Anyone had a DC change schools twice two years in a row? Is it a really terrible idea?

[mohuzivajehi]

Not sure how mad this idea is.

The more I read about SATs the more I feel that I don't want my DC to go through year 6 in a state school.

I am extremely dubious about my ability to pay school fees for the whole of secondary (and am not convinced that it would be the right choice anyway) but I could definitely afford one year. There is a good non-academically-selective private school that goes from age 7-18 about a 45 minute commute away and I think I could get a place for y6.

Fantasy scenario - possibly the school will be so wowed by what a delight he is to teach that we get some kind of partial bursary to stay on for secondary but I guess that is unlikely. More likely - I would run out of savings that could otherwise be used for university by y9 and then there would be no places left in the oversubscribed decent-ish state secondaries - so switching back to state for y7 would be the more sensible path.

But that would mean switching schools for one year then switching again. How traumatic would that be? Am I crazy to consider it?

My main issue is the utter waste of educational opportunity that goes with drilling children for a test for a year, coupled with a test that is badly conceived and tests ridiculous things, destroying love of learning and self confidence as it goes.

The school I am considering certainly doesn't let children coast or fail to put in effort. it does set regular assessments but these are low pressure and very unlike the SATs.

Oh honestly, I wouldn't. Socially it would be VERY disruptive. Can you imagine ?

I really really wouldn't. Imagine your child really likes it and doesn't want to go back to the state school. And is wondering why you sent him there in the first place if you could only afford one year.
Absolutely not worth the hassle and stress. And you run the risk of not getting him into a decent school at year 8 surely.

You haven't said a single thing about how your DC's feel about their current school. That is rather more important than how you feel about SATs, isn't it?

I've re-read your post sorry I got it wrong so this would be for last year of primary rather than year 7. Still a bad idea tho. Sats are for schools to worry about not kids.
I think your son would absolutely not thank you for this.

Honestly, my ds has just done his KS2 sats, and the school hasn't made a big fuss over them at all.
Encouraged to learn their spellings and time tables? Yes (incredibly reluctantly in my ds's case), but no bad thing.
Pressure, drilling, removing love of learning? Not at all.

Ho OP. I wouldn't do it either. How does you DC feel about it? And you don't want the SATs pressure, but you are thinking of a school that has regular assessments, 🙄. And being 45 minutes away, he might feel isolated socially as his old friend might not want to meet and the new one live too far away to meet after school.

The school may still do stats if some leave at 11. Possibly prep for 11 plus in Autumn if seniors has entrance exam too. They will have their own tests in any event sat at desks in exam conditions, formal spelling tests.

If DC is happy it seems a shame to rob them of all the leavers things they will have been looking forward to with their friends like activity residential, leavers disco.

Are you sure that they don't do any 11+ prep, either for their own senior school or for children moving to other schools? My kids are in a 3-18 school and the first term of year 6 is hellish, far worse than SAT's. They had 21 practice exam papers over October half term to complete, similar over xmas, had 2 days of mock exams in November and were doing tests every day for the autumn term plus a Maths, Creative Writing, Comprehension and a Verbal / non verbal reasoning paper every week for homework. The rest of the year was pretty good but you could be jumping out of the frying pan if you don't check that one out! Personally I wouldn't move for just one year to avoid SAT'S especially if you're going back into the state system just a year later.