Is this normal for Year 6 re: sats?

[TweezerMay]

My dd is my first child so I haven’t experienced this before, so don’t know if this is standard for all primaries.

DD came home today and said that from now until the tests, every afternoon is given over to sats preparation. I’m taking it with a pinch of salt because she could have got the wrong end of the stick, but is this really what happens in year 6? They’re already doing (voluntary but encouraged) after school sats sessions and we’ve had meetings about stuff they’ll be expected to do as homework and what books to get.

They’re ten and eleven years old! It’s a middle of the road primary, not high achieving or anything. AIBU to think cramming it in at the loss of other subjects and making it the be-all and end-all is a bit crap?

Welcome to wonderful world of Sats. Unfortunately, (due to league tables) most schools do move to preparing Year 6 for the upcoming Sats. Some familiarisation is good and it means they will not panic on the day but yes the Year 6 curriculum stagnates until Sats are over. Then depending on your school, some go buck wild when Sats are over and you are counting down the time until they leave.

Just keep an eye on your DC and watch them for signs of stress, it can happen.

It's rubbish but it probably is what is happening.

My advice, it might be right. The reason is this has eff all to do with your child and everything to do with how the school is "marked".

Don't put your DC under any pressure, the sats don't matter at all to your child.

Not as extreme as that, but DS is getting similar.

It’s ridiculous.

Year 6 is shit, it mainly involves cramming for SATS. It doesn’t do any of the kids any favours.

Two kids through primary. And I wojld say your daughter has reported it faithfully. Makes y6 so dull.

Has she also been sent home with the cgp workbooks?

As a Y6 teacher, I don't recognise this at all. We don't do before/after school "boosters" and we always teach a full curriculum across the year - you wouldn't get through everything you need to cover if you didn't!

I can completely appreciate that some parents have had this experience with their child's school but, in my opinion, it's just not necessary and I would say something.

I would pick up on what a PP said though about SATs results not mattering to the child. That's untrue: they can have quite a significant impact on your child's secondary school journey, the expectations of them, the opportunities or support they have available to them, etc. It's just that this is often discussed in meetings between school leadership rather than openly in front of parents and students.

It doesn't bother me because this is how children succeed in our educational system, to get good GCSEs and A levels they need to learn to test well, like it or not.

I don't see SATs as just being for the school's benefit, our secondary school uses them to set them in Y7 so I want my son to do as well as he can to get into the highest set he can because the stark truth of it is that the lower set, the worse the behaviour is. So it's not a wasted effort and it's the way the cookie crumbles here.

It bothers me because my extremely bright, engaged, motivated daughter who has been ‘exceeding expectations’ throughout primary school is now bored out of her mind and hates going to school.

I have a ds in y6. We don't have anything that intensive yet. I know that they are working towards them and that they have been doing past papers here and there but they haven't made a big deal of it.

My DC’s primary school said there are schools that do this. Their school however starts booster sessions before school after half term - they get a biscuit and do their SATs prep then. They can do extra homework instead if they don’t go but most children do. They actually quite enjoy the time in school when there’s just Y6 there and the staff point out it’s good preparation for next year when they will need to be up and out earlier to get to secondary school. It’s a trade off for them continuing to run a full timetable including art, music etc all year long. It’s a very child-centred school which is why they do it that way.

It bothers me because my extremely bright, engaged, motivated daughter who has been ‘exceeding expectations’ throughout primary school is now bored out of her mind and hates going to school.

Well your marvellous exceeding expectations child is in the minority and isn't most children, when you use state education it has to factor in the majority. Mine isn't at that stage yet, but I will tell him what I told my eldest, it's a small part of his whole school career and he's got a fun summer term to look forward to, that's how it worked for me, and my eldest child. Suck it up buttercup essentially, or change schools that have a more relaxed approach.

That's not quite true is it ? Lots of secondary schools will set or stream on the basis of SATS.

