I don't want my son to sit his yr 6 SATS!

[mamauk]

Has anyone else taken their child out from school specifically to avoid the SATS? Is this 'allowed', I mean I am thinking my child's education is mine alone to decide...... and that I do not need 'permission' to do this?

My son was home educated until last year and decided to try school so as to have more opportunity to socialise on a more frequent basis.

My concerns:

~I feel this year, since Christmas, the emphasis of teaching in his class has been 'teaching to test'. Utterly geared towards these SATS tests. Thus the curriculum as a whole feels narrowed and limited and not a broad spectrum of learning one would hope in a year 6 setting. The teaching has been limited and narrowed down to Maths and English taking up lots of time.

~ I feel a more enjoyable and productive few months might have been had if this emphasis had not been on the SATS.

~ I feel this approach and high levels of anxiety (by teachers) has started to poison my son's feeling towards education. As mentioned previously, as a home educated child he believed he could/would/was good at anything he tried, and has been utterly squashed by the current teaching and constant assessment. he comes home telling me how much has has gotten 'wrong' . His self image is suffering. His self confidence and self esteem too, obviously. he seems sort of hesitant when talking, as if he might be getting something wrong! it is horrifying to see.

~Just reading this I am sort of wondering why the hell I allowed him to go to school! I feel now perhaps I should have taken further steps to simply increase outside social time when at home (we already did lots of groups and activities, my son is just super sociable).

~It all seems like such a wasted year, especially when ongoing teacher assessment happens anyway, as a matter of course.

~Can I contact the school and tell then he will not be coming in that week? What will they do? I don't feel I need 'permission'. But am wondering what might be the consequences.....? Anyone know?

The school already said that the results have no effect on subject streaming in High School, it's just a matter of league tables.

Opinions please!

thanks,

Claire

Lots of the thread sounds quite bitter, I think.

I am also not especially in favour of making children miserable as a preparation for adult life!

absolutely blu.

I had an ed pysch agree with me that lots of children are not suited to school and spent most of their childhood miserable. she didn't seem to have a problem with that, but I did.

they are children for such a short time, I don't think giving them a happy, easy childhood is a crime. plenty of time for them to learn about the 'real' world, when they are older.

You should send your son to Norway if you dont want any pressure in school, and if you want your child to have a happy and carefree life running through fields thinking he can do anything he wants.

Either that, or La La land.

I opted out of the year 2 sats for my oldest child. I just went into the school and explained to the headmistress why I was doing it. She was a bit annoyed as (naturally, with him being a MN child ) he was one of the kids they were hoping to get good grades.

TBH, I look back and realise that I was being a bit PFB, but haven't they got rid of them now? I wouldn't have opted out for my year 6 child, had we lived in the UK by then. By 11, they are probably at the best age of all to be tested on what they learned. They love it! By 12, not so much.....

Sorry you've had a bit of a battering on here, OP. My DS was at home for most of Year 6 and I was very grateful that he didn't have to go through the coaching for SATS that the rest of his year suffered. The headmistress told me that my son wasn't missing anything in terms of work because all the children would be doing was revising. My son still sat the SATS (at home) - the school were very keen that he take them. It was all so silly because his secondary school retested all the Year 7s. I was told that they don't trust the SATs results as they are usually an inaccurate reflection of the children's abilities, thanks to all the coaching they've had.

I agree with those who say that, now your son is back in the school system, you have to go along with these tests, though I can see why it's hard for you. However, I think you will confuse your son if you are openly critical. It's true that he will probably really enjoy all the fun the children have after the tests are over - maybe you can help him look forward to that.

OP, I agree with you. So much so that we deliberately chose a tiny independent school that didn't do them for our children at that age. Seems a complete waste of a year of learning at such a wonderful and fascinated age if the school is going to focus on SATs to the exclusion of all learning.

Of course loads of parents love SATs so that may not be the prevailing opinion. I'm old enough to remember a time before SATs.

any advice for someone considering HE for DS2 8 and DD 5? Tiny school is lovely, but I want to look into possibilities.
Can I just ask other HE mums- are you very patient? And organised? It worries me that I might not be the right temperament iyswim?

