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

My daughter didn't do them due to being in year 6 through lockdown and then a messed up start into y7. She has done fine and the school has put her into the expected groups based on her ability without a problem. The results of SATS did follow my older daughter through school as a marker for progress but jumped levels when she proved she was good at subjects.

‘I'm afraid SATs results stay with them as they use them to predict GCSE results ‘

That absolutely staggers me given the change in circumstances for many kids between the age of 10/11 and 14+ -
what if their primary wasn’t very good? Or they had disruption with teachers changing that year? Or they were ill a lot? Or their family circumstances were disruptive - ill parent/s, divorcing parents, had to go live with grandma? Had to change school?
Or parents decided to tutor for the SATs?

I give these examples as they’re all real world examples of friends and acquaintances

No other isn't.

No-one in history has asked for someone's year 6 SAT results for a job in adult hood.

Its mainly for the school as another poster said.

Those that didn't take them in lockdown haven't been affected.

Again, I know DD secondary isn’t overly interested in SATs. It’s mixed ability classes for everything til at least the end of October half term and then flexible after that.
Her DS has been there 2 years and has been moved up 3 x in subjects

‘and letting her have an 11pm bedtime unless the audition is the final stage for something life changing.’

possibly. Certainly inspirational.

My daughter is currently in secondary school and unfortunately all classes via the top set are very disruptive with standard to poor results, top sets do amazingly well and are full so you’ve got to work hard to keep your space.

Her teacher might have been telling her the truth for your area after having kids at secondary or hearing stories about it…. It’s that simple.

So SATS are very important they will put your child with children of similar abilities even if it’s reassessed. In the first few months all the kids make new friends so getting good results from SATS will without a doubt put them in a better position starting secondary school.

Well it’s one of the ways the government measures how well schools do. At whole cohort level there is probably some relationship. At individual level it is totally meaningless however.

The primary curriculum is narrow, highly predictive and dull. Compliant linguistic types tend to overachieve but a lot of other kids find it boring and restrictive.

I think a lot of people are trying to put whole school measured into individuals. Probably some not very good schools do that too. They definitely do move kids up and down sets at the school dd2 is going to - baffled by the person who said that never happens!

The school is dreadful if that’s really the case.

Their SAT results do stay with them all their school live. My son is year 7 (with two older sisters who as they have big age gaps all did different versions of SATS) and his grade predictions are all generated from his year 6 SATS. Whilst they are tested regularly and movement is made I think it is harder to move sets than to have been put in them initially - though this is only a gut feeling. I think the head is very wrong but it’s hard to exactly say they don’t matter when they follow you through school. My middle child revised for her SATS, did lots of past papers and got put in to the level 6 papers (in the days when 4b was the grade they were striving for) and consequently unnaturally inflated her grade meaning that she went though school with all 8/9 predictions which sometimes were hard to meet, so they do affect your future grade predictions that appear on reports with a comparison to where you are now.

they’ll be put with the disruptive, badly behaved kids in ‘big’ school

What a horrible thing for the teacher to say. I’ve taught some absolutely lovely bottom/lower sets and some “disruptive, badly behaved” kids who were incredibly bright and in higher sets. And what about the children who are doing their best but simply aren’t going to achieve highly; how is this going to make them feel?

It’s possible the school would organise sets based on SATS results in year 7 but they would quickly move a child who was clearly in the wrong set.

Like most things in life they're a measure at the moment and count only at that time. But they do count.

Saying they're disruptive classes etc in senior school is sadly true - some kids shouldn't educated the same as others because they're not academic.I let's hope the school has things in place. I used to be jealous of those kids in my school because they went to work places to gain experience, had people from business come talk to them and did classes about skills (1980's has been classed outstanding school since metrics came in), whilst we were grinding away for Os and As. Admittedly, most of the 6th form went to uni but some practical experience of tge world of business would have helped.

They are used as a predictor of GCSE grades. Worked in my daughters favour as her reports are all exceeding expected target which gives her a boost. It's all nonsense and they are moved about sets depending on progress

@TheNefariousOrange how does your school decide on sets for children who didn't take SATS (ie coming from a private primary)?
How do you know if a child is "gifted and talented" at music/art/sport etc when these aren't tested at SATS ?

