Exam conditions assessment in yr 1

[popgoestheweezel]

Today when I dropped my ds off in his yr 1 classroom they had all the tables rearranged so children could sit individually, each with a worksheet. When ds saw this he started to cry and said, I don't like this, no one will help you and you're not allowed to talk to anyone. I don't want to stay. The teacher came over and reassured him and he agreed to go in, but very apprehensively.
I know they are doing assessments of them prior to parents evening to see what progress they are making and I'm all in favour of them doing so. But, is this style of assessment not a bit much for children of this age? I wonder how well 5 and 6 yr olds 'perform' when working in silence and under conditions very different to their normal experience. Is this usual practice?

Having never actually sat in on an early in the term year 1 assessment it is difficult to say. But FWIW my two have never come home and said as much (but they have told me who was off, who picked his/her nose, who peed on the carpet etc) Hmm. Seems a bit formal for year 1? No wonder your son was caught on the hop. Continual assessment???

I work in a Y1 class and have never seen this. We do do assessments from time to time but never sat at individual tables in silence. The most formal thing we ever do is a "big write" where children sit and do some writing based on the current topic, but it is sat in big tables with nice music on, etc. But they are allowed to talk a little bit.

Yes, it seems inappropriately formal to me. A new head started last sept and he has been very hot on assessment. I didn't realise the assessments would be of this style. Today has made me wonder this kind of testing has anything to do with dd's increasing anxiety.
Dd is in year 3 and throughout all previous years had been doing really well. In parents evenings we'd been told she was very bright, conscientious, enthusiastic and confident. Her last teacher said 'she'll always have a go at anything, even when she finds things hard'.
However, over the course of this year she has become increasingly anxious about school in general and homework in particular (she had always enjoyed her homework in ks1). So much so that this week she sat over her sums crying 'I'm just too stressed to do this. I can't even think because I'm so stressed out! I don't know what I'm doing.'
Despite feeling fine after school she now regularly complains she is unwell at bedtime and almost everyday feels ill before school. She generally refuses to go into class by herself, despite having been quite happy to do so in ks1.
At parents evening back in november, her teacher (an NQT but seems to be doing very well and dd loves her) said she was doing fine and there were no concerns.
Since then dd and I have been in to meet with her twice about the anxiety. She has tried to reassure dd, we have looked at her work together and she appears to be doing well. The teacher has given her the special responsibility of feeding the guinea pigs every morning so she has something to get on with straight away but still she complains of tummy aches and gets in a state over every homework.

:(

Lots of alarm bells ringing. Neither a Y1 child nor a Y3 child should be stressed about going to school.

And a Y1 child should def not be aware that they are being tested.

:(

When we had a parent/teacher curriculum meeting early in the year we were told by ks1 manager that they would be having tests to assess their understanding. I expressed the hope that it would be managed so that the children were not aware that they being tested as they were rather too young to have that kind of pressure. ks1 manager looked like that thought hadn't occurred to her.

They used to tell the year 2s that they were playing at Victorian schools when they had the desks like that for SATS. They thought it was fun!