My child missing KS2 SATS

[ClareJK]

Hi, my father has been very unwell, when he was diagnosed, he said if he gets better we will have a family holiday. Thankfully he is on the mend and has kindly booked a family holiday to Disney in the US. However, despite advising on dates, the holiday has been booked during SATS week. To be honest, I went into denial about this at first and really didn't want to make an issue, as my children were presented the holiday as a gift for Xmas. My child has achieved decent results at 11+ and we are happy missing the SATS won't affect her too much, but the school are very unhappy and trying to push me to cancel or delay our holiday. We have two more children still at school and really didn't mean to cause this amount of upset. Help, what would you do, we are due to leave in 2 days!

The problem I see with all these posts is that the poor bloody teachers have such ridiculous performance measures that one child doing something differently seriously affects their numbers

It is actually up to the OP to ensure her child attends school unless they are poorly.

The OP already comes across as one of those parents in her ridiculous 11+ post. Really silly and very unreasonable.

I believe schools are not permitted to use numerical targets for teachers in that way. At least, according to my union. Though I know a couple of secondary academies that do, it must be said.

Going round to ill children's houses was the old days - nowadays the tests can be taken up to 5 days later in case of illness, religious observance and participation in an international sporting event!! But not for family holidays - that is specifically prohibited.
Yes, it is massively worrying and upsetting for the school.
We are judged by these results. And parents judge us by them too - because they have a big impact on Ofsted grading and most parents look at those when they choose a school (or at least, judging by the threads on mumsnet they do)
A big fall in the pass percentage can trigger a no-notice inspection. It can also lose the Head their job - especially in an academy trust. And the numbers are small - even in a large primary, you are looking at 90 children in year 6, so one child has a big impact on the percentage.
In good schools, we teach the kids that we are all in it together, that it is just doing their best that matters. We use the SATS to teach the children that if they work hard, they can improve and that perseverance is important- vital skills for secondary school. Many of the skills tested are actually key skills for secondary school as well!!
And we give up hours of our own time to support children to feel they've done their best.
We wish the results were not such a big stick to beat us with - but we can't change that. So yes, when we know that those results are going to take a massive hit due to a holiday, we are sympathetic to difficult family circumstances - but also absolutely gutted. Because it does matter to the school and to us personally. And it matters to the children still in year 5, 4 .. right down to reception- because a drop in results will change the curriculum we are allowed to deliver to them.

Obviously go! But I would write the governors and ask them to consider that your child wasn’t present for the purpose of reviewing the teacher.

The problem I see with all these posts is that the poor bloody teachers have such ridiculous performance measures that one child doing something differently seriously affects their numbers

This, absolutely. The children are just statistic fodder in all this, and the poor teachers doing their best to meet the unrealistic requirement that all children must exceed "average". We need parents to rebel and refuse en masse!

But it doesn't matter what the reason. Children aren't children any more, they are percentage points and progress scores. We have children living in family refuges, children sent out to fend for themselves as mum "entertains", domestic abuse, social service involvement, mental health problems. None of this is taken into account ( except for a few exceptional circumstance points we can apply for) , we - the school and the staff- are judged on those 4 days in May!

.. and in 10yrs time what memory would you cherish ? A wonderful family holiday with grandparents or having sat some pointless primary school tests that benefit no one but the bean counters .

It's simple. Enjoy your holiday with no guilt. !

My general view - and this is as a secondary school teacher - would be to go on the holiday. The posts defending teachers’ hard work to prepare the pupils, performance related pay being impacted, Ofsted etc are not entirely unfair but I also think that some schools (I don’t know about yours) put far too much pressure on the Year 6 children and that the culture around SATs is unhealthy.

That said - although secondary schools will indeed do their own setting etc, when it comes to Year 11 students who didn’t sit SATs schools have no “official” data and therefore their results will be irrelevant to many secondary school progress measures. The brutal truth is that the results of students who haven’t got SATs data are not, for the purposes of data, important to schools/teachers. It also means that schools will have to make up target grades which might end up being quite low.

@givenchy - but if OP's DD has passed 11 + and therefore presumably headed to a grammar, presumably that is less of an issue?

and agree 100% re the unhealthy culture around SATs.

