Who else is gearing up for SATS?

[milliways]

My DD13 is back at school tomorrow and has spent loads of these hols revising. Yr9 SATS start in May but mocks etc start straight away. I know options have to be chosen in next few months but the amount of homework this yr has already been minimum 2hrs per night - usually more. She is in a good state school and is very motivated but the pressure on them seems v.much worse than at YR6. Anyone else going through same?

DD1 has yr6 SATs this year.

OMG! Just realised that in 3 years time I'll have DD1 doing yr9 and DS will be doing yr6 - 2 lots in one go!!!

We had Yr6 & Yr2 together. It was ok as on different weeks. DD was concerned that DS might beat her scores for Yr2! They got the same thankfully.

Freckle, good luck with the 11+ next week. My son and his classmates said some of the actual papers were easier than the practice papers (NFER Nielson ones). This particularly applied to maths. The non verbal reasoning paper was a hard one, though. My son found the mock test difficult and didn't take well to the format or timing (especially the non verbal reasoning paper where each small section is timed and you can't turn the page till you're told to). Like your son, he had done well in preparation lessons(not 90% scores though), so the mock came as a bit of a shock. However, the exams themselves were not as daunting as he feared. At least that's what he told me! don't know the results yet.

As for Year 6 SATS, I feel all examined out and I am sure my son does, too. He worked hard in the lead up to the 11+. His school start afterschool SATS revision lessons twice a week in mid January. All the children are meant to attend. I am hoping we do not get lots of test papers to do at home. Last year, the school came top in the borough for year 6 SATS results, so this year have a lot to live up to

I know what the teachers expect my son to get and I will send him to the extra lessons, but I can't see any reason for pushing him further. Is there any point? Will a higher SATS score change anything for my son? As I understand it, secondary school streaming is determined by lots of factors. Year 6 SATS don't really count for much in this. As far as I know SATS are the the school's benefit mostly.

We have dd (yr6) and ds2 (yr9) so I have much sympathy milliways.....and ds2 has already had to choose his options, far too early IMO.

Both are great at doing what's asked of them at school but won't do anything extra. As far as ds goes that's fine but dd could be so much better if she pushed herself a bit more. .....hell, I sound like a pushy mother.....I'm not its just that she got all 3's in her key stage 1 sats and I think she's got this 'I'm doing OK' attitude and she's sat on her laurels a bit.

Thanks for that, Tigermoth. Not sure whether to tell DS1 of your son's experience or not. It would be great to boost his confidence, but, if the actual papers turn out to be difficult, he might be totally shattered by it on the day. He certainly seems to be a child affected by exam pressure - although he has never been bothered by actual or mock SATS in the past. Probably because so much is hanging on the 11+. He is desperate to go to the school we have chosen - mainly for the very valid reason that he won't have to walk very far!! Seriously, he loved the school when we visited - and the other factor is that we will be up the creek without a paddle if he doesn't pass as the only school that will take him then is the sink school on the other side of town .

Freckle, I really feel for you. This is such a stressful time. My son would love to go to his first choice grammar school, too. It is nearby and of I feel it is really suited to my son (and not just because it is a grammar school, we totally rejected the other near-ish grammar school as being unsuitable). He has seen a comp school he is fine about too, but it is very oversubscribed and if he doesn't get in there either, we are stuck.

PS I have heard that every year in our area, there ia always one difficult paper out of the four. Ours happened to be the last one they sat. Glad it wasn't the first, otherwise I don't know if ds would have gone back to sit the other three!

blossom why are oyu worrying about the sats or making your child do practice runs?
they have no bearing on anything

Oh what a depressing thread. I thought compulsory SATs were on the way out?

Our school do no extra-curricular sessions for yr6 SATs (thank goodness).

Surely sometime ago I received a leaflet (a formal one, not a photocopied letter or anything) from Ds's school saying that Year 2 SATS were not happening any more - at least, not in the way they have happened up to now. From this year, I believe the teacher decides when a child is ready to do the tests and they are given individually. Please tell me this is true! Not that I have any intention of providing practice papers for ds anyway, which surely doesn't prove anything about a teacher's teaching ability?

roisin, one good thing about the extra curricular SATS classes is that I will be able to go straight from work to pick ds1 up from school. But I don't know how the year 6s will cope with having an extra hour or so of tuition twice a week - hope it doesn't get too much for them.

freckle, how did your son feel about the tests in the end? I was thinking of him last week.

my ds yr6 came home yesterday saying they were starting to prepare fo these The ones at yr 2 showed he needed extra help and was put on SENIMS if i remember correct after 3 months they told us they had got it wrong and far from needing extra help he was in the top 5 or 6 in the class and was just immature in his attitude to the tests and didn't really put much in (he was 7 FGS!)Now he says the teacher is putting him in some booster maths this term which we are pleased about but what is the point of these tests Do they affect him at secondary next year I am worried as it depends very much on his mood on the day as he is capable but a bit lazy and disinterested at times

Oh thanks, tigermoth. Well, he came out of school on the Monday looking quite happy, so I thought things were OK. So I dared to venture a question "How did it go?". Hmm. He apparently forgot to check the time and missed 13 questions on one paper (verbal reasoning) and 14 on the other (non-verbal). That rather knocked me for six as it doesn't leave a lot of leeway if he didn't get all the others right. Anyway, I didn't make much of it (not certain he counted correctly anyway) and things were OK. Until DH came home and asked the same question. I don't think he meant to react, but he showed some surprise when DS said how many he'd missed and that just set DS off. He was upstairs in floods of tears, wailing that he was useless, etc.,etc. Took me all evening to calm him down and then had to have him in bed with me as he couldn't get to sleep otherwise. He was very restless all night, shouting in his sleep and thrashing around.

