So I asked DS what he had done in school yesterday

[iseenodust]

and he replied we did SATs all morning. I was a bit as he is 7 and in yr3. This at a school that said in yr2 we don't tell them about SATs and suggest you don't bother either.

I can appreciate the school may want to assess progress in a standardised way (parents' evening next week) but why tell them they are SATs papers? Why not just leave it at ' we're going spend some quiet time doing worksheets today'?

Because it says it on the front of the paper? Or because some parents have told some children (I got very cross with a parent helper who did this)? Or they talked to other kids at break?

Do they do sats in year 3? I'm so confused!!

Ah ha could have been on front of paper. DS tends to play football at breaks rather than actually talk to anyone!

AFAIK they do not do official SATs in yr3. I think school are just using them for their own purposes. We have been asked specifically not to take them out of school for hols one week in May.

Jalapeno - they don't 'do SATS' - they do 'SATS style tests'. But they're not the official thing that is reported to the dept of Ed. They're just done as part of ongoing assessment of the kids.

Some schools do them every term, some do them every year, and some don't do them.

Schools can buy in in-between SATs I think. DCs school does/used to for year 4.

Ah ok. This board seems to have gone a bit sats bonkers recently, must be the time of year, so I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed by the time I got to read this one

I only found out our year 2 had done a test paper as my friend with a DD told me she had gone home talking about a test where they had to be quiet and couldn't ask for help or something, DDs seem to tell their mums more when they get home from school!! Then teacher confirmed it at PE.

Your DS might have done an old SATs paper designed for year 2, or a QCA paper.

QCA papers are basically SATs, but they are optional. Back in the 'good old days', QCA was the company who created curriculum topics and resources. The Coalition government shut them down. boo hiss

In my previous school, we did QCA/ SATs tests every 10 weeks- basically every term.

My current school has a termly assessment system, although we only give papers in the summer assessment. Then we use QCA. (Year 3, incidentally).

schools can use "optional SAT tests" in Y3,4 and 5 as a summative test alongside teacher assessment.

As I said I can see why they do them. What I didn't like was the fact they 'labelled' them. We were given specific advice not to do so in yr2. I just have a niggle about them starting to make the DC aware they are 'an important test'. DS last year was very aware SATs were a big thing because they were in a classroom next door to the hall so told to work quietly because yr6 were doing SATs. They were then rewarded with extra playtime.

I think you're overreacting. Sounds like a really trivial thing to be upset about.

Children aren't stupid, mostly. We don't do SATS at our shop, but they do annually do NFERs which are some sort of nationally ranked assessment system for tracking progress. They don't tell us the results unless we ask, and don't encourage us to pay attention and so try to keep things v quiet with the children. Nonetheless, my 6 year old immediately told me they had done an exam "Because there was a sign on the door saying "Silent; Exam in progress". Ha! V stealth. Having said which, most of them didn't notice and so the parents who didn't know the system didn't know it had happened.

I understand that people don't want children to become over-anxious about SATS (presumably the big test comes in year 6?) but I'd have thought the best way to do that is for the adults to stay calm (easier said than done if the playground is getting silly about it I know) plus, at that age, having something to aim at is surely good practice?

I don't think little ones care a bit unless the whole thing is built up massively by parents.

I wasn't upset just surprised after last years approach and I certainly didn't let DS realise. While happy to support DS in learning we're unlikely ever to place any emphasis on SATs preparation/performance as the local secondaries quite openly say they're not interested and do their own assessments for setting in the course of the first year. Clearly the bureaucracy beast must be fed though !