How to avoid Y6 SATS?

[Hathor]

Is it legal to keep dc off school for Y6 SATS? Seems like a lot of stress for nothing. Or is there some educational advantage to them doing the tests?

I suspect the secondary schools do use them to help create mixed or streamed ability form groups and classes etc.

Just try to remember and reassure your dc that they are about assessing the schools performance not theirs.

They don't need to be stressful, My DS really enjoyed them, but our school isn't a pushy school.
A lot of schools in our area use them to set for year 7, then do CATS later. I think DS's secondary school was the only school to sit CAT tests before they started, they use a combination of CAT and SATs to set.

I wonder if you can withdraw him/her? There may be some hoops to jump through but surely nobody legally can make a child sit them.

Some Secondary schools use them to "set" children in year 7. I actually think they are quite good practice - there seem to be lots of tests and exams when you get to secondary school and they would come as a bit of a shock if you hadn't done anything like that before.

If you lo does all the hard work and prep for them, then they might as well sit them imo.

It's just an end of year test that gives them a level & I would convey to dc that is has no more importance than that. At the same time if the school have been good to dc I wouldn't want to skew their results by refusing attendance.

The more accurate assessment will be the teacher level your dc will get whether they sit the test or not.

The secondary school might use the data to ensure an even distribution of ability when it comes to allocating form groups but will use their own CATs data and subject testing for setting.

We don't use them in our secondary school much. Y7 sit more tests when they come in, and that is the data we tend to use

I wanted to keep my ds off for his SATS as I don't think much of them However he caught flu, and was too ill to go, so that solved the problem. I would just write a note saying they were ill if you don't want them to attand.

Thanks for all the replies. So y6 SATS results might be useful for Y7 streaming.

fizzbuzz and any other secondary teachers. Are there any other advantages to the individual child ?

Heated. The school has a high turnover. If about half the 30 children in the Y6 class were not there in Y2 will this mean the results are skewed anyway?

Hi Hathor. I teach secondary English.

Personally I loathe SATs - doubt you'll find many teachers with a good word for them. They take up a ludicrous amount of teaching time, impoverish the curriculum, create unnecessary anxiety & are subsequently used to beat teachers with - what's to like?

(Especially when kids who were intensively coached to get L5 in year 6 SATs turn up in your year 7 class after a 6 week layoff, you assess them honestly at L4 for their first piece of work & some mum rings up breathing fire because their darling appears to be going backwards under your tutelage! )

However, lots of schools use them (possibly in conjunction with NFER tests when they come in) to set. Might be worth asking your intended secondary their setting policy? Otherwise you do risk your dc being parked in a middle set where that may not be appropriate - & that can take weeks to sort out, because however obviously your dc needs to go up/down, that might mean identifying another student who needs to go down/up, iyswim...

I would (reluctantly) say if your dc isn't bothered by tests, let him/her sit them. If he/she IS upset by them - well, again, sadly there's more & more of the wretched things at secondary level, what with endless modular GCSEs etc etc - so probably best to breezily encourage him/her that they're no big deal, rather than setting up a 'tests are something to get stressed about & avoid' mind set.

Sorry!

Is your ds really worried about them, Hathor? Is that why you don't want him to do them?

our ds2 was home educated during years 5 and 6 he went to secondary for year 7 before which we attended a little meeting and we were asked what level we thought he was at, we opted for a stream that i actually thought was a little ambitious but hes holding his own and his school report showed he is above average so he did alright,having said that eldest son did his sats and wasnt ovelt concerned ....children at that age can only do what theyve been taught really so i suppose its down to how you think your dc will 'handle' the sats.

Thanks everyone. So SATS are good for exam practice and are sometimes used for streaming Y7, but no other advantages? I guess they must also be a legal requirement?

Hathor, tbh, it's not the few hours your dc will spend sitting them that I'd worry about.

It's the endless hours preparing for them at the expense of more interesting stuff.

Not much you can do to avoid that.

