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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To diliberately go on holiday when my son is supposed to sit his key stage 1 SATS

70 replies

Reallytired · 04/03/2009 17:52

We have just had a letter asking us not to go on holiday the week starting 11 May as key stage 1 children will be doing SAT assessment tasks (or tests!)

I am tempted to take my son out of school on purpose. I don't care if I get fined, its worth it! I would love my son to get no result so that its impossible for my SIL or in laws to ask what he got in his key stage 1 SATS.

I am due to have a baby 25th April and I don't think my son will be able to justice to his ablities in these tests. It is going to be hard for him having his life turned upside down.

I was thinking that a holiday to the Isle of Wight might be nice, assuming that I am discharged from the mid wife at that point.

OP posts:
MaryAnnSingleton · 04/03/2009 18:31

YABU - you can't pick and choose which bits of school you like or don't like...your sons results aren't anyone elses business either,though I daresay you'd let them know if he did well.

Littlefish · 04/03/2009 18:32

"Frankly I don't care how much it pisses off his teacher"

Nice attitude RT.

I actually agree with much of your reasoning RT. However, you didn't mention any of it in your original post. You simply talked about not wanting to tell relatives the results, and the fact that your ds may not show his true potential. Both reasons led me to believe that you were, in fact, concerned about the results.

Of course decent teachers know where their children are. However, at the moment, we are required to record that information in a certain way. It won't be done this way forever, but it is done this way at the moment. This is my first year in Y2 and I'm not looking forward to doing the SATS. We are determined to down-play it as much as possible, and use our own judgement whenever necessary.

Deliberately taking your child out at a time when you have specifically been asked not to is simply antagonistic and disrespectful as far as I'm concerned.

Kayteee · 04/03/2009 18:33

Actually Reallytired,
you sound like a potential HomeEdder in the making tbh...we're all a tad on the rebellious side ;)

cory · 04/03/2009 18:34

If children are that stressed by the SATS, noonki, it means that either the school or the parents are badly mismanaging the situation. When dd sat her Year 2 tests, half the kids didn't even realise it was a test; they were just told that we're going to move into the hall to do some writing now. And noone had been told it was anything to stress or worry about.

islandofsodor · 04/03/2009 18:35

I seriously considered Home Ed partyly due to SATS, howver it would suit me or dd's temperaments and probably not ds's too.

SATS are the spawn of the devil!!!!!!!!

sarah293 · 04/03/2009 18:35

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SazzlesA · 04/03/2009 18:35

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Original poster
Reallytired · 04/03/2009 18:39

I don't want to antagonise my child's teacher, but I feel his feelings are more important than the feelings of his teacher.
His teacher might be annoyed but I am sure she will get over it fairly quickly.

She is young and has a life. I am sure she isn't going to be that bothered about one child in a class of 30 missing SATS.

OP posts:
cory · 04/03/2009 18:42

As Sazzles' and my experiences suggest, SATS don't have to be a stressful experience. If the school is handling this badly, I would complain very loudly. They don't have to do it that way.

MaryAnnSingleton · 04/03/2009 18:43

Has he expressed anxiety about SATs though ?

southeastastra · 04/03/2009 18:44

wish i'd pulled my son out for his. they may just be there to tell how good the school is (not your child, yeah sure) but i was so fed up and miserable those two weeks that i'd have been a much nicer mummy if i'd taken the holiday instead.

poopscoop · 04/03/2009 18:45

The school report had 'working towards level 1' when mine didnt do the SATS.

MaryAnnSingleton · 04/03/2009 18:45

agree that schools and parents can handle the taking of SATs so that the children don't even realise it's happening.

weblette · 04/03/2009 18:47

I'm amazed they've told you in the first place. School here keeps it very vague to minimise pressure on the children so only the teachers know - some children have already done their numeracy apparently.

noonki · 04/03/2009 18:50

Cory - sadly the school was placing the kids under a lot of pressure.

