Home ed joining Y6 mid-year... missing SATs work

[buddhamama]

My son has been home ed for a year and is going back to school after half term. The head has put the heavies on about SATs - said he really needs to catch-up, will have to do loads of extra work etc. I'm particularly worried about what she said about the writing portfolio. She said they will expect him to submit a full portfolio, even though he hasn't been in the school for that time. So he will miss other lessons to catch up with extra writing. This seems really unfair - can they do that?!

He is a bright kid, and probably will be fine in his SATs - he's been doing KS3 Science ever since we started home ed, and really stretching himself - but I worry about the pressure they're going to put on. I wonder what legally they can require from him... and what I can say no to.

The school might want to do a nice relaxed induction with your son but know Ofsted is due and if their Sats results aren't as the inspector thinks they should be risk going into requires improvement or special measures. Sadly it's not all about the child right now. Also it's worth being aware that if you plan for your son yo remain in mainstream education now, those SATs results will follow and define him to GCSE and beyond. The better he does, the more will be expected of him. So if he doesn't show what he can do now, secondary school is likely to have lower expectations of him. Look up Progress 8 for more on this. It's called a Flightpath.
Have you asked what the portfolio actually includes? If he's a bright kid, could he do it at home and enjoy school?
It's not what you expected but schools need things from you now just as you need things from them. And that's where the nuance comes in.

BobbyBlueCat it's never just as straight forward as me choosing to 'opt out'. I did but only due to very specific circumstances and after a lot of research and reflection.

It's semantics really. Pushing isn't a great word, it has really negative connotations for me. I want my child to be stimulated, intrigued, challenged and stretched, but to also be an active participant in their own learning.

I used to lecture at university and I see the students who come through this kind of pushy system and then ask me what books to read and what essay question to write! Spoonfed, drilled and pushed, they look blankly when I say 'well... what are you interested in? What questions stimulate your curiosity?'

I would assume his comment about the math is because your child is now having to slot into where they are in terms of the curriculum and he might struggle.

TW2013 really good point about asking the secondary about their setting and streaming process - thank you! At last some helpful advice! :)

bookmum08 yes that's what I wondered - if they choose not to enter him, whether it affects their result. I think you're right that it doesn't, which is encouraging. I can go back and talk to them about that

Tinty ermmm no, I was looking for some help as to the regulations of what they can legally ask him to do. I found that myself with the code U and J thing and others now have finally given me some helpful non-judgemental advice.

'Have you even considered'... well, that's just a bit rude really. I wouldn't be posting and talking about this if I didn't care about my son's wellbeing. Have you considered that my son might actually have a point of view and his parents might actually be listening to him, negotiating with him, trying to explain to him what Year 6 is like? It's always more complex than a couple of paragraphs suggest

Redcliff nope - he's working at KS3 maths level and the head actually said she wasn't worried about his maths (he's always been top of the class in that). It's about narrow thinking

gnushoes I like your response, thank you.

'Sadly it's not all about the child right now' yep, I do get that. But my concern is about my child... so it's tricky isn't it. It's about them being happy enough with whatever effort we put in, but us being happy that they're not over-the-top pushing him. I guess a one day a time approach might help...

And I think the point about secondary is a good one, worth considering.

Oh and as gnushoes says they do follow them, one of my dc in a selective school so not much setting going on, but from the start she has found her targets consistently higher than those of her peers who are at a similar level in class. She aced her SATs and now has to live up to them. It is about striking the right balance- do well enough to get in good sets but not too well that every teacher just looks at you as the one who is expected to get 8s and 9s. She has risen to the challenge but sometimes I wish her teenage years could be a little more carefree.

TW2013 yeah such a balance to find isn't it. Carefree childhood is a rarity to be protected in our modern world, but we also want them to achieve their potential. Wishing your daughter well! :)

My older dd moved from Scotland to England just before y6 SATS. I’m sure she didn’t sit them, although that was 10 years ago, and I’m not sure how they worked it. Possibly as you’ve quoted above on the exception for those joining from another education system at a late stage.

