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?

My son started doing old SATS papers in September!!! They spent so much time doing old papers that they didn't actually have time to complete the maths curriculum.

Wow! That's a bit bonkers not to actually complete the maths curriculum!

My child is suffering extreme anxiety right now due to school constantly barking about SATs.
So much so they don't want to go to school.
Apparently soon they are each being taken to a room to have a private word one on one with their teacher to be told what they need to be focusing on.
My child has SEN and is genuinely scared and feared.
The school are saying things like "this won't cut it for sats" and "we have been to people's houses to bring them in for SATs if they're late!" .
My child is so scared and I'm dealing with alot of school refusal due to this too.

The same argument is always trotted out for the 11+. I’ve never believed that you can ‘coach’ a child beyond their natural capability. In any other context, teaching children skills and providing opportunities for them to practice is considered to be helping them to reach their potential!

The above was in response to this post!

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.

Same I don’t want mine in lower sets so unfortunately Sats have become important.

Neither should you want your child in a set that you have artificially helped to create. Being in the high set is great for the child that can cope but often comes with other stuff - an extra further maths paper, slightly different English texts are the 2 for DD - she got herself there (top grammar set) so is fine but has certainly seen others struggle and that can cause interesting behaviour.

DS on the other hand is definitely not Grammar and could be high set English would find the expectation too much so middle would suit and bottom middle for maths. Thankfully I picked his school because it doesn’t set until later once it gets the right amount of information

They didn't when my kids went from primary to secondary. Either the comprehensive or the grammar Had tests of their own for streaming And I think many private schools dont even do SATs so how would the kids that then go into state secondary be assessed if they relued on them

It's not so much the setting/streaming, though I appreciate this is where it might be more visible to the parents and it absolutely does happen. It's the management decisions taken because of the required progress 8 measures and expected attainment grades. These are things parents don't see.

For example, you have the time and money to offer additional support, 1:1 or small group, to ten students. You look at a class where currently all the students are on track for a four but they have different targets, based on their SATs attainment:

• Some only need to get a three and they are already exceeding that.
• Some need to get a four and are on track.
• Some are supposed to reach a five and aren't on track for that.
• A few have higher targets, sixes+, and are quite off track.

All would benefit from the extra support but you're limited by time, staffing and money. Who is it going to? The children "off-track".

Another example, you're allocating staffing in your timetable and have two classes currently attaining broadly equally. There's one experienced and stronger teacher and one who is alright but isn't yet the highly capable practitioner that the first one is. One of the classes is contains mostly "on-track" children and the other a mix of "on-track" and "off-track" children. Which class is going to be allocated the stronger teacher? The second class.

Schools are held to account through their progress data and scores. While this remains so, the SATs attainment scores, and so the baseline data for the start of their secondary school journey, will remain important and impactful. That is, however, why it's essential that your child's attainment is accurate and a true reflection of the challenge/support that they will need during secondary school.

Hmm so this also applies to grammar and independent schools does it. Or just comprehensives?

Im not looking for top sets in everything just not bottom sets. Where kids mess about and will distract her and then becomes a vicious circle.

My dts school threatened detention for dcs who didn’t improve their timetables on a daily basis, my kids were stressed by the teacher not the exams. i went to see the teacher who said the threat was aimed at the kids who didn’t work hard and certainly not my dts - he offered to have a reassuring word with them. I told him I’d withdraw my kids from school if i heard any more nonsense - snd I was deadly serious - a few parents had similar conversations. I refused to buy the books and we didnt do all the silly crap associated with the Sats. I never told my kids the results snd they didn’t ask.

they need to learn to test well - jeez - what a state our education is in. This is not education, nor is it an appropriate way for chidlren to be spending their childhoods.

Grammars, yes, as these are still monitored in this way and it feeds into their Ofsteds. Independents, no because they don't generate a progress 8 measure. There's no official or independent accountably measure for progress in the private secondary system.

It's part of why state secondaries love getting kids from independent primaries: they have no officially tracked data from SATs and so don't count towards the secondary's progress scores. Statistically, they are included in final attainment measures but excluded from all progress measures.

It is perfectly normal. My primary school started preparing for sats at the end of year 5. It all felt a bit pointless. We didn't cover everything. Consequently everyone ended up skipping a few questions on the maths paper as we had not spent enough time covering certain topics in year 6.

See my DD2 went to grammar but not streamed until year 9.

As I say, it's not necessarily the overt streaming where the results have the greatest impact, though even at Y9, it would in theory have played a role.

It may have gone into deciding the make-up of form groups well before streaming happened. One school I know does this with their "bands" for forms with there being one academically strong band of four forms, one middle of four forms and one low of four forms. If you're in the strong band, you get taught the content in preparation for higher Maths and for triple Science. If you're not, you don't so those options aren't available to you. The school doesn't officially "stream/set" until Y8 but they've already done a layer of it unofficially through their bands.

Lol All the girls did triple science. And id say they all pretty academically strong to be there.

This sounds absolutely awful.
You can ask to have your child removed from the tests. It might be worth exploring this.

DD started school in the USA, and one of the main reasons we sent her to a private, not a public (ie state), school, was to avoid the testing, or rather the teaching to the test. It’s even more high stakes there; it even affects individual teacher pay. It meant that she could have a primary education with lots of Art/Music/Drama/PE/Library time and fun project work. I wish it was available to all children.

That's far too early. My DS is in Y7. Last year they had 2 weeks of intensive SATS cramming, and just a weekly practice before that

Normal in a lot of schools. Jan onwards

Yeah, I wasn't referencing your child's specific school, simply sharing more general practices that I have seen in existing secondary schools.