Upcoming SATS and constant testing of children

[cantfindamnnickname]

DS is 11 in year 6 - for the last half of last term and this term and presumably until the SATS the teacher is constantly giving them SATS papers to do, they are literally doing 2 or 3 tests every day and the pressure is immense.

I am not impressed and think its ridiculous - I have raised this issue with the Head and she agrees that its not the way to do it - she has only been there since January however and is making lots of changes to the school so I think she is reluctant to challenge this at the moment.

I do not want DS under this much pressure - is there any guidance from Ofsted about SATS or best practice so that i can go to head and force her to deal with the issue now?

I have the same problem in Y2!

DS is bringing home work to do at home too and i wouldn't mind but they didn't do this when DD was in that class 3 years ago.

Fraid not, it is up to the school how they deal with preparing for SATs, your school just has a rather strange way of doing so, you don't fatten a chicken by weighing it!

There is no need for Y2s to be bringing SATs practice home. Ours did their SATs in February and didn't even realise it. The levels are only used to inform teachers' assessments.

Euphemia - the Labour government didn't exactly do a huge amounts to scrap them in all their years of power, did they?

OP sorry that's the situation in your child's school - it is the same where I work. I dont know which makes me crosser - constant time out of teaching to administer mock sats, mid year tests, QCA tests, etc....or the fact my APPs I inherited were so ridiculously over inflated and downright dishonest I have had to start them again.

Sorry - frustrated! Why not ask the teacher, or head if you're not happy? Personally I think it's rubbish.

That sounds very intense, OP!! My DD1 is in year 6 too and whilst I know that they are revising a lot in class it's not past paper after past paper as you say.

If that is the way they are doing it though I guess you are going to struggle to change things in the three weeks left before test week, so I would say just let him chill out at home to balance work/play.

My yr 6 child has not brought any practice papers home, they do have regular tests at school but it doesn't seem excessive and the pressure isn't that great.

I wouldn't be happy about the OP's level of presssure about SATS. But at this stage, it's only a few weeks to go, I would focus on making sure my child didn't get too anxious - I remind mine that it's not make-or-break for them, the secondary schools will re-assess anyway, that Sats are for the school.

I'm not a fan of sats but our experience of them has actually been not too bad, our school isn't too stressy and the dc haven't got that bothered about it.

Just wondering why pressure on children is seen as a negative ?

Surely the better they do in Y6 SATS, the higher group they will be in when they go to senior school.

Personally I'd be pushing like billy-o to get a child out of a senior school bottom set group into at least middle, preferably higher group.

So I think instead of complaining about the school intesivley educate children over the next few weeks - yup teach to the dull little test if that's what it takes anything, anything, to give them a better shot at decent GCSE grades.

RosemaryandThyme - I agree with your view about the benefit of the pressure. However, it will depend on the needs of individuals and some children can stand the pressure, but some may not. The school should have their own view what they should do with pupils in their school rather than one set of policy for all.

My DS is sent home with a practice paper every other day and at the weekend and I dont have a problem with it. He does moan a bit about having to do them, but we work through the papers together and he is getting really high marks. He is proud of how well he is doing.

It is good to introduce them to pressure because thats what will happen in secondary school.

Life is full of pressure and competition and they need to understand that and deal with it.

I confess I am pro-SATS, speaking as the parent of a DS who got all 5's and another about to sit them who might get a 5 in Maths but may not even get a 4 in Literacy, despite a battalion of 'best efforts'!

I think it's a useful way of testing what's been learned, how well it's been taught; that the whole curriculum has been covered.

I may be older than some here but I can recall when it was perfectly possibly to go from 4-16 in school having been tested only the once, a failed 11+.

I don't think it's wrong to put a bit of pressure on a 10-11 year old, especially since it appears from a previous post on MN (about what a daft idea breaking education once, and once only between Y6-7 was, and being roundly told what a fantastic and completely logical break point this is...) that there's huge support for the change from possibly tiny primaries to vast comps- well, with a DS in Y8, welcome to a fair bit more pressure! Better they understand that from Day One, imo.

Yes, it's dreadful if your DC is anxiety wracked or a perfectionist, but I don't think abolishing the entire testing program for fear of upsetting these DCs is necessarily the answer, is it? Neither of my DSs were or are particularly stressed about them, even though Y6 is a bit of a SATS factory (in fact, DS2 is getting a bit of a confidence boost that though his English is rubbish, he's better at maths than he thought, and here's numerical proof!).

And, let's face it, the private school kids who end up in the most influential and best-paying jobs are tested from the age of at least 7, if not 4!

What shouldn't happen is for a school's SATS results to be available to anyone other than the parents, end of. League Tables should be banned.

"The school should have their own view what they should do with pupils in their school rather than one set of policy for all."

-sadly university entrance and competition for jobs tends to be a 'one policy fits all'...

