Year 6 SATS - can someone explain something to me please!

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As a parent of a child in year 5, I am trying to understand SATS properly.

So - my understanding is that in the past, all children did papers at level 4, and then the more "able" ones also did level 5 or even level 6. But now all children do the same paper, which is at quite a high level, be it English or Maths. Is that correct?

What I am confused about is this: given that most English schools put children into ability groups for maths, and those groups don't do the same level of maths, how are they supposed to do the same test paper? Particularly given that, based on anecdotal evidence, it is often quite difficult for children to move between such ability groups...

Thanks TeenandTween. I can do without being called daft, thanks, though I appreciate your comments. I am glad your daughter did not experience stress in the test week, but that's not why I'm boycotting them. DS is already exceeding expectations a year in advance. That's not the point. The point is the tests are flawed, they drastically narrow the curriculum offer, distorting the educational experience of children and I don't like the way that the data is used to create a trajectory of expectation for the rest of their academic life. While I can see that one parent boycotting them won't change the world, I've discussed this with the whole family and we've decided it's right for us.

Whether or not he sits the tests, a trajectory will be set for him when he arrives in secondary school.
The school will test him when he arrives, look at his KS1 data, look at his progress over year 7, year 8 etc.
The government have made it mandatory that pupils demonstrate progress. It's in teachers' performance management. Thus schools have to create these trajectories, and children have to conform to them, or teachers will have pay cuts.

slummy Sorry, 'daft' wasn't the right word, I couldn't think of the right one when I wrote, but I think I was looking for 'misguided'.

With your explanation, I now feel as if you are impacting your DC for a 'political' point, which won't get noticed anyway and certainly won't affect how your DS is taught. If the secondary doesn't have SATs data they will probably use teacher assessment anyway, which will have him on the same trajectory.

Surely it's like a war. It needs to be both just and win-able. Your views may be just (I'm not going to comment on that side), but you unilaterally pulling him out of SATs won't impact the pursuit of your aims.

(but you clearly have thought about it a lot so a random on the internet won't make you change your view I am sure!)

SATs used to be a big stick to beat schools with, now the stick is being turned on the children too. No longer will parents be able to say that the SATS are simply testing the school, they are now a measure of each individual child.

MachiKoro. I may not have to - there's a chance he'll be attending an international school and taking the IB. Most international systems only test at the end point of education - we're almost unique in having random exams at 16 when the leaving age is now 18. But even if not, he would be fine with GCSEs. He'd be 16, they count for something and he's bright. His siblings flew through GCSE exams - my point is that the SATs limit a child's educational experience, narrowing the curriculum and are used in ways in secondary that I think are limiting.

Perhaps you and your solicitor should look up the definition of statutory.

As you say you can keep your child home and educate them there. That is your right and would entail you removing them from the school roll (and risk losing your child's place) alternatively you coukd just keep your child off school and risk a fine.
Note I'm not advising anyone to do this

TenandTween - exactly. Without the SATs score, the secondary school will assess him on what he can do there and then and not on what happened on a particular day six months before. They'll base his MFL assessment on what he can do in MFL and not on how he did in Maths. Same with PE/Art/Music. In some schools children are set for Art based on SATs scores. How can that be even vaguely logical?

Mrz - the only statutory point is that a parent can ask the headteacher permission for their child to be excluded from the test and the headteacher can refuse permission. They they write a report and the parent can appeal. That means that the parent's boycott is not authorised. That's it. There is nothing in law that says I have to obey the headteacher. I can take my child out of school. I may have to pay a fine. That's about it. Which I think is what you said in the first place way back in 2012. I surely can't be the only parent in the country intending to do this?

But what about all the prep leading to Sats? Are you going to let your dc do that and take him off school only for sats week? Or are you taking him out whole year? Bit confused.

OP - I'm not sure I understand. Please correct me if I've got this wrong….
So your dc will be in school, learning the school curriculum, but not take the tests because you think they limit the curriculum?? If you don't agree with the National Curriculum for y6, then why not send him to an independent school or home school him? Surely, by sending him to school, you are having him educated the way you really do not want him to be???

Please, don't flame me, I don't quite get what you're trying to achieve or protest about.

sorry - Slummyrunner, not OP.

