School holiday revision classes for KS2 SATS

[bristolbabe]

Our school has invited all the Y6 students to come into class every morning for a week of their Easter holiday for SATS revision. Do other schools do this? I'm reluctant to have my daughter's holiday eaten away like this, given that the secondary school she is going to next year normally reassesses kids on entry and streams accordingly. (Although, that said, she is happy to do it as most of her friends will be going in). Does this mean our school is really diligent and cares about the education of the children? Or are they just becoming SATS obsessed? Previous KS2 SATS in school a bit disappointing so I can see they had to do something, but this feels like overkill.

To be fair, it's a new head, with a load of new staff. This teacher and this head were not here last year, and the previous Y5 and Y4 teachers were not great (they've also gone!). If the head wants to prove that the school is better now than then he needs to compensate for poor teaching in previous years. Maybe this is a one off, and next year they won't do it?

I'm in two minds. On the one hand I'm impressed that the teachers are willing to put in the effort so that the kids get up to speed, on the other I'd be more impressed if this were a school happy to keep SATS low key because the head was confident that in other areas, that really mattered, they were giving the children a well rounded education. To me the booster classes in the holiday suggests rather a dull minded and unimaginative approach to school life: better a rebel head that works around the constraints made by this government, than one that works full out to request some insane OFSTED generated demand.

I am suspicious of schools which have Sats results as the focus of all their efforts, as in my view that is often at the expense of actually teaching children and helping them to achieve their potential.

DS arrived at an outstanding state primary in yr4, as a gifted mathematician and very able reader but with little practice in comprehension exercises and almost illegible handwriting (dyspraxic plus was coming from overseas school which had not yet started on joined-up handwriting in his age group).

In his time at the school, he learnt virtually nothing new in maths, and was bored to tears in yr6 because the class focus was on going over and over material from yr4 and yr5 to ensure that everyone got to the all-important level 4 in their Sats.

He got no help at all with handwriting at school, and I was casually informed a week or two before the Sats that his papers would be transcribed because his handwriting was so bad - the school wasn't bothered about helping him improve it because they could get around it for the Sats.

I was not impressed, so moved DD to a private school from yr3. She is now in yr6 and having a wonderfully stress-free time, while working at a much higher level in maths than her brother was allowed to at their old school.

I think once established the Easter classes will be hard to knock on the head. Teacher are on performance related pay - it's in their interests to get the scores up regardless of the impact. Poor kids as I'm sure loads of parents will use this service as cheap childcare.

Are you sure it's led by the school? We have a different type of standardised testing here, but the pressure from the parents for their children to succeed is massive, despite us telling them constantly that it really is just a snapshot and essentially meaningless. I teach one of the years that does the testing and every year I get told I should be giving extra tutoring, or running sessions outside of school hours for students to attend. Parents are often competitive, and see it as important (it's really not!).

Before jumping on the school I'd question if parents are requesting the additional teaching and the head has agreed to oblige. If he said no, then there would be parents saying that they're not supporting the children. They're obviously optional sessions, so just don't send your child if you object to them.

The pressure is external (local authority and wider government objectives). Parents are generally bemused/bewildered by the decision.

It's not so much about whether or not I send my child to the classes (it's up to her, and she may go because her friend are). It's more about working out what kind of a school our school is becoming.

Bloody hell we don't even expect kids to do this for their GCSEs, and they are important.

See what we've come to, Mr Gove?

It's making me feel guilty that no way would I do this for my class. I can see it's utter madness and hate the whole idea but I still feel I'm not doing enough as a teacher. Poor kids. They are at PRIMARY SCHOOL!