Parents of children in Yr6 - are you all preparing for SATs?

[HuwEdwards]

DD in Yr6 and SATs fast approaching. AFAIC I understood this is something for the school to work on with the kids, with support from parents via homework etc.

But from random conversations over the past couple of weeks, I find that lots of parents are downloading SATs papers and doing a lot of work with their kids in evenings and weekends.

Am I in the minority?

I didn't do any of that with DS1 and he was absolutely fine. The school prepared him really well from what I can remember. Do you have any reason to think he needs any more help?

Hi Sparkling, no teacher seems confident she'll get where she needs to be.

Mine are in Yrs 11, 8, and 5.
No, I've never done that. No, I never will. No, there is absolutely no need for you to. SATS are one of the ways the Gvmnt measures 'value added' perfomance of a school. It's completely flawed, but that's another threa altogether.

Sorry I said 'him'-not reading properly. I think the main thing is plenty of sleep and hydration the week of the SATS.

I think he may have done a few games on BBC Bitesize but I certainly didn't download any past papers.

But she doesn't "need to be" anywhere. It's supposed to reflect the level she is working at. It's not a 'pass / fail' test for the child, it's about the %s of children a school gets at certain levels so thepress can publish school league tables.

When are they?

SATS week is the week after next. Quite frankly I think anybody who is 'working' on their child in anticipation of SATS is a) out of their mind and b) potentially verging on child abuse.
These are 10 and 11 year old dcs. They do NOT need a huge amount of pressure. They don't need to achieve a certain level. All they should be challenged to do is to try. That applies to their whole of their primary education. All we should expect of dcs is that they make an effort to learn new things.
If I could withdraw my dd from SATS I would be doing so.

2 weeks time (I think)

BFG, see what you're writing but that's not how the school is putting it over - desired levels are seen very much as national targets

We're not doing anything different.

DS did all the selective tests back in September/October/November (and got his desired place). That was heavy-going for him and he did work very hard. So we are not making a big thing at all about the SATS. He's just going with the flow, to be quite honest. His school isn't putting huge pressure on them...they have been working steadily towards them but certainly none of this push, push approach that some of the schools seem to favour.

He is hoping to get high Level 5s and possibly a Level 6 in maths but we shall see. To us, he has more than proved his ability by doing so well in his selective exams. I am not sure the school feels that way though!

I think there's more pressure on the children going to secondary schools where SATs results are used as part of the banding/streaming process.

I am a Year 6 teacher and my DD is in Year 6. We are doing absolutely nothing special at home for them...

Dd2's secondary retest early in the term and then start target setting based on that. Even if they used SATS results I wouldn't be pushing her. Year 6 is too young for all that stress.

It's even weirder round here. They go to High School in Year 8 so the Year 6 SATS results don't mean much by then.

I not doing anything with my yr6 daughter (and I'm working with yr6 so know what it's all about) - they are working very hard in class so I don't want to pressurise her at home for no reason. If she starts to panic then I'll talk things through but I'll not make her do any extra.
It's very difficult to mark some of the past papers unless the mark scheme is downloaded too as I've found it hard sometimes (particularly the reading paper) to see exactly what is required for the full marks.

I'm not doing anything either. The school would have liked us to, they gave DD1 a pile of work for over Easter and suggested we do 70 minutes every weekday over said holidays . And I was supposed to mark it.
We did none of it. At. All.

The school system has had DD for almost 7 years, if they think she will forget everything if she does not drill daily over Easter break they've been getting it so wrong that there's no redemption. DD is predicted high L5s and a possible 6 in English writing and reading, I refuse to be worried.

We are doing nothing. 2nd child to go through KS2 SATS. The school is very calm about it, they haven't sent any past papers or tests home, but they generally get good results. They do a lot of preparation in school, quite enough I think.