To be furious with school

[Margot78]

My child was very poorly this morning- sore throat, temperature and had been up most of last night. She had her SATs test due this morning but was zonked out so I explained to school that she was just too poorly to sit a test today. I was then bombarded with unpleasant calls from both her teacher and the headteacher demanding that I force her to come in. They implied that I didn’t care about her education and they said she would not be able to resit it and would get a zero. They just wouldn’t leave me alone. So I ended up dragging a sobbing child out of bed, forcing her to get dressed and get in the car. She took the test and then I picked her up. I know schools are under a lot of pressure but does that really excuse this kind of behaviour? Surely something is wrong with the system if this is acceptable, putting this amount of pressure on parents and children?

I honestly think you are more disappointed with yourself than the school. Sorry but you didn't put her needs first.

Tests are really used purely for government statistics, and can initiate an ofsted inspection if poor.

Primary schools also produced teacher assessment based on set criteria but the government dont trust them which is why we have the standardised set score of SATs

Secondary schools rarely use them to group children, they usually do their own testing once kids are in school, and quite often y7 children are not grouped academically, but remain in their tutor group for lessons.

My ds didn't sit his sats. I can't recall the reason now.

It's never been mentioned since and he will be 18 this year and he's at college

Just tell them she's poorly and will
Not be leaving the house. Your poor daughter. Stand up for her.

The current Year 9 didn't do them because of Covid.

You shouldn’t have taken her. She won’t have performed to the best of her ability….

Your poor child! Why do that to her? You are putting the teachers before her

I voted YABU but only because I think you were mad to bow down to pressure and take her in!

I reckon your DD is bright and they need her score to raise the average of the class. My son broke his leg the day before his SATs - he was told he had to go in.

Thé system is f*cked. Don't stand for it. Neither of my kids have stats results and are better for it.

Awful system, I have no idea why the sats still happen. Ds didn't sit them as he was ill, he's about to leave college this year and it's never been a problem or even mentioned. It was ridiculous at the time, ds had just been discharged from hospital, was on morphine, and the head still rang me demanding I take him in!

She said the child had won an attendance award the previous year

They manage to sort these things if child comes from a private school that doesn't do SATS or comes from abroad

I'm pretty sure that CAT tests are the ones that some schools used which are used for targetting setting in future years. Not SATS.

Some schools use CAT tests as well, but the government will measure schools' effectiveness on the basis of projections based on SATS.

This was all totally unnecessary as the school can arrange a timetable variation. I would complain.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/key-stage-2-tests-varying-the-test-timetable#pupil-absence-on-scheduled-test-days

What's her attendance like in general? You must be exaggerating her symptoms; if she were really ill the school would have taken one look at her and sent her home. I think there is more to this story, and it involves you keeping her off far too often. The staff clearly know this.

This is fantastic for your daughter - but the original post you’re disagreeing with was broadly correct, in that KS2 scores do set external targets for schools (schools can set their own higher ones if they wish). Look up Progress 8. Secondaries are measured on the progress children make from KS2 to 4, and if your daughter had low KS2 scores then her P8 targets would have been much lower. She will make a very positive contribution toward’s the school’s P8 scores if she gets 7+, so they’ll be especially pleased.

OPs child is 10/11 not 16 and GCSEs are not comparable to SATs.

Why did you take her in? You can be annoyed with the school but you’re the one who forced your child to go. The school can’t do anything if you don’t take your child in because they’re sick. They’re not the police! All that said, I would be making a formal complaint about the whole situation to the school governors, the LEA and Ofsted. Their conduct, if true, was completely unacceptable. You’ve also done your child a huge disservice as they will likely have scored less than they would when well, meaning wrong sets at secondary etc. It’s a real shame you didn’t stick up for your child and allowed yourself to be bullied.

But that isn't the child's problem.

This happened to me in year six, I was very ill, sickness and the other one and I was in the bath because I'd made much a mess and my teachers knocked on the door to collect me for my Sat's. fair enough if it's gcses but I was 10 and was top of the class anyway.

Although it was funny to see my teacher when I was in the bath, i saw her up the highstreet as an adult and couldn't look her in the eye!

oops and that was early 2000s so they've been mental about it for years.
my own mother tried to refuse but they asked me (I the bath!) and I was too scared of getting told off to say no.

But my school was lovely, they are probably pressured into it. who cares though? it's sats

You're confusing targets within school and targets used by government to assess schools ability to teach effectively.

Schools use all sorts of methods to assess the ability of individual children and work out which sets and class they should be in. Twas ever thus.

SATs data is used, along with other measures, to track which schools are maintaining progress.

Most of the time, the impact of SATs data will be invisible to families.

However, if your child should be doing better than they currently are based on data predictions which will include SATs data, the school may put in more resources or extra support to boost your child.

The point here is, when people say SATs have zero impact on the child. That isn't strictly true. It isn't a massive impact but it isn't correct to say zero either.

100 times this!

I got told by DD last night, "Jack (name changed) hasn't done any of these SATs cos he's been in hospital all week... dunno what he's got - a-pen-ducitis or something - I think he swallowed a pen lid to get out of doing all the Maths."

Further clarification revealed that Jack has in fact got appendicitis and no stationery was involved in his hospital admission.