On speaking to some other mums, it seems that both the papers were very difficult and a lot of children failed to complete them. A friend whose daughter attends a private school said that one of her daughter's classmates (generally considered to be extremely bright) had been complaining about how difficult the papers were. Which might be of some comfort.

The following day I again asked how things had gone. This is either good news or very worrying, but he found the maths paper really easy. He also had to do a piece of English prose (doesn't count towards the final mark, but is considered in the event of an appeal). I'd suggested that he write about something he knows as it would be easier. So he chose (out of about 5 options) "Going back in time"!! Like he does that everyday .

Now it's just a question of waiting. Deep down I know he's grammar school material, but there are no guarantees in life. We now have to wait until the first week in March to find out which school he will be going to.

When do you find out, tigermoth?

Noddy, I think the secondary schools use the Y6 SATS results to stream children (if they do streaming). However, if the results are skewed because of an off day, the schools should pick up on this pretty quickly and adjust their streaming accordingly.

I really wouldn't worry about SATS too much. They don't have any long-term effect on a child's education.

Thanks Freckle The secondary we have chosen doesn't stream until yr 8 so I don'y see the point in these at all My ds will do what he has to and no more tbh

Noddy, I work at a primary school, and I know that in my area the SATs results have absolutely no bearing on secondary schooling. I know that my school has offered to send year 6 SATs results to each of the secondary schools in the area (quite a few because there isn't just 1 or 2 obvious feeder schools) and the secondary schools have always refused the offer because they don't use the results at all. I'm sure that this must be the case for most/all other secondary school as well because they will all do their own entry assessments.

My daughter will go into year 6 next year and is already panicking about the SATs, but for every time that she is told that the her SATs results are important to her, I will tell her twice that they are not, and why! What she achieves in her SATs makes no different to me, to her, or to her secondary school, so what is the point in worrying about them? All she can do is try her best. The school's league tables are certainly not my daughter's responsibility to be getting stressed and worried about!

coddy - I am just interested. There is certainly no pressure and we already know he is going to get a good grade (predicted anyway). As you say it's not about the child but the school results. Although I do think they are a good indicator of how well your child is getting on.
Can anyone tell me what happens to children with statements as dd will be sitting hers next year and although bright will need help.

freckle, it's a time of much nailbiting, isn't it? we hear early March too.

Funny that your son, like mine, found the maths paper easier than expected. If it's any consolation, as far as I know, most children around here don't finish all the papers, especially the verbal and non verbal ones. I can say that with some confidence as I happened to get this from an exam invigilator (also a teacher) whose daughter gots to my son's school. I didn't know she was an 11+ invigilator till after my son took the tests, but it was very useful talking to her

In our area, talking to teachers and parents of secondary school children, I get the impression that children can pass without working through all the questions. They would be doing extremely well if they finished every paper. It's good to guess all the answers, but lots of children run out of time to do even that. As the 11+ tests weren't done in school, I took my son to the test centre and was there to collect him. It was interesting to see the children's reactions as they came out. Lots said they didn't finish all the questions, or simply guessed the last few.

I am really sorry your son feels so wound up about it. What you were saying about your dh and ds was so like what happened in our house around the time of the tests. I would say one thing, my dh would say another, our levels of worry would swing up and down and bear no relation to each other. My son would be fine one minute, then his lip would start trembling if my dh launched into an angst ridden speach. My son was fairly immune to exam tension (he's not a perfectionist or worrier by nature) but even so, it was a tense time for all of us. I totally underestimated how much it would affect me.

Children with statements;

At the annual review before year 6 /SATs this should be discussed and often the child's needs for these are recorded in the new IEP. They can be withdrawn from all or part of the SATs test - although this is quite rare in mainstream schools IME. Or provision can be made for them to have a scribe or extra time - depends on whta their statement is for.

Children who are on special needs register but aren't staemented can also apply for extra time or scribes too.

The secondary schools do get sent their results, but as they don't come out till end of June beginning of July they get them pretty late. Way after they know which form gruops they wwill be in!

Not sure how they use them but I suspect they do their own assessments in Sept anyway!!!

Message withdrawn

the school will probably have a curriculum/SATs evening nearer the time. most do

Oh rickman, really don't worry about the SATS or start looking into them. They are of no concern to pupils or parents. They are merely a means of measuring the performance of the school. In Y2, the children shouldn't even know they are taking them. They are done as part of the normal routine of the school and the children just think they are doing normal school things.

Actually, I've only just realised that I will have 2 children doing SATS this year, DS1 in Y6 and DS3 in Y2. Totally unstressed about it. Now, if you're talking 11+ ........

Tigermoth, thanks for your thoughts. Deep down I know he will pass, but doesn't stop you worrying, does it?