And we wonder why so many young people are suffering with anxiety etc! I just told my DD that the sats were not the be all and end all and as long as she did her best it didn’t matter. They use the results to stream them in year 7 but usually have a shuffle round by the second term anyway.

Decent secondaries know that SATs results are a load of bilge. You get children coming in with different levels of being coached to pass a narrowly focused test. The more over-coaching to pass, the more inflated the grade, the lower the general knowledge and the harder it is to demonstrate "progress" in both the core subjects that were tested, and worse, the foundation subjects where predictions are based on those core subjects. Quite how identifying and using a fronted adverbial in y6 transfers to skill and knowledge in computer science, languages, art or humanities takes rather a leap of imagination.

Sensible secondaries will set on their own assessments, and may not set straight away. The risk of early setting is that it can reduce fluidity and makes it harder for later developers to move up.

My two are dyslexic and measuring their knowledge by their SPAG and using a co-ordinating conjunction is like measuring an elephant by its ability to climb. They were reminded that it's only a big issue to the school, and it's about measuring the school and not themselves.

They did go to the boosters offered because it's an inconvenient fact that this is the curriculum and these are the outcomes expected, and missing out on the expected knowledge does them no favours. DS2 went to tutoring, not so much for the SATs but because he needed support with some of his literacy skills (not helped by losing great chunks of y2 & y3 when his foundations were still incomplete) but now he's y7, it's more focused on getting him to be able to combine all these aspects of grammar and actually write fluent paragraphs which hasn't clicked together in school.

Secondarys might initially set this way but there's movement between sets all the way through secondary when teachers assese students. Just because you are coached in year 6 for sats it won't guarantee you a place in top set all the way through secondary. It's pointless for such young children and only causes stress.

From talking to all of her friend’s parents, it isn’t working for the majority either. They’re all unhappy with the approach taken by our school.

Yep unfortunately.

My son is in Year 6 and they are doing a lot of Prep work for the SATS. He’s a very bright boy and is just cracking in with it.

He knows that the SATS are the main decider in determining what grade of class he is put in when he goes to secondary school (top, middle or bottom set etc) and he knows the impact that decision can have on the rest of his schooling. He wants to be in the top set and so he’s embracing all the prep work and the class are currently doing past exam papers as part of this preparation.

As another poster said, it’ a just what Y6 is about so “suck it up buttercup”. I’ve told my son that even if he is bored at times, it’s an extremely important year and he needs to just go with it and stay focused.

I have of course told her that it’s just the way it is, what else can you say? I can still think it’s shit though, and the majority of the parents in the class dislike the approach too.
She’s got a scholarship to an independent secondary so the streaming element isn’t relevant to her, so it is just a case of getting through it.

For those parents now worried about sets for secondary don't worry. Sats is not the be all and end all. There will be movement between sets every term for students that need moving. That includes kids that have been coached to pass sats. Don't worry and tell your children not to worry

I think it varies across schools. DD did sats last year and there was no homework and no after school sessions sessions. They did run extra maths and english lessons week during the school day leading up to the real exams and they did one round of practice papers. The school were keen not to apply pressure and made a point of telling the children that there are things that SATs can’t measure - their talents, strengths and personalities. In our case the sats were a bit irrelevant as DD is now at a grammar school and they haven’t used sats scores to put the children into sets as they don’t use sets until Y9.

Yes, normal unfortunately.

I absolutely loathe this attitude. The idea that revising or preparing for an exam is somehow cheating. In no other area do we have these strange ideas, if a child goes running 3 times a week to get faster is that cheating ? We all get better at things with practice and academic study is one of those things. How can it be a bad thing to teach children how to concentrate and study effectively. 11yo children have been taking exams in the country and in most of the world for the last 70 years.

Yep totally normal. They don't cover anything new in Y6 it's all consolidation of previous years learning, revision, previous tests etc. It's made me more panicky with subsequent children that if they seem in any way behind or not sure of a topic by mid y5 I'm worried as I know they are reaching the end of the "teaching" and soon move into the revision/going back over.