Education professionals: what happens if I take my child out of KS2 SATs?

[Wordsmith]

I am at the end of my tether with DS2's school. Long story which I won't go into in detail, but he's in Y6, is on target to get his Level 4 (which I am completely happy about) but is being pushed to do more and more to get up to a L5. He has problems with concentration and confidence and is getting very stressed about the whole thing. Now he's just told me he's been told he'll be doing his SATs in a room on his own with a teaching assistant. God knows why? I'm obviously going to try and get to the bottom of it - I have already complained about the pressure he is being put under. It seems they are telling me one thing and DS another.

If I can't sort this out we're seriously thinking of taking him out of the SATs altogether. I know someone who did this a few years ago and got a lot of grief from the HT for it but it was perfectly legal to do. What I want to know is, is that still the case? I know his secondary school re-test the kids within a couple of weeks of starting Y7 so the SATs aren't that vital, but what sanctions, if any, could I expect from the authorities?

Springisontheway, y6 teachers know those kids very well. If they weren't under so much pressure, I think you'd find their teacher assessments to be spot on.

I also think all this teaching obsessively to the test must mean the grades are inflated which then means more pressure on secondary schools to try and achieve GCSE grades that a child isn't naturally able to attain. It's a perpetual madness!

In DS1's SATs year (2011) one girl was pulled out by her parents because she couldn't handle pressure at all (this was in much 'kinder' times). I was a Governor then and well remember the HT's fury when the results came in and the fact that she one fourtieth of the cohort - had not sat the test meant that the school 'only' got a L4+ pass rate of 97.5%. That girl is now in Y10, flourishing, a v high achiever and winner of several national level prizes for her writing. Will probably get straight A stars all round.

SATs are all about the school, not about the children, and if secondary school pupils fail to hit their targets because of over inflated KS2 SATs results then to blame the kids or the parents who tried to protect them from damaging levels of stress isn't just wrong, it's viciously wrong.

Reluctant, I agree the teachers almost certainly can level the kids without the test. I am just not sure their assessment will stand if no SATs are taken. From this thread it's unclear what secondaries will do with children who haven't taken SATs tests.

Whatever you may think regarding SATs, I think it is a bit pointless to pull them out for SATs week. They will have done all the build up and pressure, so at that point they might as well do the tests.
You can tell them it's no worry but they get to do the tests, take part with their peers, probably get special breakfasts, extra play time etc.

Anyway, my DD1 got extra English intervention in y9 because she wasn't making progress compared with y6 SATs . She wouldn't have been targeted if she had missed the SATs.

(And being 'targeted' Cs based on KS2 hasn't stopped school predicting higher for both English & Maths GCSEs).

I'm not sure. I guess it will depend on the school. Some ignore them completely and test the kids themselves in Y7. DS went on to a selective independent so it wasn't an issue for us.

There's little point in discussions the point oh SATs they're here and not going anywhere!
Your DS will have been given a separate room because of the confidence/concentration issues that you've mentioned. It won't be to single him out but to support him. We have several individuals and groups of children who get this. It isn't means tested or extra time just giving them an environment to help them do their best.
Despite the views of most on here, as a school everything we do is to help the children achieve their best. Not because of school data (although we're pleased when it goes well!) but because it's our job!

TeenAndTween, yes, of course you are right. But I wanted school not to do so much prep and they basically ignored me so I withdrew him. Churlish I admit but I was pissed off.

I have 2 DC 2 school years apart, 1st DC buckled under the pressure, they put a ridiculous work load on her, work for hours every night, staying back at school, loads of workbooks which had to be completed. She was predicted to get 5's, always told how bright she is all through school especially with English, expect good things then got 4s and 3 in maths, something she really struggles with and didn't understand as they pushed her too hard which has now had a knock on effect. I think she was so fed up by the time she sat them she was past caring. Very strict teacher.

DC2 and a different teacher, has had non of the above and is on target for 5's, not bad considering she has a processing disorder and only got help in yr4, was way behind all her peers. Lovely teacher, dc thinks the world of her and wants to please her, she's had no pressure at all

Totally different teacher with different style

So Wombat, shy the excessive practice? Why not just do one, maybe two max practice papers and see what happens? Why hold booster classes? It's because bloody ofsted seem to think a school who get 99% L4 of which 75% are L5 and 10% L6 is by definition a good school. And I hate that assumption. Actual good schools must hate this too, whatever their results show.

Reluctant landlord- that simply isn't true. I can show you several 90%+ schools in Ofsted categories. It is about children meeting their potential (albeit based on ks1 outcomes) . I know good schools with less than 60% combined and they are damm good schools.

Yes I also know plenty of good schools without stratospheric results. But you can't say that schools don't feel pressure from ofsted to make sure their sats results are as high as possible; even if artificially inflated due to excessive prep? If there was no pressure then schools would simply make sure kids were comfortable with a test format and just hand out the papers on the day. But instead my child is forced to sit through hour after hour of booster classes and daily sessions. The chart I saw said something like Mon: interpreting info, tue: fractions/decimals/percentages Wed: word problems.
They had school made workbooks with realms of photocopied practice questions. What a waste of a term. It must add up to a few weeks of nothing but sats prep. Yet it's apparently detrimental to their education to take them on holiday for a week!