You are right ravenAK.
I guess there must be a legal requirement for the primary schools to enter Y6 for SATS. I was trying to find out what was the point in doing them. I think the answers are not encouraging!
Such a lot of stress for everyone.

I have never yet worked in a secondary school that has actually used them. Common perception amongst secondary school teachers is that they reflect the effort the school teacher put into them, rather than the pupils! So you get some schools where the students have been coached to death, and students are getting level 4s only because of the fact that they were coached to death, and in reality they are only level 3s - whereas someone from a different school might only get a level 3, but is actually more intelligent than someone from a different primary who got a level 4, because their school took a more relaxed approach to the SATS. For this reason, all the schools I taught in have used mixed ability teaching in the first few weeks of secondary school until the CATS results are through and then they are streamed.

I don't think they add anything to experience of exams either. Again, in all the schools I have worked in, students have had to sit an end of year exam every year. Commonly I have seen that students have sat mock KS3 SATS tests at the end of year 8, in the exam hall. They then sit their real SATS in year and this then leads into GCSE modular exams. But by the time year 10 comes, and the exams start counting they have already done over 30 exams in their secondary school career. So I don't think SATS actually add anything to the individual child.

Unfortunately though, I don't think you have got the right to remove your child from the SATS process, but when it comes to my child, if it stresses her out, then I will simply keep her off school and say that she has been sick. I won't put my child through unnecessary stress just for the govt's propaganda.

I'm a secondary English teacher. We use them as a guideline to set pupils in Yr 7 and as a "measure" of their progress through Key Stage 3.

Whilst I disapprove of SATs on many levels, I feel that letting your child stay at home just because it's SATs would be a bad precedent to set. There are lots of things in life we can't hide from and have to get on with and if you want children to have a positve attitude to learning and to later exams, I feel that you'd want to make sure they were prepared (but not hot-housed), that they are aware that so long as they try, the level isn't really important and that you recognise that they have worked hard and so maybe a treat (eg their choice of dinner one evening, or a cinema trip after school) can be earned not for the outcome but for the positive attitude towards the test.

In the grand scale of things, they are really not that important to individual children but to the school - but I still think you should work in partnership with the school.

I chose my daughter's independant school partly on the strength that they don't do SATS. Many of the children go on to state secondaries so they must have to have some provision for setting in Year 7 other than SATS.

If dd had gone to a state school I was planning on withdrawing her from SATS, however much of the year is taken up with preparation.

I agree with Janeite; unless there are very serious reasons your particular dc cannot cope with exams, it's a bad precedent to let them opt out (and even worse would be to let them know you are lying to the school about illness or something). Sooner or later, when they are at work or at college, something equally stressful will come up, and then you will have taught them a most undesirable solution to stress.

I would also like to say that SATS don't have to be a crushing experience. My dd hasn't done hers yet, but she is actually enjoying the preparations because she has very enthusiastic teachers who see it as a challenge to turn it into a positive experience. I don't know whether they personally approve of SATS or not, but they are certainly making the best out of them.

For dd, it is a useful time to focus her work, to look at what areas she needs to try harder in, and to learn a bit of exam technique (e.g. to answer the question you are asked rather than the one you would like to be asked). This hopefully will make GCSEs less of a shock when they come.

It also seems to be breeding a certain amount of camaraderie in her set; they are all working towards a common goal. There seems to be very little competition and jealousy, which must be due to the attitude of the school. And friends whose dc's sat the exam last year tell me their offspring did not find it a stressful experience.

So I would say, don't assume that it will stress out your dc. Sometimes children pick up unnecessary fears from their parents.

In my secondary SATs are used extensively. The KS2 SATs results are the baseline figure on which CVA is calculated. So if students are failing to make adequate progress from that baseline then intervention is considered. For this reason they are used widely at all stages for target-setting and so on.

Personally much as I dislike the tests in principle - as does his teacher I know - after 6 years' excellent work with ds1 there is no way I would want to skew his school results by withdrawing him for the tests.

