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?

It's not normal in our Primary. Yes, they do some practice SATs and this is increased as they get closer- but certainly not every afternoon. The rest of the curriculum still has to be covered.

Yes, it's a disgrace. Then they'll get overinflated GCSE predictions and have extra pressure but across 9 subjects instead of 2!

You should check with the secondary school if they use the SATs results for streaming. I live in a grammar school area where children who do not pass the 11+ either go to the local upper school or an independent school. Around 10 years ago DD sat and didn't pass the 11+ exam and attended the excellent local upper school. Her Y6 SATs results determined which of the three streams she went into.

The issue is that parents like the school data. We like knowing what percentage of children pass their SATs at primary, or the Progress 8 and Attainment 8 scores at secondary along side the passing Mathd and English percentage. Its how a school is judged. (Like the one word Ofsted judgments!)

But for the data to exists, the children need to sit the tests and then the pressure is on for the school to maximise the results.

Its a vicious circle.

My ds had this last year. It was awful. He really didn't enjoy year 6 because of it. If I had another child, I would withdraw them from the sats. Interestingly, his year 7 tutor teacher doesn't agree with them.

Yup my dd pretty much did English and Maths all last year and found it extremely tedious. It’s not really coaching though, just that the teaching was pretty poor and needs a lot of going over to ensure it’s understood. The school did worse than average anyway. The results (my dd scored expected for maths but higher end) got her into top set in her 8 form entry secondary with no other testing but they aren’t set for English until year 8. She has a minimum expectation of grade 6 for GCSE (based only on SATs score) but it won’t be an over estimate, I’d expect her to score a lot higher as she’s very bright but the primary teaching was poor. She’s already covered 2 topics that her teacher says should have been done in primary but weren’t.

Revising and preparing for an exam is essential in later years, mine revised all through secondary and got mostly 7,8 and 9 in GCSE. What is wrong is telling 10 and 11 year olds that sats determine your future sets for secondary when secondarys constantly monitor progress and adjust sets when needed. It's pointless putting that pressure on such young children.

Ds is in y6 and it's not like this for him. Yes they are doing past Sats papers as part of English and Maths but no extra revision sessions have been put on outside school hours, normal curriculum and lessons with topic work are still going on. No pressure is being put on at all. This week is book week so everything is themed to a particular book- no Sats prep at all going on. The school normally get best Sats results in the area and all the secondaries we have looked at have confirmed they will not set based on Sats results.

We got an 'invitation' to put our Year 6 child in for extra tutoring after school once a week. He's neurodiverse and has a hard enough time coping with school in the first place, so there's absolutely no way I'm going to pressurise him to participate.

I used to be a secondary English teacher back in the day when we did Year 9 SATS, they are a massive waste of time and add nothing to a child's education.

Lots of secondary schools will set or stream on the basis of SATS.

To be honest, my perception was that SATS marking has been very inconsistent and uneven over the years. Every school I taught in generally did teacher assessments in the Autumn term of year 7 and also used that as an indicator for future setting. SATS are not the be all and end all.

It depends on the school - our kids were not offered out of school lessons but they did a lot in school. Schools and teachers like to have good SATS results. Our children had already had out of school private lessons for grammar school entry as our local comp was in special measures - so coincidentally did very well in SATS tests and their maths teacher in particular was apparently overwhelmed with joy as I guess it made him look good. He was a good teacher anyway but it was likely the year of extra maths lessons for grammar school which helped the most.

Well, having had two kids go through the secondary school system it seems that they are very important. Yes, people will tell you that the results only inform the initial setting and that children will be shuffled into their groups following some y7 tests but actually there is very little movement. So, either the Sats are very accurate or schools aren't very motivated to support a large and presumably chaotic overhaul of class shifting.

Unfortunately it will be true.
It's just so crap.
Many schools do special revision sessions during the Easter holidays - which are "voluntary" to attend but if you don't send your child you are made to feel like you are"letting them down".

Our Year 6 DC has been doing practice weekly SATs tests since September.

Homework is SATs practice every weekend (a mock test sheet) if they don’t do it they miss break time.

Their afterschool club for Year 6 is SATs practice and nothing else available.

…… and we’ve been told that the children are set maths groups in Year 7 based on their Year 6 SATs result.

So yes, I think your DD is reporting honestly.

it’s a bit much though…

@DreamingforSoCal do all the children go to up to the same secondary school?
Because "they use it to set in Yr 7" is going to vary from school to school.

Oh yes, it’s drill time now until SATs. Our primary drilled them every day from January to May, then sent out a letter saying “don’t stress, none of this matters, just be kind”. Kind of hypocritical!!

Yeah they do! We only have one secondary near us

Very tempted to pull my daughter out of sats and it's total bollocks.

Exactly. Our local secondary doesn’t even set until year 9.

I have two in high school - the eldest is year 11 so the year that didn’t do them and they are all just fine with their gcse prep - admittedly she is at a grammar but has many friends who aren’t as none of them are struggling due to missing it.

the English is frankly full of stuff that you won’t come across pretty much from the moment you start secondary school and the maths drills are such that you learn by rote

it caused DS issues and a lot of them fell out of learning - then the summer half term was just pointless

plus high schools around me are moving away from streaming to begin with and seeing how it goes

Some of the schools in my hometown have less than 20% of pupils passing English and maths at grade 5. This is staggering given that passing these core subjects provides young people with a chance to move onto further education and often career and work opportunities which will set them up for life. Poor spelling and grammar on job applications will often mean that young people won't get interviews and restricts their prospects. SATS at Y6 can be a good time to focus on raising standards so that children have future life opportunities available to them, although this should be balanced with looking after the 'whole child' of course.

@DreamingforSoCal oh so it's probably true in your case.
Where I am the class of 30 probably went to about 12 different secondary schools - so it's a bit different 🙂

Teaching the kids these skills throughout primary and regular teacher assesments, not including tests, teaches them these skills not a test (sats) in year 6.

That’s an appalling stat. And one that shows that just trying to cram the information in in year 6 for the purpose of passing an exam isn’t working to raise standards.

I'm the wrong person to comment on this topic really, as SATs were the beginning of the end for my (autistic) DD in mainstream education. Don't get me wrong, she'd always struggled with school, even since her nursery/preschool days. But from January of Year 6 her anxiety about school was through the roof and we reached the point where we literally couldn't get her into the building. I wasn't strong enough by then to physically pick her up and carry her against her will - and by age 11 it felt more like abuse than good parenting anyway. She hasn't been in mainstream education since then, and she's 14 (Year 9) now.

Anyway... the thing that tipped her over the edge, the thing that made the school environment go from traumatic and almost unbearable to completely unbearable, was the pressure of SATs. The teachers were stressed, they were piling pressure on the kids, and everyone felt it. The kids who were usually chilled out were telling their parents that the teachers were stressy. The kids who usually loved going to school weren't enjoying it. And, for my kid - who is highly pressure sensitive and genuinely interprets a slightly stressed tone of voice as being 'shouted at' - it was just too much.

I know that kids aiming to sit GCSEs at age 16 need to get exam practice etc in at some point. That's not the problem. It's the level of pressure that's completely toxic, and being placed on kids who are only 10 or 11. Whether the teachers intend that or not, TBH - if they're stressed, as one of my DD's was, the kids are going to pick up on it. Everyone needs to calm down about SATs as a whole - they're just a few tests after all, and while all kids should be encouraged to do their best they absolutely don't need constant pressure in the run up. And they don't need telling that their SATs outcomes could affect their whole future. Personally I think it's absolutely batshit that the scores on tests taken at age 10/11 are used in some way to predict GCSE results. It's madness!