Can we opt our DS out of taking SATs?

[sogrownup]

The pressure placed on DS (yr6) around the SATs is incredibly high. After much thought and anxiety we have decided to opt out of the whole 'pressure at home' side of these tests to create a little balance. The Easter Holidays will be void of any formal homework and will be about relaxing and learning through play........
If the school is taking part in the SATs is it mandatory for your child to sit them? Can we opt our child out? If we can do this, are there any horrendous consequences that we have not considered?
Thanks all......

zoekinson have you done as you suggest?

All of you that are not sending your children to school in SAT week, did you look at the league tables when choosing the school originally?

Or at the Ofsted Report, where the Teaching and Learning element is principally based on the progress measured by SATs, rather than on the actual lessons they see!

??????????????????????????????

That has got to be one of the most selfish, mean-spirited attitudes I've seen on here in a long time, spottyfrock.
So, you've taken all that the school has offered your ds over the years - presumably it was a good enough school for you to have sent him there in the first place (possibly due in part to its success with SATs results and OFSTED), but now you're taking your ball home.
Just the sort of parent schools love. And the other parents and children.
I'm no lover of SATs by any means (and believe me, the pressure on the teachers is far and away the worst thing about them), but here we have the opportunity for a school to show the value it has added in children's progress over the Key Stage. So, all those who attained a level 3 at KS1, plus a fair few of 2As, would hope to gain a level 5 at year 6. This is shown as a percentage, yes, but is also perceived as a pat on the back to everyone involved in the progress children have made. It is a good reflection on the school, yes, but also on the children who go there. Your son's friends. And if the percentage is lower than targetted, the public perception is that the school is poor, and the children who go there (your son's friends) have somehow failed to perform. You're contributing to that, totally unnecessarily, just to "pay the school back" somehow, for daring to depend on your son's contribution.

I sent him there because it was our nearest school. I wanted him to enjoy year 6 and participate in a full range of curricular and extra curricular stuff not spend from Feb to May artificially preparing for tests. They're 11 FFS!

If school had agreed not to coach and just to let their natural ability be reflected in the results then I would have let him take them. As it stands, knowing how much work has gone into it, I disagree in principle.

As mentioned, they employ an extra teacher from Feb for what they call boosting lessons. Why not spend this money instead in Y3 catching those children falling behind then? Early intervension and all that. I'll tell you why, it's because on paper they get more value from preparing those kids within an inch of their lives than they do actually helping to support or stretch small groups earlier on.

Why not employ that extra teacher in Y6 and do some amazing, interesting topic on Africa or Australia which encompasses all sorts of skills and helps prepare them for independent study at secondary? Why not use the money for something that would benefit the kids but would show no outward results on paper?

It's the fact that they are using money, time and resources for nothing other than to be able to record good SATs results.

Being able to record good SATs results is not a minor thing, though. If pupils don't reach their targets, the school will sink down the league tables and possibly get a satisfactory or unsatisfactory verdict from OFSTED. If that happens, the school may become undersubscribed quite quickly, and therefore lose funding. I'm not sure what the current average figure per pupil is but somewhere around £3,000-3,500 - so 7 or 8 pupils could equal the cost of a teacher. Maybe the thought of the school not being able to keep all it's teachers doesn't bother you because your child is about to leave, but if they have younger siblings, it should bother you, and it certainly should bother the school.

The Government is apparently still under the impression that parents value league tables, and SATs as a means of creating them. I wonder why that is?

I'm not a lover of SATs but if your child is going to a State secondary school I would strongly advise you not to pull him out without good reason. DS1 didn't do Y6 SATS as I sent him to an alternative, independent school for Y5 and 6. However, indie wasn't an option for secondary and my experience was that the secondary school just used the SATs scores to stream the kids. No SATs meant bottom groups regardless of anything else, in theory they were supposed to do their own tests but the reality was they relied on SATs (and this was a very popular, over subscribed school!).

My kids love em. But they are pointless. Not used for streaming at all at secondary at all.