Slummy, if you home ed there is no requirement for an hour a day formal tuition. Or that it be documented.

I know the LA provide tuition of 5 hrs per week for those not im school for medical reasons, but that is not home ed.

In some schools children are set for Art based on SATs scores. How can that be even vaguely logical?

This is almost certainly a timetabling issue. So e.g. they set for maths, but not all the maths lessons take place simultaneously so e.g. one maths set is doing Art and then on another occasion they do maths while a different maths set does Art.

Actually, what I meant was they would use the Primary Teacher Assessment to set base levels for use whenever they would otherwise be using SATs.

You seem to be worried that your DS's school will constrain him due to having good SATs results. There is no need for a school to constrain options based on incoming SATs. (I'd chose a different school.)

Whatatodo - I know. Nothing is ideal really. Can't put him in private because he's so close to his friends and I don't want to rip him out of school and I run my own business which means while I can take a couple of weeks off with him, I can't home school. Plus same problem as putting him in private. So nothing is going to be perfect. But I was talking to another teacher who made some good suggestions - she said I could set him alternative homework tasks so that when practice papers are sent home, he still has to do homework, but it can be different. I can request that he is allowed to read or write stories or research independent projects (he's mad about Science for example and Science has pretty much been dropped off the curriculum) while his classmates sit SATs practice papers. I'm going to propose this to the school. It worries me that he doesn't get MFL, Science etc so we could plug that gap. But you're right, it's not going to be perfect. I'm hoping there will be some kind of parent support group set up for people like me.

You can request that he doesn't do the SATs papers. I can't see the school agreeing to it since as far as they know he'll be sitting them.

Sorry, that should be practice SATs papers.

RafalsTheKingOfClay - that's the difficult bit isn't it? If they refuse. I haven't mentioned it to school yet. Been gathering advice and making sure I know what my rights are (basically none other than absconding), but I'm hoping they'll be reasonable and understanding. The danger is that it ends up stressing him out. I'd really like to know if anyone else has done this. I know it's gained momentum in America - 50% of parents boycotted SATs in some states last year.

No it means the child's attendance is unauthorised ...no one really cares that it's an unofficial boycott

Can that even be possible? If the school agreed to let your ds do science or MFL or whatever, then if child A wants to do PE and child B wants to do art, child C wants to do History instead of practice SATs, school will be in chaos?

Slummy, it is probably also worth researching exactly what your intended secondary does dfo with the SATs results.

Ours creates the initial sets for Maths - and nothing else, the rest is taught in mixed ability form groups. By Christmas of Y7, the Maths sets are re-shuffled, based on in-school assessment papers.

Then sets for Y8 onwards (sets are used for an increasing number of subjects) are all based on assessments of the child in in-school tests and tasks.

Following on Irvine's point, it is also relatively infrequent, IME, for the class to do an full practice SATs paper. I think ours do 1 set a term or so. However, in many lessons they might do one or two questions, based on the subject that they are studying - a fractions question in a fractions lesson etc.

How do you plan to handle tha?

I mean, if the class has a grammar lesson, and some of the questions are SATs based, does he get to do history for a bit? Does he do some Art for 10 minutes in the middle of a Maths lessons if a question is being discussed? Does he not do any reading on those days when a comprehension passage is being discussed, just because that comprehension passage was once used in SATs?

Good luck with expecting the class teacher to mark a random piece of homework set by you, that is different from what everyone else has done.
And I sincerely doubt the school would let you insist your child does not sit practice SAT papers in school time. Imagine where that slippery slope would lead...

Mrz. Struggling to understand the difference between not authorised and unauthorised.

Teacherwith2kids - the local sec sets based on Maths Sats for everything, even drama. My older kids hated it and it led to ridiculous things like the really uncoordinated slightly dyspraxic one being predicted As in PE and having to be given an individual action plan for falling short. I know that things are changing with levels going, but my kids practically had target numbers stamped on their foreheads from the moment they walked through the door and I think their school has kept levels anyway. So that's one objection. But the other is that I think these SATs are really, really shit. Today's results said it all for me - 47% "failing to meet expectations" - what on earth does that do to a kid's confidence?