Even if a child doesn't sit SATS, usually because they are working below the level of the Key stage or even if they are absent for the two weeks needed, they are included in the government measure of the school. I had a child join year 6 in March, be on holiday during SATS week and leave the school in June, he was still counted in my percentages ( and because it was a small school was 10% )So yes, it will affect the school's outcomes.They will grin and bear it but they will also do everything they can to ensure something counts. In the case of writing, evidence is collected until June, they will ensure they have as much as possible by then.

You seem to be using the school as a convenience but without being prepared to do what's required.

Maybe take him out again and home school him.

They are KS2 tests. Tests about the whole of KS2. Only around 40% is Y6 content, and children tend not to remember what they did in Y3, so what people see as cramming is often a totally appropriate amount of revision.

Your child will be awarded a teacher assessment in writing and science. Unless the school can prove that your dc has covered the entire content of KS2, your dc will be assessed as HNM (has not met). Writing is easier to assess, but they will need a number of pieces to assess against. You can't withdraw your child from either of these.

You sound like a total nightmare, tbh, and I feel sorry for the school.

I still can't see how if a child isn't entered for sats it would count towards the schools percentage scores. I know a boy who has severe learning disabilities. His education (at a mainstream primary) has been more about life skills. He is unlikely to ever live independently. He was just as much a part of his year 6 class as the other 29 children. He just didn't do sats. Surely the percentage scores would be based on 29 pupils eligible for sats not 30 pupils.
That doesn't really help the OP who seems to be getting a hard time when we don't know the backstory.

If they aren't entered they count as not reaching the expected standard

He just didn't do sats. Surely the percentage scores would be based on 29 pupils eligible for sats not 30 pupils.

You would think so, wouldn't you? But no - in a class of 30, that's an instant minus 3%.

Feenie well that sucks big time. What the school did for that little boy was amazing and so important to him and his family.
Another reason in my mind why these stupid tests need to be scrapped. There is so much more to school life than academics.

You'd be hard pushed to find even one teacher who disagrees with you. Sadly, people will keep voting Tory.

Another option, if you cannot continue to homeschool, would be to enter your child into a private primary / prep school at this point.

They don't do SATs, and with many private / selective exams being long over, the latter part of Y6 in such schools can be extremely relaxed, with lots of sport / drama / art etc and very little academic work.

As your child will only be there for a few months, the quality of the private school will matter little, and unless they are completely full, someone will be bound to be grateful for the extra fees income.

if they choose not to enter him, whether it affects their result. I think you're right that it doesn't, which is encouraging. I can go back and talk to them about that

Sadly, it will affect their result, exactly as Feenie/NoRestFor/Spanieleyes (all experienced senior primary school teachers) say.

If the school currently has 24 children in their year 6 class, and all take and pass their SATs, their SATs results will be 100%. By admitting your child and your child not taking SATs, their results will instantly drop to 96%. If the class is smaller - say they have 9 and your child is the 10th - their results will drop by 10% if your child doesn't take SATs.

Schools live or die by their results, in league tables and in Ofsted reports. If you choose not to enter your child, having chosen for them to re-enter school at this point, then you can cause them significant harm.

You may wish that things are different - so do many primary teachers. But that is the current legal situation.

The Sats result will not determine his long term future, many secondaries retest in y7. However it might be beneficial for your ds to cover and produce different styles of written work, whatever his Sats outcome. Presumably that is why he has gone back into the school system and he can't have missed a significant amount of the curriculum in a year of homeschooling. If this can be done in school time it seems sensible.

OP as you have been home schooling your child surely he has completed lots of different pieces of written work in the home setting for you? All you need to do is to take all those pieces of work into school for the school to choose which pieces of work to use for his portfolio.

Sorry, that won't work. The school would need to be able to confirm that the work was completed independently with no adult assistance, being completed at home wouldn't be acceptable!

Can your kid write to roughly the right standard? If so, class work should suffice.
Any classes on weekends or outside school hours cannot be made compulsory, so unless your ds wants to go and be like everyone else, I would argue that adjusting to school is enough to cope with atm, and he won't be going.

If he's doing ks3 maths, then I imagine as soon as the class teachers clock he's not going to bring results down, they will all chill out.