To home educate for year six only

[chocolatefiends]

Has anyone else done this? How did it go?

My DC's school has been great for our family so far and our kids are very happy there, but every year all the Year Six kids seem really fed up until their SATS are over. As far as I can tell, all they do, for most of the year, is practice/revise for SATS. Which feels like an awful way to spend a year of your life when you're 10/11.

Should we just take our kids out of school for Year Six and home educate them? Then let them start Year Seven in secondary school as normal.

What might the pros and cons of this be?

Thanks in advance.

YANBU: home educate for Yr 6
YABU: keep them in school for Yr 6

No guarantee on that. None of my kids have been to secondary school with primary friends. It's no big deal

It's basically what happened to mine due to COVID. Front line worker who saw little positives in COVID. But was was my year six kid missing sats and having a lovely summer break with their dad who was furloughed before high school slog. Lovely time in fairness less ideal circumstances than you ll be doing it in

It also slightly depends what the home schooling will look like. Being mostly at home alone with your mother doing worksheets, away from peer social interaction, sport, drama, a good art room etc doesn't sound much more fun than having all the above but also doing SATs. Sailing round the world style home school maybe, but that probably isn't on the cards. Also, do you have other children? How is that dynamic going to work, as you get them up and out to school every morning, with their sib staying home?

Tbh I think this is one of those ideas that crops up over a coffee moan about SATs - "I know - we could just take them out that year!"- but which doesn't really make sense when thought through properly.

A child’s experience of Year 6 is as much to do with the parents attitude as it is about how the school deals with it. Parents who see it as something to be got through alongside what can be the many positive experiences of being in Y6 are imo more likely to have children who take the experience as what it is and enjoy being with their friends, being the oldest in the school, sharing the privileges of Y6, anticipating and enjoying the end of year activities, residential, leavers sweat shirts, leavers assemblies, autograph books etc etc. Most schools I know seem to have got the balance pretty well sorted.

Don’t some secondary schools use SATS results to work out sets for core subjects?

The last year is a big meh educational wise once the 11+ and SATs are done, however ours did do some learning for the year above; so for example they read Holes and did some extra maths which they would be learning in Y7. It was a change of pace and a lot of the kids who had been hot-housed for 11+ did seem quite frustrated, but most of them enjoyed having less intensity. I think there were possibly a few extra friendship dramas when the results came out and some of the 11+ close misses found it very hard as some of the girls in particular became quite precious about only playing with girls who got in. I think it is good to keep them in the social environment though as the social skills are what they will be relying on in their first year at a new school.

Ours are all tested again about three weeks in to secondary school. This is to identify any learning needs and put in sets. Then, they are tested at the end of every topic and the end of every school year. They are in a private school so no SATS but they have had formal tests in English, Maths and Science every summer since year 3. And plenty of fun around this, off timetable weeks, trips etc They learn to take these things in their stride, and that hard work is it's own reward, but also that there is a cycle of work and fun that repeats throughout life.

Do they do an end of year show? Have trips? Our year six does some great topics after SATs and have lots of fun. They also cover things like Shakespeare and do tonnes of sport.

But what about all the fun stuff in year 6 they’ll miss?

Yes sats are crap but they miss the Leavers hoodies (and yes they all want one), the transition visits with their friends to secondary school and meeting their new form tutor as a group. The year 6 play/party/disco/residential. Ours has a big party in the school field after school, with all the parents and children it was great! Why would you want them to not take part in all that? Sats is only a part of it.

SATS are a very small part of year 6. They would miss out on so much because you don't want them to be a little bit pressured for a few weeks? Mad.

A relative did this with his kid (not because he was anti-SATS particularly, but for other reasons related to moving house). In that instance he didn't do a very good job and she was behind by the time she started Year 7 and basically didn't socialise for a year. So I think it really depends on your home schooling plans, tapping into networks etc. And probably buying in some tutoring/online teaching if you're not up to teaching Year 6 English/Maths etc.

I think there are some nice rites of passage at the end of Year 6 and it's a memorable step for a lot of children. Does that outweigh the stress of SATS, though?

It really depends on the school. In some Y6 is just purely, miserable SATs preparation. It wasn't at my DD's school. They did do lots of SATs prep but also still lots of trips, outdoor learning, fun and games.

It's like some high schools are miserable places but DD's (now Y7) still does loads of fun activities.

Year 6 was my daughter's favourite year! The school really downplayed all of the SATs stuff, so she never really stressed about it. She loved being at the "top" of the school, and buzzed about, visiting teachers from previous years, and generally making a nuisance of herself (not in a bad way). She was confident, happy, and had great friends. Year 7, on the other hand, has so far been an unmitigated disaster!

I have a yr 6 child currently and 2 older teens. I personally wouldn't for loads of reasons. Friendships are very important at this age, there is lots of growing up to do in yr 6 and its much easier done when you are seeing everyone every day at school. Your DC would miss all the leavers do's, levers trip, leaver's play, leaver's hoody, days out etc that seem to have become rites of passage for kids these days. My older teen still has her primary leavers hoody and her signed school shirt, my yr 6 DS wears his leavers hoody at every opportunity.
It is already a huge jump from yr 6 to yr 7, if a kid has been out for a year I think that might be even more daunting.
I do also agree that whilst SATs are a pain, they are part of school life and I worry about the resilience we are teaching our children when we pick and choose the bits we will attend the bits we won't. There is a massive attendance problem in schools at present for a myriad of reasons but I don't think it helps that kids my kids age have seen that it is possible to miss school for prolonged periods during covid. I think we need to somehow come back to the idea that, in general, we have to go to school/work and do all the bits even the bits we find tough/make us anxious.
Disclaimer I am very pro home schooling in general if that is what you want to do, I think kids get a lot from it but I don't think I'd do it for just the one year and then send them back (unless we were travelling or something) and if I did I wouldn't pick that important transition year.

