Any advice for children sitting Sats KS2

[paul2louise]

My son will be sitting Sats this year. He is fairly bright, a bit lazy and makes mistakes. Bit laid back tbh. Are any of you parents doing any extra work to get them ready for the tests. I don't want to make it boring but can you help them practice the technique. I know they do some stuff at school.

I would ask the school.
Dd1 is sitting them & I'm not planning to do anything. They have been doing tests each half-term to identify weak areas and have full on mocks next week in terms of sitting at individual tables, exam conditions etc.
At parents evening teacher said they will be doing revision constantly til the week of the tests so I think it will be plenty.

Please don’t! It is boring enough doing it in school throughout Year 6. There is little you can do at this point that will improve his reading score. On maths, mental fluency is always worth working on because it will benefit him in the longer term, and it might give him a better chance of getting to the end of all three papers. Knowing the times tables back to front and using place value to get to associated facts (eg 12000/30 = 400) and knowing number bonds to 100 are useful, alongside the main fraction/decimal/% equivalents.

The spelling and grammar test is really not worth worrying about.

This years tests will not count towards the league tables and although they will be reported to your DS’s next school, in all likelihood they will do lots of baseline testing to get a clear picture of where he’s at.

Also her secondary said on open evening that they do their own baseline tests after 3/4 weeks once they've had a chance to settle in, and don't finalise GCSE papers until as late as possible, so I'm not so concerned about other impacting future pathways.

@Drywhitefruitycidergin

Also her secondary said on open evening that they do their own baseline tests after 3/4 weeks once they've had a chance to settle in, and don't finalise GCSE papers until as late as possible, so I'm not so concerned about other impacting future pathways.

All official GCSE targets are set from the KS2 results. Secondary schools have no control over this at all. They do their own internal tests for their own information only but the official endpoint targets for each child are set externally. As such, it does have an impact and, depending on how important progress measures are to the secondary, that impact can be significant.

@Iamnotthe1
None of that is a reason to pressurise DC into extra work and revision for sats. The secondary schools should educate children as they find them. They might even add value!

Times tables, equivalent fractions, decimals, percentages and reading good books would be my advice. If he already knows the tables, get him to continue up, 13,14,15 etc. It's very useful to know.

DS2 is in Y6 and I’m doing a huge amount of work with him at home for maths. I’m not doing it for the benefit of a sats score though, he has gone from Greater Depth in maths in KS1 to below expected in Y6 due to covid, lockdowns and other school related reasons. He literally fell apart when he had to sit a Arithmetic paper. He was getting 10/40 in September and this week got 38/40 and his confidence has increased. I don’t want to send him to High School struggling in maths and will do anything to get him there!

[quote TizerorFizz]@Iamnotthe1
None of that is a reason to pressurise DC into extra work and revision for sats. The secondary schools should educate children as they find them. They might even add value![/quote]
I didn't say it was a reason to pressurise anyone, just added information to give the whole picture. Unfortunately, there's far too much misinformation around the KS2 assessments, what they mean and the impact they have and it's important for parents to understand them properly.

@Iamnotthe1
What parents should be told is that the primary school will teach the DC and all everyone asks is for DC to try their best. We ignored sats. In my area the angst was 11 plus. Sats came and went.

My son enjoys maths, he is fairly good but makes silly mistakes as he doesn't check his work and tries to do as much in his head. I thought maybe we could get a few tests and make them a competition like a quiz and i would do it with him. Prizes for how he does etc. He finds the English, comp and grammar harder as do I. So I was thinking of working thro some with him talking about the things they are looking for. I help him with his homework when he needs it and give him hints if there is more detail required. He is pretty laid back and not at all stressed which I wish I was more like that. School parents evening mention practice papers but wondered where people get theirs from. I think Amazon has a booklet.

@paul2louise

I think your school is utterly wrong to mention practice papers to parents. They should do any practice with the children. Schools I know just want DC fit, relaxed and well prepped by them for Sats. I cannot see why parents have to get involved.

Who really cares if your DC is predicted a 7 or 8 at gcse based on what they’ve achieved at 11. If they don’t engage at secondary school or it’s a poor school, they may well get a lower grade. If they get fantastic teaching in a great school, they might even get some 9s. What they do now really doesn’t determine outcomes at 16, especially in arts subjects. High quality teaching determines outcomes. And home support and your DCs enthusiasm for learning and intelligence. Sats don’t affect any of that.

[quote TizerorFizz]@paul2louise

I think your school is utterly wrong to mention practice papers to parents. They should do any practice with the children. Schools I know just want DC fit, relaxed and well prepped by them for Sats. I cannot see why parents have to get involved.

Who really cares if your DC is predicted a 7 or 8 at gcse based on what they’ve achieved at 11. If they don’t engage at secondary school or it’s a poor school, they may well get a lower grade. If they get fantastic teaching in a great school, they might even get some 9s. What they do now really doesn’t determine outcomes at 16, especially in arts subjects. High quality teaching determines outcomes. And home support and your DCs enthusiasm for learning and intelligence. Sats don’t affect any of that.[/quote]
In an ideal world, you're right. Targets shouldn't affect their secondary experience. However, in a reality which sees limited budgets, limited staff, limited time and a punishing system of school evaluation that makes progress 8 extremely important, it does make a difference, sometimes a large one. A child's target can affect the band they are placed in, the set they are in, the teachers they get or even if they get a regular qualified teacher at all, if they have access to additional support or intervention, if their teachers/senior leaders will be happy with them just coasting on a bankable 5 when they could have been pushed to an ambitious 7 etc.

