fretting all week, getting more and more anxious and I have been unable to convince her that she won't be doomed to a life of failure if she doesn't do brilliantly.

All for attainment and I understand why testing is necessary, but they just seem OTT and too stressy for both teachers and children.

Also, I know schools are under pressure and no doubt they genuinely want to kids to do as well as they can, but I wish they wouldn't go on and on about them to the children SO much.

I thought that SATS were for the school, to check how well the school has taught the children (that’s what I always told mine anyway!). I know my DD’s senior school doesn’t stream until yr8 so they test all through yr7. The SATS don’t mean anything for the children as far as I’m aware. Could be different in different areas though.

You wish your school wouldn't. Different schools treat them very differently.

I thought they're what the progress 8 scores are based on in secondary. So the primary has to show what progress they've made and then secondary has to show what progress they've added. None of it is particularly helpful or concerned with students' actual ability, rather their ability to be coached to pass tests.

SATs are not a judgement on the children - they are a piece of government nonsense that does not enhance learning one jot. Tell her they do not matter - which is the truth.

At the school where I am governor they do not make a big deal of it - the children roll up one day, do a test, then get on with their education. If your DD is this anxious, then the school are not handling it well. I would have words with them.

It seems to me (annoyingly) that many secondaries take no notice of the Sats and do their own tests very early on in y7! I’m not a fan of sats but if they have to do them in Y6, I wish they would take note of them! I think the belief is that some primaries put too much emphasis on them in y6 and so it’s not real embedded knowledge.

I completely agree with this.

I didn’t know about progress 8. Just googled it. Another way of testing the school rather than anything meaningful for the children. I hate that yr6 is basically just preparing for and then doing SATS. Although DD’s school really didn’t make a big deal about it and my daughter didn’t feel any pressure as far as I’m aware. She was pretty laid back about it.

I hope your daughter is ok and you manage to convince her that it really doesn’t matter.

I don't doubt, but yes, I'm talking about the experience at my the school my daughter goes to!

Keep her off for the week.

Always seems such big deal in English schools with a lot of pressure on kids. We're in Scotland & kids get tested every 2 yrs through primary & secondary but it's just a regular school day, no preparation or extra work for them just turn up & get told it's an assessed piece of work today & do your best. It's really for schools rather than individual pupils, we get a result on reports at end of year but that's it.

I would say that your DC school may not be handling it well with the children. DS is yr6 too. He’s been doing lots of practice papers at school, but mixed in with lots of more fun stuff. No practise at home required. Very little communication about it, other than they are happening and a chat about how he has done in the practise papers at parents evening. No pressure.

Worth bearing in mind that these are KS2 SATs and covers the topics taught in KS2 not just Year 6, so the last couple of weeks won't make a huge difference.

Our local schools do use them to set.

My dad's school went on and on about them too, all through year 6 which then gave my dd massive anxiety about it!
I have read though that secondary schools retest them early on in year 7 because the primary schools over revise the children in year 6 and it doesn't give an accurate reading of their abilities. I do believe they are more of an assessment on the primary school and their teachers than the children. My dd didn't get put into ability groups until after the October half term in year 7, when they'd finished all their tests.
Before my dd's sats I told her all this and just told her to that we would be incredibly proud of her as long as she tries her best. She honestly calmed down a lot the week of her sats.

DD has missed a lot of school. She's anxious that she's missed this and missed that, and the school do seem a bit into heavy talks about doing your best and nearly at X level, just one last push. I'd much rather the laid back approach some of you are mentioning, but I also appreciate that it probably goes in one ear and out the other for half the year group. DD gets a bit wound up about things and, like I said, she's anxious about the amount ox school missed.

Our junior school didn't. They did offer supplementary classes for the Year 6 kids but the pressure wasn't there. I read so much about kids in tears and hoped our school wouldn't be heaping pressure on the pupils, was pleased that they didn't.

If you haven't already, stress to your DD that the reason for Year 6 SATs is to compare them to the Year 2 SATs results to see what progress has been made since. It's a test for the school rather than the children, because they need to see that there isn't a problem with the way the lessons are being taught.

The secondary schools they move on to might use the SATs result to predict how well the children will do at GCSE, but they will also do their own tests to see where each child is, and the Year 6 SATs scores will be used to measure how much progress the children made at secondary. There is no need for her to worry about it.

That's a good point, thanks.

I don't think any of the secondaries use them to set - which I've pointed out to her - but she's been in tears about doing badly and having a "black mark" on her record 🤔

At my own secondary school sats scores are used to inform targets and sets for year 7. I don’t think this is unusual.

progress 8 is the biggest measure for secondary school performance and this is based on progress since SATS so it is a little naive to think it doesn’t matter. schools work hard to ensure progress happens for all students at all levels - which is a good thing - but underachieving at KS2 could impact on your child’s groups/sets through school and on how much they are pushed.

im not saying I agree or advocate for any of this - but it’s the reality. As is the fact that the most progress at GCSE happens for those students with high KS2 scores.

