To expect my very bright, autistic kid to not fail his SATS?

[2024namechanger]

My child has always been greater depth, and quite a way into it so teachers have said. His siblings are all academic scholars and he is noticeably brighter than them. He mastered reading in a week when he was 3, that sort of thing. We haven’t done anything to particularly push his intelligence; he is emotionally immature and has had social struggles so all my attention is on that. I have very bright siblings who were pushed and then didn’t achieve as adults so have tried to break this trend! My whole family are neurodivergent which I think has a massive impact on ability to achieve.

Child diagnosed in the summer, this brought him a lot of peace, and classroom issues settled down; everything going great and he stopped using aids like ear defenders. (They are on the side in his classroom so remain accessible; his choice entirely). So far they have had a couple of mock SATS which he has got below expected, which is a complete shock. His teacher is mystified and thinks maybe he’s not trying; I’m not so sure. I asked a tutor friend to meet him, she did some CAT4s with him and said he’s clearly very bright. I have done some maths with him at home; he gets it. It’s not hard for him. He reads constantly.

I’m not too bothered about SATS. But. It is my expectation that he joins his siblings at private school next year, for which he would need a bursary dependent on scholarship. He wants to go, the classes are much smaller and calmer and the clubs are in line with his interests; warhammer etc. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if he doesn’t get in but I am also wondering about him achieving in exams going forwards.

Is it likely that this is linked to his autism? It just seems such a shame if he can’t reach his potential. I am autistic and never reached my potential, but was still able to perform fine in tests, just nothing stunning. I was hoping for more for my kids.

I have posted in AIBU for traffic, hopefully other parents who have encountered the same? Or teachers with specialism? Anyone have any advice?

Is he
. rushing, making silly mistakes
. panicking and not attempting much
. worrying about mistakes and going too slowly
. not understanding the questions
. poor test technique, so getting stuck on a question and not moving on
. not liking the time pressure or environment

YABU.

It's normal to want the best for your kids. However, have you taken into account the environment he's in when he's doing his SATs? Environments can make or break success.

I'm not academic at all, admittedly. But do you know when I performed at my absolute worst? In exams, both mock and real. I failed most of my GCSE's because I couldn't cope with the environment. Sitting in a massive hall, having to be completely silent for 1 or more hours. I couldn't do it. I'd often end up having meltdowns and having to leave and do my exam in a smaller classroom at a later date, which still didn't help me to pass them, though my grades when I was in the classroom were higher than the grades I got on exams I'd taken in the hall, but I felt calmer and more emotionally prepared.

If your son's class size is quite large (I don't remember where I did my SATs. Possibly in my classroom?) then could that be the problem?

I'm not an expert in any way, but it sounds to me like he's in a transition period, learning about himself and making changes. Maybe his focus on schoolwork has fallen by the wayside?

I think they can withdraw him to a separate room if you think that would help. Let me check the rules on that.

I would find out which past papers they used and go through it with him at home. If he does much better at home than at school, then it’s the environment that is causing the issue. If he is struggling with the work at home, you will be able to see which bits are tricky.
is it the maths as well as the English/SPAG?

Is he anxious?

My son passed his days but below what he was capable of. He did brilliant in his mocks as they were positioned as a no big deal, the school ramped up the importance is sats and his anxiety just grew and grew…

Just to add he’s been moved up sets twice now in year 7 at secondary.

SATS are a measure of how well the school is doing and identify if there are any learning gaps that need addressing before secondary school. Just take the pressure off him & let him enjoy learning.

I teach at a state school and we have Warhammer club 😅

Have you investigated ADHD? DS1 has both and takes meds in school. He is very focused and scoring top marks at secondary (it was a v different matter in early primary!)

Could your tutor friend not offer a bit more insight? Or could you afford a tutor for a few weeks to work on sats type skills with him?

I agree that it's not worth pressuring kids with sats and don't put a lot of value on them but I don't read your post like it's about that.

Was he taken into another room to do the test? Given more time?

Whenever my DD has assessments these two things happen and they are proven to make a huge difference to her.

Where did the tutor think the problem lay? Did he not understand the questions? Struggle with the content? Work too slowly? Careless mistakes?

If he has SEN, they can apply for extra time for him, as well as offering a host of reasonable adjustments such as doing them in a quieter room with fewer children, making sure he’s understood the questions, etc. Have you had a chat with him, and separately with school?

I am assuming he doesn’t have an EHCP. Do you think he needs one?

I would look at why his classwork indicates he is above expected. As others have said, is it because there is less pressure? In SATS is he clock watching/more aware of needing to finish within a certain time?
In class does he actually have more help/support from a TA coaxing him through the work and encouraging him in a way that he wouldn't get in SATS?
Is it techniques that are letting him down? I mean you say he is a whizz at reading and learnt at an early age, but does he comprehend what he has read? (Or is this where when it is picked apart in class he can make good sense of it, but when doing it on a paper alone he struggles?).

