SATs week is here

[paxillin]

Starting tomorrow with spag. Did you manage to stop yours fretting?

Mine hasn't fretted. He's kind of miffed he's not getting a wonderful treat as reward though (I gather some friends are). We negotiated a take-away pizza to coincide with his brother finishing GCSE exams.

DS said the yr6s are outside playing almost all the time they aren't indoors doing the tests or register.

I have a policy of no rewards for exam results. DC need to work for those from own motivation. But I will celebrate end of exam season stress, sure.

lljkk My daughter has got a bit sunburnt from spending so much time outside after the actual tests are done. It's lucky that they've had good weather this week.

DD1 hasn't been at all fazed by the tests and has just said that they have all gone ok. I'm pleasantly surprised as she can be really anxious in some ways and I was slightly worried that she would panic.

Funny you say that... DS is looking rather tan & extra freckly I noticed earlier!

I suppose at least they'll be getting their vitamin d topped up!

Pandas - Glad your Dd felt the maths went better than the other papers.

My dd is making herself sick with stress. She’s barely eaten her tea and says she has stomach ache so can’t tell whether she’s poorly or just really anxious. She even turned down chocolate - unheard of

Arithmetic went well today, she was upset because she realised she’d done a question wrong on the reasoning, asked the teacher to rub it out. Started doing her new working out and they were told their time was up before she finished. Then her twin brother told her that he got a different answer for the last reasoning question so she was beside herself again

I’ll be glad when tomorrow is over and done with.

My apologies, we're in wales so they're not SATs, they're National Tests

LadyLannister, your poor daughter. I hope she manages to get some sleep. Mine is still awake which is very late for her however she's not crying which is a massive improvement on last night! Lest hope for an ok last paper and tomorrow night we'll celebrate!

asked the teacher to rub it out why on earth do they have to ask the teacher to rub it out? We give all of ours a rubber, but they can just put a line through - they shouldn't have to put their hand up and wait for a teacher to do it.
Just imagining being the teacher and a child asking you to rub out what is actually a correct answer , you couldn't refuse to rub it out if that's what the child wanted, because that would be cheating.

I heard today that one of my neighbours has pulled her DS out of the SATS after Wednesday. She said she wasn’t prepared for the school to put him under that amount of pressure to the detriment of his health. He’s a high achiever but the school have had them working on SATS for months and piled on the pressure.

I don't do rewards for exam results either - I wouldn't even know how to pitch it. We were never rewarded as children. My middle sister openly admits that she didn't have to work that hard at GCSE level but got high results, should she have been awarded more than me and our eldest sister who didn't get as high marks but probably worked a lot harder.

DS (asd) hates going out for meals -mainly because he doesn't like anything, he will go to Pizza Hut, but we had that last weekend so don't really want to do it again as an end of tests, will probably end up in McDonald's (not that he really eats anything there)

Last day tomorrow - now just to get him into bed.

School is handling it well with test followed by sketching in the playing field or paper mache mask making. Dd is having breakfast made by deputy head and her teacher - bacon rolls today, pancakes tomorrow. They're trying to make it fun and relaxed.

Dd is academic and seemed fine but tonight I didn't give her a cuddle in her bed (I don't usually, she gives me a hug and a kiss then goes the bed) so she came downstairs in tears because she really wanted me to cuddle her in bed. Dd isn't especially emotional so I do think she's more worried than I realised. Nearly over now!

AllPizzas - I thought the same about them having to get the teachers to rub things out, but that’s what they were told they had to do. Some kids had their hands up every 2 minutes asking for things to be rubbed out - seems silly for them not to just give them their own rubber.

Last test today. Kid skipped off happily, much relief all round. Good luck to all your children, it's almost over.

Ds off to school armed with cake for after the last test, nearly the weekend thank goodness .

All done! Maths 3 had a few stinkers (obviously to identify the future 9s...) but lots of nice questions they could all access.
Now a day and a half of DT, then off on School Journey!

Do any other schools do a 'treat' for their yr 6's after the SAT's.

My DC school have a non uniform day, they go bowling and have lunch all paid for by the school for all their hard work.

Yes, there is a day out tomorrow.

Yes they get various treats tomorrow I think a carnival is coming to the school gardens

I don't understand the different approaches by different schools. My ds is Y6 at a small village school, and there's been no pressure whatsoever. His class went on a 4-day residential at the end of March, and only started some low-key SATs prep after that. Homework since the start of this summer term has been two past papers a week, but they haven't done much in class. They took part in a music and singing tournament last week, so much of the focus has been on that.
This week has been so low-key, no fuss or drama, and the Y6 teacher has been very laid back about it all.
So, I don't understand other schools doing the huge pressure, early morning classes, Easter revision courses etc. Surely, if the purpose of SATs is to measure the school, then all teachers would be under the same pressure across the board?

Schools have different approaches because they have different head teachers, governing bodies, academy structure, lea or voluntary maintained etc. Schools have different approaches to many different things from admissions to sats to leadership to punishment etc etc.

DS found today’s paper straightforward, except for the last question. Thank goodness it’s over. DS not stressed in the slightest, just bored of hearing the word SATS.

Our school is very good at preparing the kids but there's a lot of pressure because of that. Lots of kids go on to private school so have been receiving private tutoring for that and are now very exam focussed. They had 40mins homework every day over Easter and did mocks (last years papers) last week. DD1 is well aware she is expected to achieve greater depth and although she has been generally fine there were tears over the reading paper (which is her strongest subject) on Tuesay so good to know others struggled with it (she was particularly upset because some of her friends thought it was easy).

Luckily she is very sporty so we've talked a lot about how exercise is good for stress and the brain. Saturday she played in a football tournament and Sunday she had 2h swimming training so no time to worry about SATs. Today she celebrated the end of the SATs by playing football in an interschool competition. She's now looking forward to the class residential after half term.

My DD2 is not normally stressed but she did get anxious out of the blue at the start of the week. CountFosco- she cried over the reading paper and said she thinks she has not got 'expected!' so I think a lot of them found it hard! SO glad its over and can be forgotten about now!

LoveBlackpool, my dc hasn't done so well on reading paper either, but couldn't careless about it. If school/teacher/parent's attitude is to encourage them to their best, they shouldn't be stressed about it. And to not get expected is unlikely, unless your dc have particular problem. If the test was hard for all, the average mark will be low too.

sandcastlemadewithshells- she likes to be dramatic !! but I think its easy to say 'shouldn't be stressed' but some children just worry whatever. I know because I did!