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

I agree it's a stupid thing to tell kids... hopefully she has paraphrased at least.

But at some schools Y6 is all about SATS. No one wants to be told that the thing they've been working on, almost full time, for months, is irrelevant and doesn't matter. I'd be pretty hurt if someone whose opinion I value told me the work project I'd been doing full time, for months, is irrelevant and pointless.

For some kids they are part of the story of identifying difficulties. That can be those who struggle in Y6, or those who fly through SATS and then "falling off the curve" later on. I have one child who did them and one who didn't, because of COVID, and the one who did them has been easier to secure support for.

Shocking thing for the head to say!. Poor kids must be so worried. Nothing like piling pressure on a ten/eleven year old who's already going to be nervous about high school.

My dd school pushed her hard through SATS. Extra lessons after school, loads of homework. And she did amazing in them. But what happened is her next school did use them grades to place her in top sets. And my dd couldn't maintain that level of work without the extra lessons and one to one sessions she was getting in primary. This lead to her getting quite bad anxiety and she felt a failure. I insisted they dropped her right down to take some pressure off and let her work up gradually. She then did much better.

I wish they'd get rid of SATS

@Gymrabbit your school sounds a bit bit shit if that’s the case! And I’m not just being defensive because I know for certain that DD secondary doesn’t do this … but to put kids in a set and leave them there based on literacy and numeracy results in year 6 seems absolutely lazy to me.
Ludicrous in fact. I have no doubt DD will be somewhere in the middle/ too-ish in results and I would hope that any primary school who had a good pupil who got ‘ poor’ SATs results would note that in the report that goes across with them to the new school.

A huge number of secondaries do cognitive ability tests in September, if not earlier. It's a lot more useful to see raw ability than seeing how well primary have taught to the test possibly cheated and covers all those who were absent.

Yanbu

Obviously it is in the Head's personal interests to make the y6s do their very best in SATs but the only thing really being tested is the quality of the school.

I think that it would be better if schools themselves were never allowed to know the individual SATs score of any given pupil. Primary schools could still be judged on the overall profile of SATs outcomes across all their pupils and comparisons made to the profile of the end-of KS1 phonics assessments might be relevant for assessing the quality of education delivered overall across KS2 but they don't need to know the individual scores of pupils who are leaving soon anyway.

Likewise the main function of y6 SATs results for senior schools should be for setting benchmarking for how much progress their students might make across KS3&KS4 but that would be better managed if the senior schools only had access to information that gave them a broad understanding of the overall cohort e.g. they have a higher than average proportion of kids who struggle with literacy etc, or the knowledge that 5% of their cohort has the potential to reach absolutely excellent results in maths with the right quality teaching, but without the capacity to label any given child as "expected" to get mostly 9s at GCSE, or "expected" to struggle.

Individual students could still have access to their scores, but with an expectation that it should be kept private and no one else has a right to know the number because it's none of their business.

Needmorelego

sorry, I don’t know as I’m not involved with the setting. However, there are normally only 1 or 2 who don’t have a SATs mark and at my school we certainly don’t have children who have gone private previously.
mistakes are made though. Last year I had a girl in my bottom set who I realised the first time I marked her book was very good at my subject so I insisted she was moved up. She is actually top 10 in the whole year so no idea what happened! I’m assuming she hadn’t done SATs…..

The head of year deffo said this - in fact DD didn’t tell me at first, cos she thought teacher was addressing ‘naughty’ boys not her anyway - it came via other parents and confirmed by DD.
All reports were a version of - ‘naughty kids, bottom sets’ which I assume teacher went with over saying something like ‘thick kids’

When my dd started secondary school the disruptive badly behaved kids were all in the top sets so that argument doesn't wash. Half of them were just too smart and bored. Personally I'm not a big fan of SATs as if they get top marks it just sets them up to feel like failures when they struggle to achieve the 8s and 9s predicted at GCSE.

They really don't matter at all. I feel sorry for primary schools though, they're obviously under a lot of pressure to get results. Neither of my DC did particularly well in SATs & it hasn't made any difference at secondary school.

Well it's ridiculous but that is exactly how they do it.
Target grades for all subjects are generated from ks2 sats.

The problem with letting your daughter have a late night is that if she underperforms in her sats due to this it could have knock on effects. She might miss out on the extra interventions in year 11 as she is already meeting or exceeding her targets (which are actually too low for her) or she might be excluded from taking triple science or being entered into higher tiers. Sats likely have some bearing in sets whatever the teachers say.

However, what the teacher said to them was outrageous.

This exactly. How a child performs at 11 is no measure of how they're going to perform in completely different subjects at 16. SATs determining GCSE grades is my bugbear. As another pp just said, it leaves kids feeling like they're forever underperforming.

