Worth staying on for SATS?

[expansivegirth]

If someone had the option of, saying, pulling their child/ren out of school after Christmas before the SAT frenzy.began ....and then simply putting them into their allocated secondary school in September ... perhaps using those months to travel in the interim.... what exactly would a child miss? Anything of real educational value? Anything much beyond the final month of school friendships/bonding? (And I suppose the kid could always be re-enrolled for the last half term of the school year... school places are hardly likely to be taken at that late stage). The more I read about SATS the less point there seems to be in school in this period. It sounds unpleasant for everyone and as if the time could be better used elsewhere.

as it happens I was pulled out of my primary school the second to last term of my final year and sent back for the final term - it made no difference to me or my education (but I was quite an odd, solitary child so I wouldn't want to use that as a model).

pros and cons please

Schools make a huge fuss of the yr6 leavers they would lose all those Send Off events and activities. Fine if they don't have much of a social life and don't care about celebrating the end of their primary days (I didn't, either).

DD is in y6; In the last 4 months she has done loads of sport including cross-country events and netball tournament, music, a lot of history & some geography, a trip out, ICT, violin lessons, latin lessons just loads and loads that wasn't SATs related. Some schools apparently have very narrow focus, though, that's true.

DD has enjoyed SATs very much. I don't sense any of her peers find them stressful (I work lunchtimes). No worse than all the other week-long assessment periods they have had in last 4 yrs, anyway.

I think the important thing is how your school deal with sats.

Ours are pretty low key, but the stuff they do afterwards is fun. Activity days / business week where they set businesses up/ class musicals.

It's rather sad for the school that they educate your child and then don't get the acknowledgement for it via the sat results. But it depends on what your school does.

As someone who has taught Y6 I feel a little hurt at the suggestion that there would be NOTHING of educational value in the space of 2 full terms! I also think its a little drastic and unecessary.

If you want to come back for the last half term then you need to check how sought after your school is and how much numbers fluctuate. We've had at least 10 new children in KS2 over the last 4 weeks. I work at quite a big school but my point is you cant assume they'll keep her place.

I wouldnt do it but I agree it probably wouldnt make much difference in the long run.

Some schools have positions of responsibility (Head Girl/Boy/Librarian/Prefect/Lunch Monitor etc) which your child might miss out on.
Would maybe miss the PGL if it falls at that time. At DD's school, PGL was always the weekend after SATs finished, although not the same in all schools.
My DD really enjoyed being in the oldest year group, and it did her the world of good. Her school were not SATs mad though!

I think it varies from school to school. As well as preparing for SATs, Y6 here do an art project from February to May (nine pieces in different media) and (with teachers' help) plan and create a yearbook. Then from the middle of May, they prepare and put on a full-scale original production which is written for that year group each year.