Sadly KS2 scores are deliberately confusing for parents who don’t understand what they mean.

I will add that I don’t agree with creating lots of anxiety for year 6 students and think this does add negatively to the mental health issues many young people face

yet another reason why the uk school system is crazy

I would speak to the school and explain how she is feeling. This shouldn’t be happening at Y6.

My daughter’s school ramped it up last year when she was in Y6. Lots of revision, revision guides sent home, parents meetings with terrible secondary exam like advice. my daughter seemed stressed and upset. I complained. I felt strongly that it was the head who had been there a couple of years trying to show that the school was now great because they get good SATs results. Sure enough, it was plastered all over that they were the best results the school had got in years.

Saying this though, my daughter is now Y7 and was telling my other child this week that she loved SATs week. She also told me after SAts that she wasn’t worried about them at all and that she was struggling due to a completely different reason. I think I assumed it was the SATs because I was annoyed at the school and so it was easier for her to go along with this rather than to explain what was actually wrong.

There is an expectation that children who were assessed as 'Working At Expected Level' at the KS1 SATs will be on track to reach 'Working At Expected Level' at the KS2 SATs, although with all the Covid disruption there's bound to be some hiccups there. Heads and school staff can feel pressured though, it's not unheard of for staff to lose jobs over bad results so pressure is on to ensure children close gaps in knowledge so they can perform to the best of their ability.

If DD has missed a lot of school that can cause issues with her learning as she may have missed some parts of the curriculum and then not be able to build securely on that learning if she has gaps. Schools were given a budget after Covid to help kids keep up with learning if there were gaps so hopefully DD was given some extra support/tuition in school.

This is interesting then as secondaries here say they don’t take note of them and they do their own tests early Y7. They also say they use their own tests to set.

I’ve known children who got greater depth in some subjects at SATs but they were put in the bottom sets/into intervention groups at secondary for the same subjects.

I've posted this before but just to correct some of the misinformation on this thread:

KS2 assessments and grades.
All children receive a scaled score in each of the following:
Reading (assessed by one exam),
Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling (assessed by two exams),
Maths (assessed by three exams), and
Writing (assessed based on the standard of independent writing produced within class and evidenced across 6 pieces).

The scaled score is between 80 and 120.
80 - 99 means a child is "Working Towards the expected standard for the end of KS2".
100 - 109 means a child is "Working at the expected standard for the end of KS2".
110+ means a child is "Working at Greater Depth withing the expected standard for the end of KS2".
This is how they are reported but it's the actual scaled score itself that matters. None of these are a fail: they are just lower scores. But some interpret a score of 99 or lower as failing. This isn't entirely correct nor overly helpful.

How scaled scores are used.
A child's scaled scores are used to identify their target grades for GCSE. These are not targets set by the school and cannot be changed by the school (although schools are welcome to set their own internal ones, they don't actually mean anything). These are not superseeded by CAT results or any other testing that secondaries might do.

Secondary schools are judged by how well they get children joining in Y7 to hit those targets in Y11. This is known as "Progress 8".

Why does that matter for the child?
There are a number of decisions made at a senior level in secondary schools that will be affected by the target grades of children. Parents are incredibly unlikely to be aware of any of these decisions nor how targets have influenced them. In fact, most class teachers will also be unaware as these are often decisions made by those in departmental leadership or SLT and, even then, only by people who are actively involved in the use or analysis of data.

What kind of decisions?
It varies from school to school but, personally, I have seen:

1. Results/targets having an impact on which form group your child ends up in,

2. Results/targets having an impact on which set your child ends up in, including some children being "locked" in a set that they shouldn't be in simply because they have to get a certain result and that's the lowest set still teaching the higher content. This also then means there are less spaces for children to move up from lower sets into sets teaching higher content.

3. Results/targets dictating which band you are in with only certain bands being taught higher exam content and being allowed to sit certain courses like triple science.

4. The targets for children being used to identify those who are on target by themselves and those who aren't, even if they are performing at the same level. This leads to resources being used to support/boast the children who are off-track rather than doing the same for children who could do better but are already achieving their target. This can even go as far as:

5. The deployment of staff being informed by which children are "off-track" and those children having access to the stronger teachers.

I'm not saying that this is how it should be. In an ideal world, every child would progress at their own rate and reach their individual potential. However, this is how it's currently working in practice.

Sorry I haven't read the entire thread but yes!! I hate SATs too! My 10 year old is stressed and I'm so annoyed that he's even thinking about exam performance when it's not going to affect him in later life and he should be enjoying learning, not worrying about it.

I've told him to try his best and that is more than good enough.

@Isitthathardtobekind
This is interesting then as secondaries here say they don’t take note of them and they do their own tests early Y7. They also say they use their own tests to set.

It could be that individual teachers don't know how the data is used. This would be a common thing as the only people actively involved in decision-making around data are senior leaders that specifically work with data.

However, the more cynically side of me would say that it's in the interests of the secondary school for children to perform lower than their potential on their KS2 exams.

@Iamnotthe1 very interesting. Thanks for your response.