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

I agree there's a fine line between pressure and additional support sometimes, blu

In both my dc's years - but particularly in dd's year - there were a LOT of very competetive parents. It felt a bit like watching a nuclear arms race at times - I should add that the majority of parents were not like that but you certainly couldn't help noticing those who were, put it that way.

Booster groups from 8am sounds a step too far, i agree. They're usually (here, I hasten to add!) in school time and just operate like sets - so instead of, say, 4 sets in a class, there would be 8 for English and maths. I found this really beneficial for my dc's because they were middle set types who got missed out a bit during 'normal' lessons. They did a lot of practice papers but I don't think it was every day until after Easter.

GCSE's are now modular (though that may change) and first exams for some subjects are in autumn of Year 10 , very different from our day. I coasted/did sweet FA in year 10 and pulled socks up for Y11 - but you can't do that now.

Sometimes we just have to do - not what we want but what is expected of us. Unfortunately if your child is taken out of school and you tell him you don't want him to take the tests then it will give the impression he doesn't have to conform. SATs are not the be all and end all and he needs to learn real exam situations for the future. Unfortunately the sooner he realises we all have to sometimes do things we don't want to or don't agree with, then the easier it will be for the both of you!

Grungebob, the current year 9s will not have modular gcses.

bruffin are they going out that soon ... I was hoping they may stay around a little longer for ds ...

Yes my dd is year 9 and just chosen her options.

My year 9 dd will be sitting some parts of various GCSE courses in a couple of weeks.

Is she finishing them in year 10?

Dcs school don't do gcses early. Dd has only just chosen her options to start in September. All her gcses will be linear ad we were warned that end of yr 12 will be very exam heavy.

Mean yr 11

Sorry, I meant hotsauce. Year 9s will be taking linear exams if they certificate in year 11.

She is on an accelerated learning program, they take all of their GCSE's a year early. She chose her options last year and started the course work in the summer term of year 8.

Hmm. Our school is top of the league tables in a high performing education authority. Obviously, the kids do well in their SATs or whatever they are now called. I have never had a paper sent home and neither of my kids have talked about doing them in class except for once, a month or so before the tests. I'm starting to think highly of the school now though maybe I'd think more highly if I didn't know all the kids had been tutored for the 11+

'am sure there are schools which do not put children under pressure. I am sure there are schools where they continue doing project work.'

DD1's school seems to be getting the balance right; apparently they are doing revision papers quite a bit (although in truth I'd forgotten when the wretched things started so this is probably quite a good thing, given DD1's utter lack of Home Support) but they certainly seem to be doing interesting stuff too.

FarSide - no, but that doesn't mean I think it makes for good education.

The children I know of who are feeling under pressure are still 10 years old. There are plenty of things that will happen when they are 15 or 16 that I don't feel the need to subject them to now. It isn't even bloody necessary - DS is doing v well academically, and engages better and enjoys and therefore extends his own work when NOT being chivvied and made to do test after test after test. In this respect I think Home Ed has many advantages. I have no choice but to send my child to a state school, I do support the school and the education, but I completely disagree with the emphasis that successive governments have put on testing, especially where it is for the school and the education system's benefit and not for the child's.

It's interesting that children nowadays are tested far less often than they used to be in the old days, when it was the norm to have tests at least every term in all subjects. And state school children are still tested far less often than private school kids- ds's private school friends have regular exams, and a couple even have the form order up on the wall as a "incentive"!

Very interesting thread.
I am a bit like you OP in that I think school does not teach a lot of the more important things- How to manage finances, how to cook, just general everyday stuff. But my child is in school until 3.30, and has two days off a week. The things I think are important to teach him, I do it myself.
I seriously considered HE and though I respect completely anyone who does it, I am so glad I sent him to school. I have found that as his mother, I need to be encouraging, and tell him he's brilliant etc etc :o At school, he sees how he fits in with his peers- He knows he has strengths and weaknesses at school, and the fact that he can't draw very well isn't something that makes him sad. It just equips him for the real world in the gentlest most natural way. I'm sure others could, but I don't think I could have taught this as well at home as he figured out himself at school.

Of course, he does have to do things he doesn't enjoy at school, but I think that's good. If he could, he would spend all day reading and writing, but he has to do some maths too... And he needs to do it, maths is a basic life skill. And as he does more of it, his confidence increases and he starts enjoying it.

FWIW, I think that exams are total bollocks. But they do count, unfortunately, so my children will be taking them.

"It's interesting that children nowadays are tested far less often than they used to be in the old days, when it was the norm to have tests at least every term in all subjects. And state school children are still tested far less often than private school kids- ds's private school friends have regular exams, and a couple even have the form order up on the wall as a "incentive"!"

DD is in year 7 at a state comprehensive and has regular tests in all subjects. When I was at high school in the 1970s we had exams (not tests, proper exams) in January and June every year.

I know, bunbaker. People always seem to remember a pre SATs Golden Age of frolicking gaily in exam -free meadows.

And we didn't do any modular work for O and A levels. We had to sit exams at the end of the 2 year period and try to remember everything we had learned in the previous 2 years.

Oh, and at my primary school we always had exams every summer (this was in the 1960s). And the 11+ was compulsory.

I'm older than the average MN-er, went to a private school at primary age and a super selective v academic 'direct grant' school at secondary, a school that was then and still is a top performng school nationally.

We did a couple of low-key practice papers for the 11+, we started each maths lesson with '10 quick questions', a mental maths test which was like a fun quiz, and we had regular short spelling tests in English, French and Latin lessons - all of which lasted about 5 mins and were built on the last lesson or homework - no revision needed. I think we then did some mock-mocks for O level, then the mocks, then the O levels. That was it, for testing.

I honestly think that was quite unusual, Blu. I didn't go to school, as it happens, but my brothers did, and I was very aware of the exams they had to do. And the exams my friends were doing- because I insisted on doing exams at the same time!

My eldest is sitting her SATs next week - we've even had a booklet home, explaining that she should be tucked up in bed by 8.30 every night...

But despite the fact that DD tends to worry about things, she's very laid back about the tests. As she says, it's only the same tests that she's taken at the end of every school year since year 3. Yes, she's done quite a few practice papers over the last few weeks. She has some extra maths lessons for the level 6 paper. And that's it.

DD is in Yr 4 and from from the last term of Yr 3 has been formally tested in each of her subjects. We get an end of term report and the marks for each test are listed along with comments from each subject teacher.

Most of her homework is structured revision where she has to "revise" (ie re-read) various topics each evening.

Seeker - did you home ed then? How come you didn't go to school?

I was home ed-ed until I was 14, bletchley.