I think your taking the wrong attitude. If he doesn't sit his days that will show on his sets for secondary which will effect his gcses. You did worry me when you said you didn't want to wake sleeping beauty to go to school. Are you going to say the same about work as well. You are not preparing them for life which unfortunately will always involve some sort of test or appraisal of their ability. When he's older will you have an issue with an appraisal for a pay rise?

I am so sorry your ds and you are going through this. I had a pretty hard time with my ds in k-5th grade (in USA where I returned to from the uk because I anticipated having trouble with the rigid testing culture of the uk...unfortunately it was only marginally better in the USA). I thought long and hard about the possibility of HEing my ds, but couldn't afford to do it (i am only wage earner) and am not a great teacher. However, I finally found a fabulous school (private) for ds (age 11) that teaches the way teaching should be done. They meet all the State standards, but let the children explore all sorts of other things and subjects as well. Ds discovered an interest in history which he didn't have before. He loves going to school every day and bubbles with delight when he tells me about what he learned in class. Ds has Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome, but still insists on going to school even in the middle of an episode (vomiting 30 times a day...certainly a valid excuse for staying home) because he enjoys school so much. He even announced today that he was going to ask the principal to start teaching Latin again because he thought it would be a useful language to learn to help him with vocabulary (when I pointed out that no one speaks Latin anymore, he said "well it will be useful for telling secrets then!") The school does a standardized test at the beginning and end of each school year, but the children are not specifically "taught to the test" yet they do well because they are taught well. Obviously my ds' school is not available to your ds because we're in the wrong country, but this is to say that great schools that teach the way teaching should be done do exist. And rigor in learning is not antithetical to exploration and creativity in learning.
I really disagree with the other who insist that there is only one path to success in life. I am watching the graduating seniors from ds' school getting accepted to top universities and truly prepared for them and real life, but without all the conventional approaches to education and knowledge that most students seem to have these days. These are our future artists and scientists.

And again, I disagree with the others who suggest that you shouldn't enjoy being able to allow your younger child to sleep in in the morning. If that gets a more creative day out of him, then that's fantastic that you have that option. He's only 9. I'd love to see the research that says that 9 year olds must get up early or they won't be successful in life or will be lazy in adulthood. My ds' illnesses mean that he needs way more sleep than a regular 11 year old. It's so fabulous to have him in a learning environment that allows that to happen and doesn't make his showing up early to school a prerequisite for getting an education. (At his last school, he ended up missing weeks and weeks of school (8 weeks in 5th grade, 5 weeks in 4th grade) because they couldn't accommodate any divergence from their schedule and requirements.
Good luck with your endeavors. I wish I could fast forward 15 years and know what wonderful and amazing things your children will be doing with their lives and for humanity.

I'd rather live in la la land, than cynical old bag land.

"I'm old enough to remember a time before SATs."

And I'm old enough to remember sitting the compulsory 11+. I don't ever remember there being as much pressure for that as there is for the KS2 SATS. I'm sure there must be some middle ground that prepares the children for being tested without the kind of pressure that happens in year 6 nowadays.

Unfortunately the results do have a direct effect on the school's ofsted status and the teachers are under huge pressure to get the best results they can. Don't blame the school, blame the system.

My god daught goes to state school in France. They do tests in every subject every month. These are marked out of 20- and this includes games and other non academic subjects. If you don't get a certain average over the year you are kept back a year.

Now that's pressure!

Sofia
My DD's bf had a similar health problems to your ds, ie days of being sick on a monthly basis caused by damaged kidneys, numerous hospital appointments and she thrived in normal school.
The only thing the OP's son is going through is a crisis of confidence because he has gone out into the real world and found out that he is not as wonderful at everything as his mother told him he was. The fact he isn't equipped to handle getting things wrong is not a problem with the school or with SATs.

I'm finding this thread really interesting - DD2 was HE till the summer of Y5, then chose to go back to (a different) school. She found Y6 SATS revision really useful as it meant she could identify any gaps (mainly just terminology as she'd roughly followed the NC for maths, and had read through the science revision guide). BUT, she'd chosen to go back to school at that point (part of her longer term plan to go back for secondary, but application criteria meant that going back earlier was best) so she knew it was her choice, and if there were bits she didn't like, then tough. It was all of school, or none of school, not a "pick the bits you want to do darling" situation.