That's why parents should know and fully understand the reality of the system their children are being educated in.

@Iamnotthe1

I completely agree with you. As parents our job is to support our children’s education and not “leave it all up to school”. When they were in Reception/Year 1 I’m assuming most parents read with their children, why is this any different? There are huge huge gaps to fill in their education especially in maths due to Covid, there is only so much teachers can do in the 6 hours they are at school. I find it totally bizarre that parents don’t do any work with them outside of school, like I said earlier not so much to get a high SATs score but to prepare them for High School or they are going to spend the next few years constantly catching up.
If it’s ok to tutor for 11+ then I’m not sure why it is so frowned upon to support for SATs to ensure they reach their potential at High School.

Thank you @Iamnotthe1 for portraying a real picture. It really helps parents like me who find all these assessments really confusing.
Even though my child is still very young now and KS2 is a few years away, the realistic view that you've provided really helps put everything in perspective.

I don’t agree with tutoring for 11 plus either. Never did it. Nor for sats. And I would never tutor for sats. Parents might need to understand the picture but they don’t have to tutor to go along with it. Most primary teachers will teach for sats. Just let them do it and have a happy child.

[quote TizerorFizz]@paul2louise

I think your school is utterly wrong to mention practice papers to parents. They should do any practice with the children. Schools I know just want DC fit, relaxed and well prepped by them for Sats. I cannot see why parents have to get involved.

Who really cares if your DC is predicted a 7 or 8 at gcse based on what they’ve achieved at 11. If they don’t engage at secondary school or it’s a poor school, they may well get a lower grade. If they get fantastic teaching in a great school, they might even get some 9s. What they do now really doesn’t determine outcomes at 16, especially in arts subjects. High quality teaching determines outcomes. And home support and your DCs enthusiasm for learning and intelligence. Sats don’t affect any of that.[/quote]
And if your child arrives at secondary school only predicted a 4 (based on SATS and current performance) you're going to struggle to ever get them into a top set.

That's a fact sadly.

It's actually really important that if your child is bright they pass their SATS well and perform in the secondary tests in October in high school.

Also, just to say, it's March. SATS are in early May. Absolutely pointless to get a tutor at this point - it's 8 lessons which will achieve nothing. I tutor for SATS and start with kids in Year 5. Every single child I tutor improves massively. The ones who get Greater Depth would never have achieved this within my input.

With 8 weeks to go, I would let the school deal with it. Best thing you can do is ensure his times tables are perfect. School will do past papers but in my experience, they don't actually go through them with the children. You could ask what topics he frequently makes mistakes on (so say angles/ratio/problem solving) and focus on those with him. Past papers are readily available online.

I’m a Y6 teacher - at least two sentences in the previous post are actually hilarious! I’ll let people work out which on their own 😆

Past papers are readily available online.

Not laughing at this but. There are only 4 papers teachers can use that match the 2014 ‘new’ curriculum (2016 to 2019). After that, SATs were cancelled and the papers destroyed 🙄🙄. I had one child whose mother practised them so many times that her child just learnt the papers and performed brilliantly in test weeks at school.

Then bombed massively in the real test. (This was reading, but the point still stands). She did exactly the same with her sister the following year, despite my pleas.

Of course these girls had gaps, but rehearsing past papers had no impact and actually hindered school assessment. There are plenty of other sources - CGP are pretty good, Twinkl, Literacy Shed Plus, Third Space Learning. Lay off the only 4 papers school can use please (unless you’re sure you are using them retrospectively).

@CoastalWave
I really didn’t care. I had a bright child. I did nothing. Children move sets. You are way too over invested. Who cares what they are predicted at gcse. These are so often wrong. It’s not a stain on any future career to be less than brilliant at sats.

Our secondary school doesn't give a fig about SATs. They do their own CAT sessions and then wait until Jan to set the children. It's all done based on performance and attitude once actually at secondary school, no SATs involved.

SATs are involved whether they like it or not - as Iamnotthe1 explained, the school are set targets from them that they are obliged to meet. They can do all the CAT testing and resetting they like, but at the end of the day that is how their progress is measured.

They are not obliged to meet any targets!!! Plenty of schools do not improve children. Some do and they are to be applauded. However there is no obligation. Ofsted might visit and not like it but there are no sanctions and no fines! There is no obligation as most people would understand it.

You are wrong.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/872997/Secondary_accountability_measures_guidance_February_2020_3.pdf

Secondary school performance measures
Progress 8
Progress 8 was introduced in 2016 as the headline indicator of school performance. It aims to capture the progress that pupils in a school make from the end of primary school to the end of key stage 4.

@Feenie do you mind me asking what’s happened with the current year 7 and 8 kids who didn’t do sats? Has an estimate been entered in some way for them? Year 7 dd had lots of tests at the start of secondary and they set them for maths based on those, everything else is done in tutor groups until GCSE. I saw the report that went from primary but it was very general and ratings were approaching/achieving/greater depth. No figures.
She was so bored with revising things that she’d done at home through lockdown (quite academic though) that anything extra would have just been an expense with no benefit here.