The flip side of this is my children's school where they go into the SATS with children never having seen a SATS paper at all at school or done any preparation whatsover.

Of course there are the children whose parents will have bought them from WHSMITHS and done practice off their own back, but it is hugely unfair for those who haven't, I feel. A lot of children will not do very well in the SATS if they have never seen one before, as it is a slightly odd format for a child who has never done any such test before.

The children who really fall apart under the pressure of revising for and having mock tests at 10 and 11 are the ones who really do need to do well in them - for a non-resiliant child being stuck for the next five years in senior school bottom set maths would be utter purgatory - I have taught many such groups.

R&T- are you saying that a 'non-resilient' DC could get stuck in bottom set maths for the whole of secondary because, though able, they fall apart every time they're tested?

(straight question, not loaded!)

Well two SATS papers a day- one English and one Maths will take up 90 minutes of the day- there's still more than 4 hours to do ther stuff.....

Yep, same here. Annoys the hell out of me. Can't wait until they are over and the poor kids can have a bit of a breather.

Yes ampere that is exactly what I'm saying.

For some time schools tried to ward this off by module work and course-work, that is completely dropping by the wayside with many GCSE courses being back to 100% exam, particularly in maths.

The true horror is revealed when it comes to light that maths paper sittings top-out at set grades, if you sit mid-level stream GCSE maths you are sitting a paper for which you CAN NOT get higher than C no matter how bright you are!.

Pressure can result in stress, anxiety and depression.

What about those who don't do well? Not because they are not intelligent or creative but because the thing they are best at isn't completing test papers.

Even top students suffer from constant testing as it limits their intrinsic motivation to learn and makes them focus on external validation. Where nothing they achieve is good enough unless someone else says its so.

I remember vividly considering suicide before my Standard Grade (GCSE equiv) French exam. I got through it, not everybody does. It seems ridiculous now, but once your self worth is based on getting good grades, the thought of failure can be unbearable. The real depression and anxiety came later, and I had to leave university without a degree because I could no longer cope.

I had good grades throughout most of school. My parents and teachers thought I didn't need help because my grades were good and I displayed good understanding of the subjects in class. But I was rubbish about handling the stress of long term projects and exams.

This is perhaps an exteme case (though sadly not the most extreme possible) and maybe some children do thrive under pressure. But others wilt.

Two or three SAT tests a day(!) seems ridiculous. The teacher is clearly concerned about how the results will reflect upon her, but it is no excuse to stress students out so much. And if the whole class is pushed in this way, then there is no benefit - they can't all get in the top set.

I would complain too.

DS has anxiety issues and he is starting to fall apart. I know he can do it, his teacher knows he can do it (level 6 maths, level 4 literacy) but he is just so stressed. He has been practising since the beginning of this term.

He is off to an academy - I spoke with the HOY at the open evening who said that they do their own assessments to determine sets.

Ds1 moved from Scotland last year into y6. He had completed national assessments there beyond the level 5 which will be tested here. Despite that, the year has been entirely focussed on bringing up the bottom end - he has done NO new maths this year. They have done past papers every week since the start of the academic year and although they claim that there is no pressure, the relentlessness of focus means that he (of all people who should sail through) is really stressed and developed shingles last week ... I am really not impressed with the system. Yes, the bottom end need focus but NOT to the neglect of the top end.

The constant drilling in some (?many) schools puts children off of learning; for weeks, maybe months, school becomes about test-taking skills not learning, and rarely learning anything new. That cannot be right at this age.

Just wondering why pressure on children is seen as a negative ?

Nobody likes stress, why endure it when it promises no personal benefits?
The schools wouldn't be so high pressure about it if results weren't published, though. agree that's the real problem. DD doesn't mind assessment weeks (usually 2 or 3 such weeks each year, administered in a SATs like format), but they aren't pressured, due to results not being published. She'll feel the pressure of what SAT results mean to staff -- & she shouldn't. She will perform quite well with or without the pressure.

Surely the better they do in Y6 SATS, the higher group they will be in when they go to senior school.

Not locally, sets are decided mostly from high school's own autumn assessments, with referral to primary school reports & records, and referring to KS2 SAT marks only in borderline cases.

The autumn retesting for y7s (?CATs) is so common, so standard, I would have thought it would save a lot of money for primary schools to drop KS2 SATs & just expect high schools to do CATs. With modern computers easy to relate CATs back to actual primary schools if someone still wants league tables. Aren't we in austerity times, why not save money in such an obvious way? That part baffles me.

The idea that you make kids resilient to pressure by exposing them to it at a younger and younger age is folly. You don't prepare for a famine by starving yourself.

It would be much better to directly help children find study skills that work for them, and to practice those rather than have them set mock exams for half a term. The odd one, so that they can see what the format is like and how questions are phrased is different, but to have daily testing instead of teaching is... :(