To thinks SATs don’t really matter?

[whodawhodaeho]

DD is year 6 and her class teacher( and year head) has told them that if they don’t do well in SATs then they’ll be put with the disruptive, badly behaved kids in ‘big’ school. Ie put in lower sets forever

I have told her this is nonsense - that the new school will assess her themselves up til Oct half term then stream sets for certain subjects (which they do - her DB is there ) and the SATs don’t matter.
And they continually assess and move kids around according to ability/ progress through school terms/ years

YABU - yes they matter, and yes secondary school will pay attention to the results

YANBU - they don’t really matter

Nah, it’s a side effect of an excellent school who supports all kids the thrive. Nothing more.

You said GCSE targets are not based on SATs.
They are.

You said secondaries doing this is crazy practice.
It's not: it's what happens and secondaries have no control over this at all.

No, it's not. It's the side effect of having an SLT who properly understand data and ensure that their strategic decisions are informed by them. It's something I have seen in every secondary I've worked with and that's a lot of secondary schools.

Honestly it depends. Do they matter? Well they can do, yes. I’ve worked in schools years ago where only children in top set could do a full range maths gcse, and anyone in bottom set could only do an intermediate paper where 100% would only earn them a C. They were assigned sets by SATS and never moved. (Yes I know this should’t happen but it did, and there are schools who do similar now) Should anyone be speaking to children about being in the ‘bottom set’ (hate that expression) like that? No. It’s shocking but they do often matter.

Exactly!

This isn’t often the case though. My son did exceptionally well in his SAT’s because he had a reader, extra time and a private room. When he started in secondary he was put into all the top sets but because he was given zero support he floundered. When he wasn’t performing well, instead of extra support he was just moved further and further down the sets. Once there his predicted grades dropped substantially.

The school gave him no support. They wouldn’t let him have extra measures in the termly tests saying that they couldn’t because when it came round to GCSE’s they needed to prove he needed the extra help. That was pointless though as, due to being in the lower sets, he just wouldn’t have the knowledge to get higher grades. They systematically stated that they couldn’t apply for help until the last 2 years.

Yes, the sats can help to initially stream the children however, the biggest test is how they perform in class, how they grasp the knowledge and how they cope with a completely new way of learning. There are other ways to find which level a child is capable of and that should be down to more than a test in year 6. Sats are not a child centred approach in any way.

It’s an archaic system that needs to be overhauled. I’ve seen children buckle under the pressure, not because they’re not ‘bright’ enough but because of the stress involved. They start secondary on a sour note and some just don’t recover from that. We have a secondary school that chooses to put the children in lower sets for everything if they score poorly on one sat paper. For example, my niece scored poorly in literacy as she is severely dyslexic but scored exceptionally well in maths. When she started her in secondary they put her in the lowest set for each and every subject. She was far too capable for the lowest set in maths yet was left there for over a year. This meant she had the pressure of trying to catch up once she finally moved up, this had a really negative effect on her.

Well I hope your schools aren’t limiting kids based on their sats. Thankfully where I work they do not.

As a parent I don’t worry about stuff like this. I wasn’t that clever at school and neither were my kids. However, we are all grafters and that’s all you need in my opinion. Neither of my kids have any university debt, both did apprenticeships. One is now an electrician earning shit loads and one is a builder earning more! You can push kids too hard in my opinion and the stress that comes from some of the jobs where you need to be clever seems to be not worth it in many cases. We all go to work, come home at 5 and switch off.

What does it really matter what set you are in?

Actually I said (if you have read my other threads) that most schools use Cats to stream and help set GCSE targets and if a school is basing a child’s GCSE targets solely on Sats then that is crazy.

Any school that decides children’s attainment at GCSE level and beyond is going to be accurately reflected by SAT scores at 10/11 and does not constantly adjust to meet changing skills is quite frankly shit. It is doing late developers a massive disservice. Kids develop at different times. I’m not a big fan of sets for subjects (with the possible exception of maths and English).

Any teacher pigeon holing a child based on a few tests at 10/11 really should have a rethink about careers.

