To think that SATS are more important than people let on?

[Inthehottub]

On mumsnet I always find that the general consensus is that SATS aren’t important.

Once upon a time I would have agreed.

However, now I’ve experienced having a child go through secondary school and GCSEs, I would say that SATS results are very important.

Our experience was that the SATS results determine which sets the child goes into in secondary school and also the GCSE predicted grades. I know that there are other assessments too, but SATS are a large part of it.

Our experience of secondary school was also that the ‘top set’ kids get absolutely everything thrown at getting them those top grades. I was also told by teachers and pupils alike that the lower sets tend to have more disruptive children so it’s harder for the quieter less able kids to work their way up out of the bottom sets.

Obviously that’s only my experience having had two go through secondary school and one now approaching sats.

Interested to know what others think.

Yabu - SATS are not important
Yanbu - they are very important

When was the last time you listed your SATs results on an application form? A good secondary school will be able to bring a child on. Primary schools train children to pass SATS

This is very idealistic and naive

I'm not sure I'm understanding this paragraph correctly?

However, despite all these “visible” things for parents it doesn’t change the fact that if a child goes to secondary having met the expected standard in their SATs - secondary schools then “have” to get them them to at least 5 GCSEs (including maths and English) or otherwise they risk poor performance measures and a poor Ofsted. Whereas if a child just misses the SATs pass mark then they don’t “have” to get them to this benchmark at 16

Is this something official in all schools? That pupil X Y and Z have to get 5 GCSE's because they got a certain SAT's score? How is this tracked and quantified?

What about schools that don't use sets?

What about schools who have their own banding tests?

I have never heard this before - or is this just your take on it @Warrick23 ?

@Crunchymum she’s not making it up. How good a school is is judged on the progress children make. This explains it www.goodschoolsguide.co.uk/uk-schools/advice/progress-8-and-attainment-8-explained

@Crunchymum she’s not making it up. How good a school is is judged on the progress children make. This explains it www.goodschoolsguide.co.uk/uk-schools/advice/progress-8-and-attainment-8-explained

Not in my experience

Both my dc are doing brilliantly at high school. They both 'failed' their sats

It depends on the school.

I'm a tutor and I help children prepare for SATs and those in year 7/8 who are in the lower sets and are lacking confidence as a result.

Many local schools to me do set from year 7. So yes, it is an uncomfortable truth.

Doesn't make it right, and I don't think it's worth the pressure that's put on 11 year olds.

We're keeping the CAT4s as otherwise, we'd be missing a third of every cohort. Not paying attention to their projections would be letting them down (and it's a pita to upload two sets of data then work out whose differs, which grade to take and import into evwrything else, etc, etc, when you can use cat4s for everybody and compare apples with apples).

@razorramem. Really? the mostly As inc A* was the top 20 odd % of the results similar to the same amount of 7-9s now So seeing as almost 80% of kids get below that it's hardly " average" is it?

Although she was pretty run of the mill for her school obviously as they had an 80% pass rate I believe that year at A ( inc the plus obviously)

I think some people have a very skewed idea of average lol. Suppose the AAAB at a level also is " average " on here.

Either way the fact she didn't do SATS made sod all difference

If a child doesn't do sats they are still set, if the school uses setting. Also sets change over 5 years. Yabu

Of course not. It makes not one iota of difference when you're applying a mark scheme whether the child's target is an E or an A*. You mark what is in front of you.

Private schools aren't bound by the same restrictions as state schools and do not have to publish progress 8 figures.

They can also select to follow the IGCSE curriculum (an easier alternative, which in some cases still awards letter grading).

By easier, i mean they didn't undergo the same reforms that GCSEs did in 2017- so for example, in English Literature, students can still study Of Mice and Men, are allowed a clean copy of their anthologies in the exam, exams are open book.

Not all private schools do these of course.

It certainly highlights disparities in the education system!

Why does being able to study of Mice and Men instead of another text make English Literature 'easier'? i did it for O level and i don't remember it being a particularly easy book to read or understand?

I suppose in that example, OMAM isn't inherently easier than another text, but it was replaced in the reformed curriculum with texts that were written only by British authors. I'm yet to find one- and I've taught a decent swathe of them- that holds the same appeal with the kids. So arguably easier in terms of engagement!

(I will add that times have changed since I taught OMAM, and that attitudes from students may be totally different now- don't want to derail the thread even further)

One of my kids did unexpectedly well in one of his SATS. He was chuffed.

He then spent 5 years at secondary being told that he was failing to meet targets. No wonder he disengaged and lost his way.

I would not encourage any subsequent children to put any effort into SATS.

Well of course - lots of people that do IGCSEs aren't British - that is the point of them. You can't really expect kids in international schools who either aren' British, have dual nationality or have never lived there to study Kings and Queens of England etc or only read Dicekns and Shakespeare surely?

I'd rather read OMAM than that god-awful The Woman in Black or An Inspecetor Calls, if they are still in the curriculum. My kids all hated those two.

@SpanThatWorld I wonder if I had a conversation with you at parents evening! I couldn't disagree when a parent turned to her younger child and said "don't bother trying so hard with your sats"

I had to say, it's honestly soul destroying when you've got targets that are just too high for certain kids, they won't be adjusted down and they're set up to always 'fail'.

This is really depresing. Little kids being evaluated and judges at 10 with no room for growth or change between then and 16. Is our education system really that rigid and, frankly, stupid?

What about the average child who encounters a great teacher in y8 and gets turned on to literature? The kid that discovers in Year 9 that Physics is a thing and loves it as opposed to the boring generic 'Science' they've done up until then? What about the kid that was top of the class in year 6 with great SATS that gets cancer and misses a lot of school? or whose parents get divorced, or who get bullied at secondary school. Jeez. I despair of this country, I really do.

The school we hope ours goes to doesn't set until year 8. Most schools will retest the entire cohort early. If you do well, then they need your kids to do better for Progress 8, if that's still a thing under this government, but I'm not putting any pressure on our kids, it's way more consequential for the school.

Teacher here and SATs ARE important. They are a strong predictor of GCSE results and are used to calculate your child’s progress 8 measures. If your child achieves expected standard in reading, writing and maths then they are predicted to achieve a set number of GCSEs. It benefits your child to do the best they can, as the secondary needs to ensure appropriate support is in place to ensure they meet those expectations.

Whether I think they’re right is another matter but to say they are not important and not used is nonsense.

Yep.

When my Year 5 son does his SATS next year, the results won't show the fact that he was diagnosed with cancer in the March of Year 3, didn't go back to school until after the Easter holidays in Year 4 and that Year 5 was his first full year of school since Year 2.

He has missed an incredible amount of school and there's little chance he'll be caught up in time to pass any of his SATS.

And weaker students don't even have to do Shakespeare!

I think also it can highlight where students aren't making progress. Back when there were Year 9 SATS, I remember a pupil getting all 5s in Year 6 (as they were then), then all 5s again in Year 9. Really sad. They'd basically made no progress over an entire key stage.