Unfortunately SATS do matter. I wish they didn't, but they are what secondary schools use as their baseline. Having said this, of course children can change sets based on how they perform in termly and end of year assessments.

My DC are at different secondaries. One school prints the SATs results at the top of every termly report - even now in Y10 - and they have this ridiculous thing called professionally predicated GCSE results which seems to be some algorithm that the SATs feed into which you get right from Y7. It's like your destiny is set already.

My other DC didn't do SATs because of covid and they take her as she comes. Reports are based on how she is actually doing in class. She was considered mid range to weak at maths in primary and was taken out of class for extra small class teaching. She is now in the top set for maths at secondary and doing well. I do wonder how a mid/poor SATs result might have prevented that outcome.

In summary SATs are stressful nonsense and no good comes of them IMO!

DS went to the local comp that has bad results overall. He was in top set for everything and his friends and him all got good A level results. They were initially put in sets using SATS and then took a further test after a couple of months and there was a little bit of shuffling. The lower sets were disruptive.

The results are for the school only - secondary schools haven’t the time or inclination to check out all the SATs results - your allocation of schools in the uk is based on distance. A local school to me was pressuring parents to send kids in every morning over a week at Easter.
It’s obviously the schools are under pressure from whoever to show “performance results” probably similar to OFSTED. Who’d be a teacher!!!

They go where there's space or a middle set.
Our G&T programme is academic subjects only and it is 100% done on SATs scores. Is it perfect, no, but the OP asked what the impact could be and this is one thing schools do.

That teacher is bonkers. What she means is if the young children don’t get sufficiently scared to make the school look good the head teacher will get stressed. She’s selling kids mental health up the river!

our HT said to the kids not to worry about it, it’s testing the school not the kids snd she’s very proud of them because she knows they will all try their best. Testing at this age really annoys me. I left a great primary low average left a shit secondary with the top A levels in the year.

Luckily our secondary doesn’t stream in first year

Where I am the SATs have 2 uses.

1. for the school - some parents look at SATs results when choosing schools.
2. they are used as a benchmark for the child. In our secondary , kids aren’t setted when they start, and are only put into sets from the second term onwards , so the SATs have no bearing on what set they’re in. But, the SATs result is used to plot the expected achievement of the child, and the secondary school is expected to keep them on that trajectory.

As others have said, it is a benchmark to judge what to expect at KS4 results, so matters to secondary schools in that sense. I would be very unhappy if that was actually what the teacher said.

It’s amazing how many mumsnetter’s kids go to really bad schools with very serious behaviour problems that don’t affect top sets at all.

In most schools the lower sets will have more challenging kids, but this is managed effectively most of the time. Sometimes bottom sets can actually be the easiest depending on who is in them especially if they are smaller. Middle can be more challenging ime.

But kids need to be in the right sets for them.

Sometimes top sets can be tricky as there is sometimes arrogance from the kids. Particularly in challenging schools where most of the kids wouldn’t even be in top set elsewhere.

Yes and no. My daughter is doing hers too and she will be streamed using the results. The secondary will then move children around in the first term, as they get to know the children’s abilities themselves.

Every day when I ask my daughter how it went, she says it’s a mixed bag. My daughter is a mixed bag academically and I think her results will mostly match her abilities, if I’m honest.

I have encouraged my daughter to revise a little but to be calm about the exams and she very much is. I have also told her there will be no revision the night before the exam itself. Just a healthy dinner and an early night. I do not think SATs are very important but, I do think it’s a good opportunity to set her up with healthy exam habits before secondary school.

In the grand scheme of things, no they don't matter but they definitely help to determine initial sets for maths and English in secondary school. I have a very clever, but lazy boy and I want him to get into the higher sets from the beginning as I think he's more likely to work hard and remain there IYSWIM.

It’s wrong to state this categorically. Secondary schools vary, and our local schools don’t set the kids at all at the start. It’s totally random. Then after the first term they set them for maths. Then in year 8 they set them for science. They are never setted for English, history, geography, RE, D&T, computing, drama, music etc.