You won't run the same sort of timetable as a secondary school. And 60-100 small kids in a queue for lunch is lot different to 350 including a good proportion of them nearing six foot tall.

Check with the secondary schools whether they use SAT for streaming. Some do. Also bear in mind that he'll be out of the social scene for a whole year. Not necessarily a good thing.

We didn't stress about them at home. We said it was about the school not them. Made sure out of school time was lots of fun activities.
You could join the party most likely to beat the conservatives locally at the next election and then your younger DC might not need to have year 6 all about sats.
There was a lot of movement in the maths/English sets once they got to high school as it was clear the sats results didn't reflect ability. Other subjects weren't set until year 8. I think they would have missed out on friendships if they had missed the year and would have made them feel abit odd

They should still be doing a full curriculum so I would check with the school. Mornings are usually core subjects so maths and English then the afternoons are all the other subjects.

When they start secondary they will do CATs to determine their levels, then they will do end of topic tests to ensure they understood what they are being taught. They are tested all through primary you just don't know about it.

Don't take them out it is 4 days where they do SATs and there is a real bonding with children talking about them afterwards, an achievement they all went through. Then all the fun stuff begins. Leavers' hoodies, the play, the ice cream van and playing out on the field. They still do learn about new things but the pressure is now off.

SATs aren’t like GCSEs though because they don’t impact on your future job prospects and uni entry. It’s exam practice and not the end of the world if they don’t get top marks so just drill that into them. The vast majority of other kids cope fine so unless your kids are neurodivergent or have MH issues I think it’s a really bad idea and sets a bad example. You’re basically saying they can have a lazy year at home to avoid doing boring stuff.
And while you might be able to maintain a bit of a friendship link I wouldn’t be so confident that their friendships won’t actually be pretty much wiped out. Their classmates will be forming strong bonds during school time and will in time forget about your DC - it happens every time people move away and swear blind they will keep in touch.
Don’t do it.

Friendships definitely won’t be the same because they’ll all be talking about what they’re up to at school.

Thanks for all the messages. It's given me lots of food for thought and brought up lots of things I hadn't considered, in both directions.

As someone who has actually done this, I can tell you if you’re thinking about it, then do it!

My DD loved the Sats, found them easy and then was bored as the next few months were going to be spent catching others up who were behind!

I deregistered her, at her request, and home educated her. She loved every minute, being able to spend longer studying topics and subjects she enjoyed, completing art work with no buzzer telling her to stop, finding subjects such as marine biology and criminology she could study instead of others she found a lot less interesting.

she went back in year 7, but found it so boring, back in the 4 walls, being told what subjects she should study, have length of trousers checked, being told to wear a blazer, by someone in a blouse, when too warm… those few months out, she had learnt to think more for herself, make more informed choices, instead of just doing as told, aimlessly…

6 months in, she asked to deregister again and never looked back! She kept in contact with her schooled friends for years, meeting up, hanging out, had new home educated friends, socialised with all ages not just her peer group, as went to skating and gym clubs so had something in common with the attendees of every age….

10 years down the line, she is a well rounded, successful, confident member of society, who is so thankful she was listened to. Do it, you won’t regret it, and these days there’s soooo much available in terms of online tuition, and 10’s of 100’000s more in the same fortunate position.

Both my Dc were in private school for year 6 so no SATS. So there’s the private school option to swerve SATS or otherwise just focusing on the fun bits of year six and create a low stress environment at home so that sats aren’t a big deal.

I think home schooling for a year would be really tough for friendships - my dc are still friends with some year 6 friends even through they are at different schools.

Thanks for this. Do you mean you deregistered in May once SATS were done? Or sooner because she already undestood the SATs work?

Yes - I was thinking that my older DC might really appreciate the opportunity to study subjects of her choosing, for a year anyway, and be able to go into as much depth as she chooses. Just like you're saying with marine biology and criminology for your DD.

I think a lot of posters here have assumed we would be doing worksheets on our own in a lonely, isolated manner and sitting on phones or in our rooms and having no structure or timetable at all. And that's understandable as I didn't explain in my first post what my idea of home ed might involve (partially because I'm not 100% sure yet!) and the lockdowns were like that for a lot of us because it was just forced on us at no notice. But I was actually thinking more like you're describing.

Not thought of private. We definitely couldn't afford private for more than one year - so I think we'd be switching them to private then switching them back to state a year later. Although they'd be moving schools at that point anyway to go to secondary so perhaps that's not so bad.

I like the idea a few people have raised of possibly leaving them in school for Yr 6 but making home really low stress for that year.

Interestingly I didn't keep in touch with any Yr 6 friends who went on to different schools. But it sounds like others do. They would almost certainly end up in Yr 7 with most of the people they had been in Yr 5 with - most kids at their school transfer to the same secondary. But, as people have said, friendship dynamics could have changed a lot in the year they weren't there.