I'm not talking about a small number of schools I work in as a class teacher. The vast majority of class teachers are entirely unaware of the data-driven decisions being made by the data-focused members of the SLT.

It might be crazy but it is exactly what happens. Target grades are based solely on SATs (and postcodes), schools have no choice in this. Schools can set their own predicted grades which are different.

And I explained that the measure by which the child will be compared is set externally to the secondary school and based entirely on their results in KS2. Secondary schools have no control over that.

Any targets set by the secondary school from internal tests are internal guidance only.

This.

My eldest didn’t do great in his sats, predicted grade Cs. He achieved As in maths and further maths, As and Bs in his other GCSEs. As maths and further maths at Alevel with an A and B in chemistry and physics. Awarded further maths student of the year. Went to a red brick uni got a BA in mathematics and now has a very good job. Please don’t sweat the sats there’s far too much pressure put on our children for the benefit of the school. They’re still kids and shouldn’t have this worry placed on them.

Iamnotthe1

nearly 20 years in secondary schools teaching a core subject and 100% concur with all you’ve said.

I don’t believe that targets should be based on SATS results but they are and in many schools sets are too - it’s reality just because some people don’t like it,
doesn’t mean it’s not true….

Absolutely agree with you.

I absolutely agree. This is a good breakdown…
https://thinkstudent.co.uk/ks3-grading-explained/

If I may give a secondary school teacher's answer to this. We do use them as a basis and a starting point, along with their reading ability and how they do in a test called MidYis. This data all gets collated and sets are created in the Autumn term.
SATs are important as they give us insight into their ability but also it is only one part of the overall data picture we obtain.
Now in previous schools, I have worked at, there are Alternative Provision classes where the worst behaved 5% do go into. In my school, the bottom set is a mixture of badly behaved and low-ability students.
Tests do form the basis of the sets and the importance of SATs must be explained but the ability to move sets is possible. I would always say to my students and my own child, that you just do the best you can and that is all anyone can ask of you.

Basically SATs matter but not to the severity the teacher is coming off with. Whilst yes she can move sets, the initial sets are based on a mixture of things including SATs and MidYis.

I wish her luck.

Hard pressed, underfunded schools will focus their limited extra support budget on the statistical anomalies, not those children who appear to be achieving and progressing OK, but have actually been wildly underachieving since primary school. To that extent, SATS results are relevant and important, because secondary schools are not generally so tiny that every child gets noticed and understood in the way their parents might have liked. In other words, whether you like it or not, statistics affect the treatment of the individual child to a certain extent.

Hate to think how dramatic that teacher would be about GCSEs 😂

SATs are to benefit the school, not the students. My daughter is in year 7, she ‘failed’ her SAT’s, but is in top sets for most subjects now

@HT56 :
"As a parent I don’t worry about stuff like this. "

Me neither. I hate reading threads of kids stressed doing Yr 6 SATS. I don't like to read of parents considering pulling them out. Ds1 and ds2 when at primary never had all this stress. I expected them to behave, try their best throughout all schooling. They are both reasonably bright so I just expect them to do ok.
I never worried about SAT's, progress 8, the difference between predicted grades at GCSE and target. I don't even care what the 2 mean. At parents evening I just ask : is he behaving, is he doing ok. If yes, that's all I need to know.

That is terrible though sticking less academically able kids, who might well be timid/shy well behaved with disruptive kids. It stinks of just wrong them off. Common sense would say these two groups are probably the least suitable to be mixed, this is really letting kids down. This group of kids need extra support not competing for attention with kids with behavioural issues. I’m horrified at this!

Writing them off rather

OMG12

I think you are slightly misunderstanding the situation. The children are all of a similar ability however it often works out that the badly behaved children do not perform well in the same way as low ability children so they end up in bottom sets. its obviously not ideal and many schools try to put the brighter disruptive kids in classes above their ability to limit impact and hope the class will pull them up.
However, I’m sure you understand that children with very low reading and writing levels will often be taught together regardless of differing behaviours - which does make more sense than putting a Grade 9 English student with a child who is reading at the level of a 6 year old because they are both well behaved.