DS1 is apparently not stressed at all about it, and I'm not aware that any of his friends are either. But his school do take a low-key approach; we have not yet seen anything (homework or reports or anything) with 'SATs' mentioned on it.

SATs are barely used at our secondary school in terms of setting in Year 7.

To be honest, I totally downplayed them with my own children and it was never a big deal. I agree with Janeite, that it sets a poor precedent to our children if we whip them out of school whenever we don't agree with something.

'very enthusiastic teachers who see it as a challenge to turn it into a positive experience. I don't know whether they personally approve of SATS or not, but they are certainly making the best out of them.'

I hope I do that too!

Also I do agree that lying to the school by pretending children are ill is a bad precedent to set.

Unfortunately, many schools bang on constantly in assemblies etc about SATs achievement. My year 9s last year were completely about them, mostly because they were very, very aware that they were for the greater glory of the school, rather than useful qualifications for them.

They actually broke all records in the end, bless 'em. Swung my threshold payrise for me...

It saddens me that we are creating a culture where children are so jaundiced by endless testing & bean counting. My year 11s had to write essays about their ideal school for their GCSE Mocks. Over half of them said how much they disliked exams - not because they found them stressful - they were too bored with the bloody things to get stressed over them, & anyway they do so much modular stuff they know the school will simply make them keep jumping through the same hoop until they hit their target...

They disliked them because it seemed to be all the school cared about - not them as individuals.

I know, Raven. IMO assemblies are the curse of education. Can't help remembering how well we got on without them when I was being educated in Sweden 30 years ago. We only had one assembly a year and that was in church with the doddery old vicar preaching the same sermon every year about how we must have Hope and not be afraid of the future. Bless him!

One of the things that is bugging me about yr6 sats is that my dd's class has been having sats classes- they go off all morning for coaching really.
She's bringiong home sheets of sats practice stuff.
If there are any teachers I'd be interested in the answer to this.
One sheet for science , has a q where they had to catgorise things as to whether they were magnetic, opaque, absorbant etc.
the objects were things like, pencil sharpener for instance. my dd asked if it meant a metal or plastic one?
There were loads of questions like this- but only one RIGHT answer- SATS style education.
No roonm for quetioning, or a space to put - "If it,s ameyal one it would be bla blah, if it's palstic it would be bla"
It REALLY bugs me- because in SAT land, there isn't room for this.
They mean nothing.
Yes - the secondary schools stream according to the results- of course they do.

Incidently- mydd's headmaster is fantastic- a great head. He says SATS are bollocks- his words- but he still sucumbs to the bollocksness, they have to.

Raven- I love it!

"(Especially when kids who were intensively coached to get L5 in year 6 SATs turn up in your year 7 class after a 6 week layoff, you assess them honestly at L4 for their first piece of work & some mum rings up breathing fire because their darling appears to be going backwards under your tutelage! "

Pushy parents!
Don't you just love them.......

The kids at my dd's stood up in assembly and had to say what their goals were. Nearly all of them said "To do better in my sats"
my dd said, "To clean out her guineapig instead of me doing it"
That's my girl!

At my boys' school they have fantastic assemblies - all sorts of creative/informative and moral stuff - value of the month and all that gear. Each week one 'class assembly' (dramatic led by one class), a 'good work assembly' (where different classes exhibit particular pieces of good work) and a 'praise assembly' (where certificates are handed out). I love 'em.

Very little mention of SATs though. Ds1 has now started doing the odd practice paper at school, but definitely kept for school-time: he doesn't get them for homework.

I'm a secondary science teacher. We use them when Y7 first arrive to create the top sets. The rest of the year go into mixed ability groups. We re set them once we get some more accurate data. We find that they are heavily coached for Y6 SATs and the results have little meaning - you can get kids with L5 who come into your class and can barely read or write but have had a scribe for science so got a L5. It can make things very difficult.