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 meant to say yesterday (but probably wiffled on about something else) that DS1 got his Yr 7 report last week and on that report were his CAT results from the beginning of the year and SATs from last year. They are very definitely used as a measure of his progress this year. I presume that next year's report will compare the Yr 7 with the Yr 8 results so the KS2 SATs won't be an issue any more but clearly they have had relevance for the whole of this year.

PetWoman - I think you are right to draw attention to the fact that some of the fall back in attainment between the Yr 6 SATs and starting Yr 7 is due to 'down time' when the children aren't really working that hard. It is recognised as a factor in the drop between KS1 and KS2 at my DS2's school (I am a junior parent governor). Children naturally 'forget' stuff over the holidays. They should claw it back by the Autumn half term, we are told but when they start a new year it does look like the previous year's results were inflated in some cases.

The other thing with a change in schools is the whole settling in period and getting used to different teachers and different ways of doing things which can be quite an issue for some children and knock their attainment for a while.

thescarylibrarian - surely the Value Added won't necessarily drop. If this year's children aren't working at as high a level presumably this isn't a new thing - they came to the school working at a lower level? The school could still have added value.

I suppose the problem is that lots of parents look at the percentage of level 3/4/5's and don't understand or consider the importance of the Value Added score but to me it is the most influential score. I don't think enough is made of it though.

PetWoman do you think the targets take sufficient account of the different rates at which children learn throughout their lives?

I remember posting on MN last autumn about there seemingly having been "a massive synaptical explosion" with ds - if the surge he'd experienced over the preceding couple of months had continued on the same trajectory, we'd be looking at L6 (and some) these coming SATs (it hasn't though!).

Ds1 has also been tested very frequently this year. He is bright but dyspraxic, so tends do do less well in tests than in class work. Rather than making progress in the tests, he has started going backwards recently and is getting very stressed about this, especially as most of his friends are getting better marks each time. I don't know whether the pressure is getting to him - he is certainly concerned about being in 'good sets' in secondary school - but in his case it doesnt seem to be the case that more practice = better marks. Earlier this week he asked me if we could do a practice maths paper together this weekend - but when I mentioned it tonight he begged me not to make him do it, saying as if he feels his brain cant take any more in .

I think I might go and see his teacher on Monday - am hoping that she will say that the secondary school set on teacher assessment rather than SATs marks, in which case he'll be fine.