Sats prep

[myotherface]

My daughter is in year 6 is a very small village school. She's not normally been very enthusiastic about school work but has always done well at school. She's now nervous about the sats next year and is asking me to buy some sats busters. She worries she won't perform well and wants to start preparing early. Any tips on how to help her prepare and what to buy?

The CGP from Amazon, easily purchasable, reasonably priced and used by a lot of schools for SATS revision.

But really she doesn't need to do anything.

Cgp was what she showed me online. Her teacher is mega strict and I get the impression she really pushes them. My middle one has joined the same class and is suddenly insisting on reading every day to avoid being punished. Seems to read our of fear rather than out of joy of reading /Learning. I had thought they wouldn't need to be doing anything extra but she said she's nervous about the sats and also really excited about these sats busters. It's just so rare to have her asking to do anything school related! Maybe I should leave it for now. They've only started with the sats busters now and the novelty will probably surely wear off soon. Plus with her being worked so hard at school she surely needs to rest and play at home?

I think it's easy to blame the teacher for being pushy, but some kids can be quite good at egging each other on, making each other anxious about the exams, etc. Our primary school was very laid back about the exams, my two boys never talked about it at home, yet some other parents at the school kept on talking about all the pressure the school was putting on the kids. It became obvious that the children themselves were working each other up, and I hope it's OK to say that, but it was mainly girls.

Or you could express confidence in her teacher and in her, and remind her they are testing teachers more than kids, and tell her no she doesn't need to do anything over and above specific school and homework she is set. It may well be a relief to her if you refuse, thereby giving her "permission" not to do the extra.

Both of mine were soooo bored of English and maths sats practice in school by Easter of Y6. The last thing they would have needed was more practice.

Thanks for this @queenBlueberries and @Murmurur I think you both had really useful thoughts on this. There's been no concerns about her ability to learn at the right speed. The teacher is pushy and would definitely recommend extra work if she needed it. Her fríend is applying to girls grammar and sitting the exam so might be that she's been talking about it and getting nervous. She's not mentioned it anymore so I think I'll just leave it and let her enjoy her life and play.

Honestly I’d reassure her as much as possible that at this point she doesn’t need to do anything extra curricular. We bought a couple of SATS practice book in the Easter before the SATS and DD just worked her way through these. I don’t think many bothered at all at DDs school.

A lot of the time you’ll hear that SATS are really for the school and not for the kids. I think that depends on where they’re heading and whether SATS are used as a streaming guide. DDs school did stream on SATS & while they do tests a long the way, there doesn’t appear to be much movement of kids upwards or downwards. DD did well in her SATS and is in the top streams. The attitude to learning and number of detentions does from what she and other parents say really depend on the stream with stream 4 really being not where you want to end up. Schools do differ though quite obviously!

@myotherface

I'd speak to the teacher and get her advice. If your daughter is showing that she wishes to take control over her education and to revise then this could actually be a great opportunity for her to learn some skills that will be valuable throughout her time at secondary school.

Please don't tell her that the end of KS2 tests are there to test the teacher or the school rather than her because that just isn't true. Those results will have an impact of her throughout her time at secondary school. They will determine her official target grades and, as mentioned by a PP, that can influence any setting, any additional or targeted pushing or support and even whether she has the opportunity to study certain subjects (such as triple Science at GCSE).