DO you discuss SATs levels with your DCs(Y2)

[thebird]

DD1 had her report today. She has done really well and got 2a's overall. However she struggles a lot with her confidence and her report mentions that this is something holding her back.

I have prasied her lots for her great report but have not mentioned SATs levels as I dont want her comparing with her best friends (most of whom are I know will be level 3's) as again this will knock her confidence. As SATs are vert low key in their school I am hoping this will be the trend but we shalll see on Monday morning!

I read through the report with yr2 DS because I think it's good to share it with him. He already knew his targets because the teacher puts them in the back of their spelling books each term.

SATS scores came on a separate sheet & I didn't show that to him or mentions SATs. School told us they wouldn't know they were doing them & he didn't. Also the SATs sheet statistics for the class were split into boys/girls which although admirably open, meant you could play a game of jumping to conclusions if you were so minded.

And if you don';t see the fun in competing against somebody much less able than yourself, then you haven't met some of the super-competitive children I know!

So true, so true. Frankly, there are plenty of fully-grown men who can't bear to let their 5yo sons beat them.

Agonybeetle, my dad is like that with dd. Can't bear to lose!!

I received m Dd's report with all the comments and levels. They were mostly level 3 but I did not discuss them with her. I let her read the comments as they were all positive anyway but there is no way I would ever tell her the levels were that good. Year 2's do not need to be bothered with that in my opinion and I certainly would not like my Dd to go into school and ask other children or discuss her own.
I know the discussion has not taken place or if it she she has not been part of it as she does not know the meanings of the levels! Too soon they will all be comparing...let them play and enjoy school for another few years!

Setting targets for yourself is not the same thing as competition. I still maintain that it's impossible to "compete" against yourself. The term sounds like the sort of idealistic crap you get in self-help books frankly.

The reason for competing against peers is simply that your peers set tangible benchmarks to set yourself against. Unless you know how other people are doing it's very hard to gauge whether your targets are genuinely realistic and sufficient.

A child that lords their achievements over the least able in the class isn't being competitive nearly so much as being an arrogant t**t. In competition it's as important to be a gracious winner as a good loser.

Being competitive doesn't mean you have to be a perfectionist either. Coming second or third etc isn't losing. Actually, it can be pretty damned good I moved from a primary school where I easily came top in certain subjects to another one where I would typically come somewhere towards the bottom of the top half. It really wasn't a problem, some of the girls were very able and I could see that. Just meant that if I came fourth I knew I'd done really well.

Having said all this, I have absolutely no idea what any of ds's friends got in their SATs, and neither has he! I think he is perhaps a little too young and immature for such comparisons as yet. But as he gets older competition will become more important and I have no intention of pretending otherwise.

"The reason for competing against peers is simply that your peers set tangible benchmarks to set yourself against. Unless you know how other people are doing it's very hard to gauge whether your targets are genuinely realistic and sufficient."

But my ds's level 5 target was realistic and sufficient. As it happens, one of his friends was already there, one had the same target and the others couldn't have achieved that level so early. So what would be the benefit to him of competing against them? And why would what the others got matter to him?