My school use them to help inform setting and set GCSE targets, so they are important to some extent. But they are not the be all to end all. There is much more to life than SATs. The headteacher is wrong to worry the children in this way, they won’t gain anything from it and panicking them will only make things worse. And for the record, I teach a low ability year 7 class who are beautifully behaved. They’re a lovely class to teach, so the statement was wrong anyway.

Reading back over all the comments I can see why your education system is in disarray it really really seems to focus on assessment and streaming kids at such a young age, doesn't happen at all in Ireland. Kids go into secondary schools at age 12/13 (they are in primary school for 8 years and secondary for 5 or 6). They are generally in mixed ability form classes and do get divided up into higher or ordinary level in second year but only in English, Maths and Irish, this is based on how they have done in the subject throughout the year and is often in consultation with a parent and the child particularly if they are borderline. After Junior cert (our GCSE equivalent) they choose 7 subjects for Leaving cert (A Levels) and some of them are mixed ability some again divided into higher or ordinary but it is done subject to subject. so you can be higher level in one and ordinary in another, there is also option for Leaving cert applied which is more vocation based.
Your children seem to be streamed so young and there seems to be so much exam and assessment pressure at such a young age. When have they time to develop their confidence, self esteem, self discovery?

Eldest daughter didn't do SATs due to Covid. She also didn't do nearly as well as her peers in the cognitive abilities test that they took at the beginning of y7. However her school test and reset regularly and she's now top set for everything with marks way beyond her CAT score band average. So neither of those tests have really impacted her. If anything it's given her confidence that if she works hard she does well.

SATS are such bollocks. Ds has become so bored this year with endless practice papers. It’s all they’ve done. It really annoys me that so much focus is put on this when they could be learning new, interesting things that would motivate them so much more.

Well, some kids in the bottom sets will be there because they don't care about school and don't do a tap of work and want to mess about with their friends instead. Surely? Just like some will be there because they have issues, at home or otherwise, that prevent them working to their full potential. It's not all going to be diligent, hard-working, low-ability students now is it? It'll be a mix.
Still plenty of messers in the higher-abilty sets too btw and I don't think the year head should have said what she did.

This.

and what a way to scare all the year sixes about the transition. I’d be complaining.

‘However, what the teacher said to them was outrageous.’

Other parents complained to teacher/ head but honestly, I think the teacher is a very good teacher and everyone’s human…

Thing is, I could probably tell you right now what GCSEs DD will choose and how she’ll do in them, and this opp which will mean a late night ahead of testing the next day could be life changing.
or at the very least inspire DD in ways that school just can’t.

I would be furious it a teacher said that to one of my dc. My dc4 is in the bottom set as he has MLD. He's not disruptive and he's not naughty (although the ones who are disruptive often have undiagnosed or diagnosed but not supported SEN). There are many children in the bottom sets who are perfectly lovely people but just struggle with anything academic.

Our experience was that the secondary school my children went to kept students on the 'flight path' predicted by their SATS results.
Both my children did exceptionally well in their SATS due to the primary schools hothouse approach to SATS revision.
My children could not keep up the level they achieved at SATS and so were always reported as 'working below' throughout secondary school. Coupled with the pandemic, this had a devastating effect on both of them in terms of confidence and relationship to learning.
High school refused to deviate from the flight path apparently they (my DC) just weren't trying hard enough.

In your position, I would find out how your secondary school uses the SATS information and what they do if this is missing. I'd also find out what your primary school reports when there is no SATS info for a child. And then make your decision.
I believe it is possible to take SATS late, but you would need to work with your school to do this.

Mintmeanderings
You have contradicted yourself in your post. What you have basically said is there are messers in all sets which is true so again highlights how wrong the Head was in her claim they are just in the lower set.

That's a terrible message to send out. Sets are so that each child can work to their ability. Not good children and bad children, although top sets do tend to be easier to manage.

Maybe we have kids at the same school OP as we had the same message about the sats. I’ve downplayed it to DD.

I didn’t go to school here and find it so strange they even have sets, couldn’t believe they do it. Surely it’s better for everyone to have all mixed ability. Why should well behaving kids who struggle academically be put in lower sets that often includes the more disruptive kids?

It’s unbelievable, these kids then don’t get the chance to improve as they are marked as lower sets from the get go and also have the more difficult behaved children to top it off. I’m gobsmacked that we pigeonhole children so early on, they are only 11.

why can’t a teacher challenge the more academically minded kids in a mixed set classroom. None of the schools where I’m from, primary and secondary stream kids and apart from it benefiting a few of the higher achieving kids it doesn’t benefit the majority.

Not all schools use the flight path approach. Ours doesn't partly for the exact reasons you give here. I would definitely be against it as DD2 is very bright but not necessarily going to do great in SATs she's sitting this week. Thankfully the school she's going to does not use sats for initial form settings and does not use flight path approach. They liaise with the primary schools to discuss each student and then assess and move sets accordingly later on.