Realms=reams

Attendance - As schools now have up to 5 days to catch up absent students, if you chose to withdraw him by keeping him off school, you would have to keep him off for 9 days. You can not be prosecuted for such a short absence so as long as you haven't got lots of other unauthorised absences, nothing will happen with regards to school attendance.
Secondary school - lots of children enter secondary school without ks 2 results. Immigrant children, children who were sick and children who went to private primary schools to name a few. Children who don't have KS 2 results are excluded from the progress 8 measure btw but thTs an irrelevance to you as a parent. They will still want him to achieve the best possible attainment results in GSCEs so they will just take his teacher assessed grade and use the to allocate him a set or target ( if they don't set)
Primary school - it will piss the head teacher off no end BUT please remember she/he is der intolerable pressure. NOTHING COUNTS ANYMORE OTHER THAN Y6 SATS results. Not how good the teaching us, not how well rounded the children are, not how the school develops them as people, not how creative they are, not your son's mental Heath. NOTHING COUNTS EXCEPT SATs results. Her whole career and the wellbeing of her staff (her staff are already working every hour that God sends - if they go into category they will mostly leave with exhaustion/stress related problems) rests on the results a bunch of 11 year olds get over three days because that is all that counts when measuring the 'worth' of her school and thus her leadership. There is a reason teachers are leaving the profession in droves and no one can recruit a head teacher.

Friend's DD didn't do SATs but wasn't classed as having failed to achieve a given level. Her targets are clearly above that and have been since the start of y7.

I was responding to a pp who said TA of level 4. There surely must be provisions for TA for children who miss SATs for whatever reason - would seem a very bad system if it relies 100% on the exam at this age???

Effic that's sad but true. I know several brilliant, enthusiastic primary teachers who say the same. But I also know some heads who realise that crming kids doesn't necessarily equal better results. not the head at our school thoigh. Having seen him in action as a parent and a governor I can day that he talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk. He says what you want to hear and then does what suits his career best. Sorry but that's my view of him as a manager, and I've worked with plenty of managers good and bad to know the difference. Like someone said earlier, SATs are SATs but it's HTs that decide to pile on the pressure.

cramming kids I mean

You say you can't homeschool for work reasons so how can you take 2 weeks off with almost no notice? The fine is only £60 so I wouldn't worry about that.

Thing is he's already done most the stressful part, bit daft to keep him off now.

If he really is stressed out, could keep him off the next 3 weeks to avoid all the pressure (you'll only get fined once). Then send him in for the regular test week and await the £60 fine.... all the fun stuff comes after SATs week.

DS (now y10) has no y6 SAT results, his targets have never been an issue, targets were not the yr group avg.

The fine here is per session missed. Not per week or whatever. But that's not the point. If I had to take him out of school for SATs for 2 weeks I'd have to wing it - I'm self employed so don't get paid holidays. I don't want to take him out and hope I don't have to but the issue is his sanity, not my business.

Exactly Hermia. No-one benefits from over inflated grades. I know in my heart that DS is not a level 5, but if by some miracle he gets one and is targeted for GCSEs on that basis, he'll struggle. I want him to feel confident at the level he's working at, and encouraged to stretch himself, not to meet a school's arbitrary targets, but his own natural ability.

I really, really wish that I had withdrawn my son from yr6 SATS. They absolutely destroyed his confidence and it has never recovered.
If I could go back in time, I would withdraw him regardless of the consequences.
The shared experience is just a nonsense. Some kids cope, others don't, a few thrive, a few fall apart.

There is no consequence to him of any significance. If by the time they get to yr9, the secondary school claim that they cannot give an accurate predicted grade or assess a child because they don't have the results of some tests done in a different subject in yr6, I would wonder what the hell they had been doing in the past 3 years.

Schools care because of league tables. That is how they are judged. That is not your problem. Put your son's mental health first and make a decision based entirely and completely in his best interests.

I really wish I'd done this.

DD went through it all 2 years ago. Her school handled the whole thing terribly. I get that the school want them to do well, but seriously I think they would actually get better results if they eased off a bit. The kids were shouted at, told they were letting the school down, told that it would affect their whole future etc.

DD's best friend threw up from the nerves five minutes into the first test. The teacher put an upside down bucket over the vomit and the entire class (including the sick child) had to sit with the smell for an hour.

And the deputy head walked round the room, tapping a question that a child had got wrong with a pen to get them to correct it.

They did nothing but revision from September to May, which meant DD had done all the Y5 maths work in Y4, and repeated it in Y5, then did it again in Y6. They didn't bother teaching her any of the L6 syllabus because they were too busy with the L4-5 boundary, so she missed out on a L6 by 2%. When she hit secondary she went from a 5B to a 7c by Christmas!

And after the SATS when they'd been promised fun, they cancelled the leaver's disco and the end of year play, and they saw out their time at primary doing colouring in, and no actual learning was done at all. She was bored to tears.

I think the whole of her Y6 was a complete disaster and I wish now that I'd home ed for the entire year.

Oh UnsolvedMystery, that's really sad. Hope your DS has the support he needs now at school. Kids like him and my DS are the ones who pay the price of this stupid slavery to the league table and OFSTED grades.

At our school students who've come from abroad and have no SATS are given a target grade of a C, but when we analyse data we are aware of this and adjust our expectations to what we know of the student.

Personally I'd try and get to the bottom of why he is doing the exam on his own. If it's Access Arrangements then that's completely fine.

However, I personally think KS2 SATS are rubbish.