My DSS couldn't read and they told him that he couldn't learn an instrument when everyone else did, but instead had to have extra reading lessons.

his mum took him out of the school, 12 months later he was diagnosed having dyslexia and with help was reading Harry potter books

sayithowitis · 04/03/2009 18:56

Actually RT, she may be bothered as her professional development targets will probably be at leased partly based on the SATs attainment levels of the children in her class.

I am amazed that so many parents are against the SATs and league tables when their own children are about to take them, yet, at least some of those very same parents are more than happy to use the league tables to help inform their decissions about which schools to send their children to!

Personally I don't like SATs, particularly at KS1, but that is the culture which has been created.

jack99 · 04/03/2009 18:56

Its all very well you making a stand for your principles, but your DS is the one who has to spend all day at school and deal with the fallout. Kids hate to stand out from the crowd in this way.

As compo says, if you are so against the system opt out and homeschool.

Hassled · 04/03/2009 18:58

Don't do it. As well as testing your child, they are also a valuable test of the school. If the standards aren't being met, Ofsted and the LA will want to know why, and the school will have to put steps in place to improve. It's how schools are measured.

By removing your child, you're skewing the results one way or the other, and the standard/quality of the teaching won't be accurately measured.

And as others have said, the kids are only vaguely aware that anything unusual is going on. If the school is putting undue pressure on them, that's a whole different battle to fight.

ravenAK · 04/03/2009 19:01

I'm a secondary English teacher & I abominate SATs. If they're still in place when my lot reach the relevant ages, they'll be having some time off.

(& normally I'm pretty anti time off in school time...)

cece · 04/03/2009 19:03

Key stage 1 SATs are not done on a certain day and are not administered like a traditional test. They are little booklets that are completed in a classroom setting (not necessarily in silence). Children can leave them and come back to them.

When DD did hers last year she was completely unaware that she was doing them (as were the other children, unless their parents had told them). She just called them quiz booklets and thought they were just like any other classroom work. When the results were given out on their reports I never told her what she got either. She still has no idea she was 'tested'.

If the school is doing it any other way then they are not adminsitrating them in the way they are meant to be.

poopscoop · 04/03/2009 19:04

Have you ever tried to decipher a league table?! There are at least 3 different ways of reading them, by value added, by something else and something else which i do not understand so cannot even remember !

But by reading them from these different ways the school can shoot up and down the league table in quite a vast way.

Try it on the bbc website league tables place. What does it all mean when they can go up and down like that. One person could think they are much higher than they actually are. It's a bit bizarre

southeastastra · 04/03/2009 19:06

if your child scores low though, you will feel like you have failed, your child has failed, the school has failed and altogether it will make your life miserable for a while.

cory · 04/03/2009 19:09

That sounds awful, noonki. Somebody ought to make their lives very uncomfortable about that.

cory · 04/03/2009 19:11

southeastastra on Wed 04-Mar-09 19:06:33
"if your child scores low though, you will feel like you have failed, your child has failed, the school has failed and altogether it will make your life miserable for a while."

That depends on your attitude, though. I know my ds is struggling academically. I wouldn't feel he had failed if he scored low on a test. It doesn't make me feel miserable that he gets low results; he is still doing well for him. And the main thing is, he is getting support when he needs it.

Feenie · 04/03/2009 19:13

I don't understand this. At KS1, the only result which will be reported to you (or anyone) anyway will be the teacher assessment, which is built up slowly over the year from many different sources, one tiny part of which would be the tests.

At Y2, the move has been completely away from the emphasis on testing - they still have to be done, but only to support the bigger picture. Pilots are under way to ensure Y6 testing goes in much the same direction any time soon - but KS1 tests have been like this for a few years now.

Whether your child sits the tests, or not, the teacher assessment will still be reported. Sounds like the school are way out of step with current assessment - this is about the 4th year of teacher assessment only reporting.