Thread for parents whose DC didn't do so well on SATs

[NotMetExpectations]

Just wondered if anyone else out there wants to talk/whinge/swap coping strategies.

DS flunked reading. (A bit disappointing 'cos he'd been doing okay on the practice tests - but he's dyslexic and I think just got into a panic on the day).

I'm trying to focus on the plus points - I'm immensely proud of the work he put in over Easter working through practice tests (without any nagging from me!), he actually managed the pass mark - exactly the pass mark - in the SPAG test, his teacher says his reading is fine when he's not under time pressure, he'll get extra time on exams in secondary school. Mercifully DS doesn't seem too bothered.

Just thought other people might have some ideas for how to handle results, or need some cheering up (specially when you see those disingenuous "my child got 118,119, 117, is that good?" threads.)

Not sure what happened there with the double post - sorry.

Writing at the Expected Level

If you can write and make sense
remember, it's not enough
If you can write and make people laugh
remember, it's not enough
If you can write and make people cry
remember, it's not enough
If you can write and make people desperate to know what happens next,
remember, it's not enough
If you can write and make people feel good,
remember, it's not enough
If you can write and make people think and wonder,
remember, it's not enough
If you can write and make people want to be where you went,
remember, it's not enough
If you can write and make people want to be some of the people you've written about
remember, it's not enough
If you can write and make people want to read more and more and more
remember, it's not enough
But:
if you can write something
that no one is particularly interested in,
no one is desperate to read more and more,
no one laughed or cried or wanted to be where you went
or wanted to know what happened next,
no one wondered about what you had written,
yet,
you included commas, semi-colons, colons,
expanded noun phrases, fronted adverbials, and
embedded relative clauses
over and over and over again
that's enough.

Michael Rosen, 2016

28 as pass mark for reading is absolutely ridiculous. These tests are getting more and more difficult. I'm a teacher and when I sat down to do some of these reading comp tests with my DS, I found some of the questions really challenging.

For a paper with such a huge leap in word count, definitely. The mark scheme is ridiculously rigid as well.

thanks for that Feenie - really interesting. So any poor little soul who is slower at reading but not slow enough to get extra time will have really been penalised by that. last year seems a very low word count in comparison.

So good to hear so many positive stories of children doing really well post SATs. Feenie - that's really interesting that the texts were all so much longer this year. That's exactly the sort of thing that would really hit DS hard, because he can read pretty well for his age, just slowly. Confronted with an even longer chunk of text than he was expecting, that's exactly the situation liable to make him panic about time.

Also that Michael Rosen piece is brilliant, SuperFurryDoggie.