I dont think your child will thank you when he is an adult, that he has not been prepared for reality of life as it is today, but rather your ideal of what life should be.

You are setting him up for failure.

Who are you "educating" him for. Him? Yourself?

Hotsauce :o

Bruffin, I am so happy that your dd's bf managed to thrive in a "normal" school. My ds did not and it wasn't for lack of ability, brains or interest in learning. My ds was absolutely uninterested in taking his SATs, but that didn't mean that he expected to do badly on them (nor did he despite missing 8 weeks of school). He was not having a crisis of confidence. He was just bored silly doing busy work and not getting challenged. He simply didnt care whether he got 100% on every test (which he generally did), he really just wanted to learn more than they were equipped or interested in teaching him at his "normal" school. It sounds like the OP's ds is have a similar problem. And I think it's truly sad the english custom of denigrating people who are positive and encouraging to others (especially their children).

I'm not against some kind of minor exam in year 6, to assess both the impact of the previous 6 years' schooling and the child's attainment and needs at the end of primary school. What I am utterly utterly against is the whole year being wasted as it is in many schools with "revising" for SATs, which really means doing exam technique stuff all year and learning very little that's new. It seems a complete shameful waste of a year for them.

I think the best thing you can do, for

I agree completely with duchesse.

Oops stupid phone

For the school, at any rate, is take your son back into your autonomous collective (what the actual fuck - I cannot believe there really are people who talk like that) so they don't get penalised by your attitude to sats. Why you enrolled him in mainstream school in year six when you are so opposed to formalised testing is mystifying.

I'm amazed....just amazed.
You don't agree with testing, but you sent your dc to school in year 6 knowing full well it's a SATS year.

You dont want to wake your child before 9am-ever

You don't believe in telling children what to do-sorry but if they were about to run into the road, would you "suggest" it was a bad idea?

One of your DCs chooses not to go to school because he prefers to draw all day?

And you think they are being adequately prepared for adult life???

If your dc chooses to go to secondary school the first thing he will do is CAT exams, if you let him do that, what's the point of refusing SATS?

It's not that I think there's only one way, or that children should be tested every two minutes, or even that some schools don't handle SATS very well. I do think though that it's not workable to install your child with a vague unsubstantiated sense that he can 'do anything' at the same time as thinking that it's fine to spend all day doing drawing, and encourage him in the belief that liking drawing is incompatible with going to school.

There just seems to be this sense that right and wrong answers are all subjective and that it's horribly damaging to a child to be told when an answer is wrong, which I think is setting them up for a very hard life. If the child is so floored and damaged by this, I think the answer is more to help him be more resilient and confident and bounce back, rather than to sweep him up and away from what is really not a very stressful few tests.

I think it's important to remember though that many (most?) schools aren't SATS factories in Y6 (or Y5). Neither DD1 nor DS (who take quite different approaches to school work, self motivation, personal responsibility etc) were stressed out by the SATS at all. Nor did they feel that the school was only doing test teaching in the terms leading up to the SATS. DD1 did miss a flute lesson in SATS week, we were furious (the school cancelled the teacher, she didn't come in but because it was short notice all the parents had to pay. This has not happened in the two subsequent years. It had better not happen next week either since DD2 has an exam coming up). Other than that - life goes on as normal. As it should do.

You know, I realise it does happen, but I have had involvement in a lot of schools, and I have never, ever come across this high pressure SATs preparation thing. I quizzed my own year 6 this morning, who said they had dome "loads" of revision. When questioned further, he said that they had done one paper a day, either Maths or English, in the morning (total time 45 minutes) for the "past few weeks." and a pack of work for the Easter holidays which was supposed to take 10 minutes a day. For which they got extra playtime when they handed them in. And the rest of the day carried on as normal. The only school I have come across doing lots is one where they even have "voluntary" after school sessions. This school gets fantastic SaTS results- is massively oversubscribed and parents re practically camping on the plying field to try and get their kids in. Make of that what you will.

Wow- massive cross posts.