It must depend on the secondary, then. My kids' school does use them, but also uses their own assessments. I wouldn't be at all impressed with a school that lumped all those without an official SATs score in the bottom set. What about all the teacher assessments we primary teachers soend hours deliberating over?
But that's beside the point. A few tests in Year 6, particularly for more able kids, is not going to kill them. And in answer to spottyfrocks suggestion that they learn all about Africa or Australia, then I suggest she takes a look more closely at the overall curriculum which nowadays is much more creative and covers all sorts of lovely things - in addition to the basics of numeracy and literacy.

I find it a bit naive to think that you pulling your son out for the week will have no concequences for him at all.

Would a more grown up approach be to perhaps write to your local MP, The Secretary of State for Education, The board of govenors and the head teacher, to express your anger at what you perceive as unfair and pointless teaching time and testing of your bright 11 year old child?

I do think you are being selfish towards not only your child but the school who has put all that effort into helping your child achieve above average scores for his age.

Also how on earth did you know he was scoring a level 5? Oh yes they must have tested him!!!

Sorry I dont want to sound as if I am having a go at you personally but schools have to put a lot of time into the sats, not because they want to but because they HAVE to. Show them them the curtesy(sp) of allowing your son to take the test and repay all the hours of teaching they have given to your son. Not to mention all the extra stuff they do to make our children enjoy learning and going to school in the first place.

Hear hear, ronshar

SATS do impact secondary education, as they are used to assess progress from ks2 to ks3 and then from ks3 to ks4. So although they may not set from the data, it will still be used in some form.

JWIM, i home ed my DD.
ronshar, schools do not have to put any time into sats prep they chose to when they are not confident of there teaching.
A friend of mine that is a TA says her school make no mention of sats tell the day, saves on child stress.
Also there is a state funded steiner academy in Hereford i believe, they told all the parents when the test papers were to be sat and no children went to school that day, you can look if you like the 'results' were still published.Yet people up sticks and move across the county for there children to attend this school.
First rule of learning, question everything, find out the truth for yourself.

You might want find out the truth regarding the difference beween there/their for yourself some time, zoekinson

Amazing that a school can have blank test papers externally marked by independent markers and the results published

I only have a 7 yr old, doing year 2 sats, so have nothing to add as such. But had an interesting conversation with my mum the other day. She was a primary school teacher, now retired. And I moaned aboyut how much homework ds1 had (A LOT, and I mean ALOT, accordingto MN threads !!)
and my mum was saying that in her day, her being 60, me being nearly 40, grammar was drummed into them really early. and tests and tests and techniques etc. and then in my day hardly anything, and all I remember was being out on bike, playing. And she said that they had realised that there was a generational error and this is why they are trying to correct it now.
I had never thought of it, like that before. And it all made sense. And i think Ks2 sats links into that aswell. Mistakes made in previous generation,and trying to re-correct now.

Oblomov - I think there is some truth in that idea. I am 44 and remember spelling tests and times tables tests at 7 but not much else in terms of homework. I also remember starting secondary and our English teacher telling us that she wasn't supposed to be teaching us grammar but she was going to anyway. (Not saying that she was banned from teaching it but that it was not on the curriculum). I think she did us a big favour but I don't remember learning about grammar until then, certainly not the extent my DS1 in Yr 6 knows it. If that is the result of SATs then maybe they aren't such a bad thing.

Actually, I have been thinking about SATs a bit since this thread started and I think if they are a catalyst for change then they are a good thing in general. Certainly in DS1's school their SATs have been used to highlight gaps in their teaching which hopefully they are plugging. That can only be a good thing for DS2 coming up behind. It will be interesting to see if he has less cramming at the end of his time at juniors as a result of the changes the school are implementing now as they acknowledge that yrs 3 and 4 are allowed to coast a bit and then yrs 5 and 6 get all the pressure (this is a trend in a lot of junior schools - not something unique to them). They want to even out all learning across the years. I don't think they will ever do away with all the practice though - no school is going to leave the SATs results to chance -not when, as somebody mention earlier in the thread, their pupil numbers depend on it and therefore their budget.

In my experience secondary teachers raise eyebrows at primary leveling and then do cat tests.

I'm
Not a core subject but I don't even know where I'd even find a year 7s sat test on our system.

Secondary teachers may raise eyebrows but for value added the scores at the end of KS2 and KS3 count.

That's your experience in your school Mike, others are clearly different.