I think you need to meet with the teacher to discuss what areas it is he didn't do well on and to see if this is a theme across other papers they have done (my son has done two sets of mock SATs this year already) and also as others suggest discuss the arrangements and whether he needs a smaller room, extra time (did he finish the papers for example as not sure you have mentioned this).

Not sure what you mean by making sure he has understood the questions - a reader can be used but they have to be very careful to use a neutral tone throughout the paper and there are certain rules regarding explaining anything. Also if it's the reading paper then no one gets a reader for this and an adult can just sit there to enable movement breaks if that's what is required.

Agree in the actual exams no one can help with understanding the questions.
But in practicing part of the learning is to know what kind of answer the questions are expecting and what is required. (ie not in a mock test but as part of SATs learning.)

Sounds like you need to work on exam technique. Speed is tricky. We've had 11+ to get through with my Nd DC and while the content was fine doing that content 30 seconds per question was a steep learning curve!

My son is sounds so similar he is academically very bright, autistic and socially young. He is now in year 7 but he found all of year 6 so so hard emotionally.

He also took every stats pep talk to heart and got anxious. For him the changes to the classroom for mock stats ( covered display boards, moved desk ect) really ramped his panic. In school his was the same eager student but late at night at home he was so distressed.

For him what worked was taking the papers in a different room in a small group. Also a bit more practise of how to read stats questions and learning good exam technique was helpful. At home we removed any pressure and reassured him that as long as he did his best all would well.

You and the teacher need to work out what is going on in the mock tests. Is he sitting there doing nothing (which may not be not trying!) or is he getting answers wrong, misunderstanding questions etc?

I have a very bright much younger autistic child. Sometimes he'll get so fixated on a mistake he's made or the possibility of a mistake, that he literally can't continue with the work. Other autistic children will misinterpret questions, or zone out and need prompting, or need help allocating time to individual questions. You might be able to put special exam arrangements in place to help.

You can teach children to understand questions. Sometimes autistic kids need very specific, atypical instructions. My much younger DS can struggles with "what do you think will happen next?" questions, and he'll say "I don't know" - because in his head, how can anyone know what will happen next, it's not a recall fact. But what helps is explicitly reminding him that he's not expected to locate this information in the story. In time, he'll learn that this is what the question wants him to do, even if that leap is never innate.

I agree with @BusMumsHoliday . My eldest had a lot of trouble with GCSE English Language 'why did the writer ...' sort of questions. i had to teach her a process for some questions to blindly follow to come up with something.

Just my experience.
I'm autistic and in my fifties.
When I was 7 we did county-wide Maths tests and my results showed me to be what was then called ESN (educationally subnormal 🙄). I was made to repeat rhe test and the same thing happened. Then my mother instructed me to answer the questions exactly as they appeared and not overthink them. On the third attempt I got the top results for the county.
Apparently I thought for some reason that the questions couldn't possibly be straightforward, and so made up my own methods of answering them.
I.would get him to practise answering test papers with you, checking he understands exactly what they are asking. Standardised tests don't seem to be designed for nwueodivergsnr thinkers.

You might find it helpful to get an educational psychologist’s report, which should do an independent assessment of your child’s learning abilities/profile and suggest the reasonable adjustments which should best support him

DD is 19, ASD, very bright … had I know what a terrible effect those end of Primary School SATS would have on her self-esteem and confidence, I would have withdrawn her.
Having to go to “extra lessons” for English, led to years of believing she was “terrible at English”, and I honestly believe it’s partly what led to Aniexty, EBSA, and missing Y10&Y11

You can choose for him not to take them.. seriously consider it.

Agree with fxl on this. If he's generally doing well at school, but got a low mark on the SATs, it suggests there's something worth investigating.
It's fairly common for autistic people to have a slower processing speed, for example, which would definitely have an impact on timed exams.
It would be good to know his exact profile so you can work out what kind of support is needed.

Which SATs - all of them? My very bright autistic child struggled with the reading, despite being a decent reader - in part because there’s questions that require things like inferring feelings or motivations - “why did X do Y?”, my child responded along the lines of “I’m not X and it doesn’t say why so how would I know”. They also struggle with things they don’t see the point of, so large swathes of the grammar paper they struggled to do because they were so cross at being asked to do something so pointless.

Have you asked for copies of his mock papers? I read my child’s papers which was quite illuminating and we were able to work on some things at home. I also focused on maths and reading - huge parts of the SPAG paper are deathly boring and, bar spelling, of very little use later on.

Child did sit the papers alone in a quiet room which helped enormously with distraction - because this was a fairly common adjustment for them anyway in their day to day work school didn’t even need permission, it’s regarded as their normal way of working. It does require a room and spare adults though which I imagine some schools might not have.