How much Y6 SATS preparation?

[Hathor]

How much sats preparation are your Y6 children being asked by school to do in and out of school? Trying to get a picture of what is usual.

Are the teaching unions boycotting sats again this year, or is that a lost cause?

I think DD2 has done one day of practice tests in class. There will be optional booster classes at some point, which she will not attend. Other than that, nothing. Certainly not at home.

None outside of school, but in school some children are having extra maths and literacy help. I think all children have done some practice test beforehand to spot who needs some extra help and presumably revise areas as a whole class. this is an "outstanding" school (if that makes any difference).

So is is unusual to have intensive sats homework, plus revising papers in class for 10 weeks before the tests? Seems a bit OTT.
It is a pity school is jumping to push them through hoops instead of doing interesting education in Y6.

Yes, unusual and pretty grim by the sounds of it. Our school (Ofsted outstanding) gets above average SATs results, but they do take the view that Year Six (like every other year) is about developing the whole child - the aim is to send a bunch of confident, happy, well-rounded children out into the world ready to move on with their future. It is really important to the ethos of the school that the SATs results arise out of the children's secure grasp of the curriculum rather than being "taught to the test".

Quite a lot of preparation I suspect in our school, including booster classes after half term on a Saturday.

It makes me sad that they are having a narrow teaching to test rather than a fulfilling Y6.
Do we go along with it and support the out-of-school work or not.

No union boycott this year - the Coalition have promised to revamp Y6 testing next year, so unions are waiting to see what the outcome will be.

Feenie - Do you think Y6 SATS might go by next year???

And be internally assessed like Y2 and Y9????

But then surely kids will miss out on all those booster classes .

They'll be left to languish as a 3a or a 4a....

Yes, but I doubt the replacement will be much different

You don't think they'll do internal assessment like Y2?

Or you do think they will do internal assessment - but as they're assessing the same things not much will change?

No, unfortunately - the Tories promised testing with "rigour'

This is what I found - but it's very old:

The Conservatives would scrap the Sats tests taken by every 11-year old in England immediately after winning a general election, the party's shadow education secretary, Michael Gove, said today.

Instead, pupils would be tested once they arrive at secondary school so that they could spend the last year of primary school learning as much as possible, instead of being drilled for Sats. Teachers would mark the tests themselves and secondary schools could save the millions of pounds they currently spend retesting pupils because they do not trust the Sats scores.

Is this no longer the thinking?

At our school they are having nothing out of school, but in the normal class time they have an extra teacher and lots of "intervention" and "booster" sessions. Everyone in the year is in one of these booster or intervention groups. They say it's not just about the SATS but it's clearly got that in mind.

It doesn't seem that narrow, they do a lot of topic and project work too.

6 years of junior school

The manifesto promised to scrap SATS, wording was something like 'We will overhaul the Key Stage 2 tests and make exams more robust and rigorous.'

I would love to be proved wrong, of course.

We will look at a couple of old papers to become familiar with the format other than that it's business as usual.

None outside school and no booster classes. Yr 6 also do an easter play and spend a lot of time preparing that.

The school are top of the league table in our large city.

Ive had many issues with this school but their emphasis on SATs seems to be one of things they get right.

DD school is SATs overload. Yesterday she was in tears (again) and was asking for a private tutor (WTF?) as her teacher had said in class a child from her class last year entered yr6 at level 3a, worked hard and with the help of a personal tutor achieved level 5. Last yr school got 100% level 4 or above (mostly level 5) and "last years class" is endlessly referred to. The quality of teaching in the school is brilliant (relatively speaking! - have experienced very poor and incompetant teaching at a previous school) but over emphasis on sats is ridiculous. Have tried to reassure DD that she doesn't need a tutor (level 4a & 4c at end of yr 5) and sats are definitely not the be all and end all imo. Whatsmore, our good and great government has chosen the school to take a science sat this year to guage yr 6 ability. Parents will not get to know the results, nor the secondary school, nor the children but already the science books have come home and dd is feeling the pressure (didn't even realise they had a science lesson until this last week!). Have told dd not to worry breaking her back over it but she's the type who just will (sigh).

IMO the only thing that SATs are good for are measuring the teaching ability within the school as the papers are marked externally. It is the only tool that school governors have to measure teaching consistency and remember many, many school governors have no teaching experience and are well meaning but totally unprepared and ill informed volunteers from the local community reliant on the honesty and integrity of the head. When it goes wrong it really goes wrong - ho hum, Mr Camerons divisive Big Society at work

Mord - ours is top of the league tables here too. How interesting the difference in the attitude of the two - much much much prefer the attitude of yours.

The marking is dire, EmEyeHi, and the test extremely narrow - as such they cannot possibly accurately measure 'teaching ability'. Endless drilling may get results, but doesn't equate to quality teaching or children who are secure across a level, not just a narrow snapshot of it.

Yes I'm very glad too Em my ds would not well with lots of pressure at all.

Our school boycotted the SATs last year too.

I think as it's quite a formal school and they have so much parental support with kids coming in at a high level, they assume they pretty much get most of them to levk 5 anyway by yr 6, so seemed quite relaxed about it.

Hardly any SEN in the school either .

See what you're saying Feenie and can't disagree because I'm sure it's true but when general teaching is consistantly 3 sublevels (that equates to 2 (two) academic years adrift and the head has no idea there is a problem and the governors are kept in the dark and the SIP has the wool pulled over her eyes and the exceptionally poor sats results are continually blamed by the head and accepted by the authorities, governors, teaching staff and parents on the exceptional amount of SN children (created during their time at the school) then SATS become (very, very sadly) a very useful tool.

I recognise that as a teacher you will find the scenario I describe difficult to comprehend as many many teachers and LA employees and indeed OFSTED inspectors in RL have done - they all, without exception, have been rendered speechless as to the goings on at the school but these are the facts sadly and I am aware that the extreme nature of the problems are not usual BUT it has happened!

I absolutely and totally cannot stand to see what dd is going through now at her relatively new school but given what we've been through can't immediately think of an alternative can you?

Mord - SEN - fortunately our school have already tried to prepare the parents ahead of this yr 6 results as there are SEN (inherited from the school I previously mentioned as the yr 6 expanded rapidly as there was a lot movement) by explaining that different children have different abilities and therefore last years class success that had alot of children of a similar ability in all liklihood will not be repeated - and good on em for that BUT the yr 6 teacher is truly determined as she has a reputation to maintain and although I don't like it one bit I can't say I blame her for trying.

No, but I don't think SATs are the answer - blame the crap Head/SIP/Ofsted inspection, but don't expect SATs to be the salvation, partcularly if the Head can just blame the poor results on high levels of SEN anyway.