I work for ofsted
Schools will be getting rid of the SATS starting next year.. Its being changed to a test in reception and then again in year 6. This way it's a better indication on how well teachers are doing. As ultimately that's all they are for. For the school to make sure teachers having been teaching well.

As far as am aware KS1 SATS are going but not KS2 ones

Bloody hell some of the answers on here are ridiculous. Go and enjoy your holiday and make memories with your family. When your child is an adult nobody will care what they got in their SATS. SATS are a waste of time and an unnecessary pressure on young children.

I work for ofsted
Schools will be getting rid of the SATS starting next year.. Its being changed to a test in reception and then again in year 6. This way it's a better indication on how well teachers are doing. As ultimately that's all they are for. For the school to make sure teachers having been teaching well.

I’m afraid that’s total rubbish. KS1 assessments are going, replaced by Reception baseline. The progress measure will then be from Reception to Y6. KS2 tests are not going anywhere, more’s the pity.

So, what is it that you actually do at Ofsted?

@ihatemyself yes that’s probably true, plus grammar schools will want nice big headline figures for their 7-9 grades as that justifies their existence (not a criticism!) and doesn’t use SATs progress figures. High Progress 8 at a grammar school is more or less a given

Go on your holiday and enjoy your time making lovely memories with your Dad. I’m glad he is now well. You only live once. Id let the school know the situation with your dad so they can understand if you haven’t already. You didn’t plan this- like your Dad didn’t plan to get sick. I’d just calmly explain to the school, apologise and be thankful for what really matters. Enjoy your holiday.

“The problem is that your child (who I am guessing would have been targeted to get Greater Depth?) will now be recorded as 0 - a fail. This means that the school will be recorded as minus 5 in progress just for one child. Just to get back to zero, 5 children will have to make better than average progress.

This may make it almost impossible for your child’s Year 6 teacher to achieve their targets for their performance related pay.”

This sounds like a bloody stupid and badly structured system to me. Why is supported by teachers and schools and councils all over the country? It’s nonsensical.

Feenie I am quite interested what they do at Ofsted too

Bloody hell, I can’t believe a school would honestly expect it to be possible to cancel a very expensive holiday with short notice because of some Sats which in the grand scheme of life really don’t matter. They must know this is totally unrealistic, they’re just making it known they’re unhappy about it. Enjoy the holiday OP.

I work for ofsted. Schools will be getting rid of the SATS starting next year.. Its being changed to a test in reception and then again in year 6. This way it's a better indication on how well teachers are doing. As ultimately that's all they are for. For the school to make sure teachers having been teaching well.

I am sure that you don't as that is total bollocks.

You could deregister her and home educate her, which would avoid the fine. Not sure if her zero mark would then not count for the school. She would though miss out on the gun of the last half term.

Go and enjoy it was not your mistake and your Dad can’t be blamed. Don’t cringe or apologise, just say its not ideal but you want to do it for your Dad. The test won’t benefit or disadvantage your child, in fact my dds friend who came from a school that didn’t do sats has the lucky advantage of not having a flight path of wildly inaccurate grades to try to attain, and can just suceed against a set of average targets. Family first here.

I do feel very sorry for the Yr 6 teacher and the head teacher, both of whom will be adversely affected by the 0 score result OP's child will get in their SATS. It's a bit of a kick in the teeth for them.

OP, when you say you advised your Dad on dates, do you mean you told him not to book the holiday during SATs and he went ahead and did it anyway? Aren’t you annoyed that he ignored your request?

@quietlife333
Well, the way it’s meant to work is that you take the grade that each DC got in Year 2 and decide what that would ‘normally’ predict in Year 6. So a 2B in Year 2 would be expected to produce an ‘At Age Related Expectations’ in Year 6. If that child produces an ‘At Greater Depth’ result, it’s a sign that the school has done a good job. If the child produces a ‘Working Towards’ result, the school has done a bad job.

As a Year Six teacher in an outstanding school, I am expected to produce results where at least 50% of my class have achieved above expected progress. You can see how a predicted ‘Greater Depth’ child going on holiday and instead being recorded as a ‘Fail’ could make this very difficult.

These targets are necessary because without them I would not bother to stretch the more able or encourage the strugglers, I would just sit in the corner of my classroom and drink gin.