Year 6 SATs - do they need to revise for them?

[Pipsquiggle]

Hi my Yr6 DC had some SAT mocks in December and has come home with some CPG SAT books from school.

Do they need to revise for SATs outside of school? I wasn't planning on doing any.

Do the marks from SATs actually matter for the child?

My understanding was that SATs was more about how the school was performing - do they check the Yr 6 results with the Yr 2 results to see if the child is still on the same learning curve?

SATs are mainly for the school. Saying that some high schools might use them for initial streaming, but should do their own assessments in the first term anyway, and even if this is the case I'd want it to be a true reflection not because he's done lots of revision. My DS's school haven't set any.

My DC was at a different school in year 2, will his current school know how he scored in KS1?

The school won’t call it revision. but yes, you do. Y6 is all about SATs. Frustratingly so. The school is rated on the scores, possibly (ours was) the head will be getting performance related pay.

Y6 gave me a very stressed child.

They were used to form sets and give target grades at DDS school. (Shes yr7).

They used the revision guides in class and as homework.

I think it is best to reframe SATs as 'are they ready for secondary'.

If they can be solid in core maths & English by the end of primary, they will be better able to cope in secondary. So it isn't a point of cramming / revision, but a point of solidifying their knowledge/skills. Also a bit of test taking technique is useful as there are lots of mini assessments in secondary so understanding about timing, not panicking but moving on etc are useful skills to develop.

Schools are measured on progress from SATs to GCSEs so be aware that underperforming now may mean they aren't so bothered to give intervention later, or that overperforming now can mean that in some schools (see MN posts) children are then told they are 'behind expectations' on reports even when doing fine.

The bit I didn't get on with was the Grammar paper as DD couldn't make head nor tail of it. But it didn't seem to be built on or even needed in secondary so that didn't really matter.

Interesting that they've had a move round in class today - more able children are sat next to DC who struggle slightly

The Sats levels children get can also impact gcse - stay with me! - secondary schools are judged by how many chn who achieved Sat's who then achieve their GCSEs, so if your child gets the scores in their sats they are more likely to be pushed in y11. I know this seems ridiculous!

In our local schools SATs are used for initial sets in high. They are used to set their Yr7 individual targets. Top sets have better behaviour so lots of parents help DC do a lot extra.

Common approach that helps all children

Year 6 in private schools is even more strange! Autumn term is just a mass of 11+ practice and massive stress for the children. To pass the 11+ you have to have basically completed the Year 6 curriculum so the children often see the Spring and Summer terms as time for a bit of a doss. Their end of Year 6 results often go down compared to their Year 5 ones. It’s a ridiculous system.

When I was a child many decades ago the primary school SATs results formed the secondary school form groups (these sets never changed in 5 years).

The top form groups were also the ones who were entered for higher papers in Y10. Yes it's reevaluated but being in the "smart class" sets the theme.

As others have said please revise.

Mine didn't revise outside school. Just did set homework. All depends on primary school's ethos. Their secondary administered own (CAT) tests in first half of autumn term anyway.

Not the most able ones

Not sure about 'revision' but my DD did some practice papers at home and this really helped here when she did her SATs papers. A lot of the questions follow set formats so she knew what to expect and how to pace herself for the tests. Also yo check how many marks were awarded for each question so she knew how many points to put down. It gave her confidence when she was doing the tests.
At her comprehensive secondary school the sets were used for some initial steaming in September but there has begun movement between sets based on the class work since.

Annoyingly yes they do count for the child. My children’s secondary use them to help predict GCSEs and start streaming in year 7 for it.

No, no revision is necessary.

In fact, at home to support their learning, I would focus on other pursuits: art, music, history, sciences, geography, reading for pleasure, sport of any kind, cooking, crochet... anything other than maths and English. Because most primaries now strip out most of the 'extras' and focus hardcore on maths and English (which is grammar, spelling, reading comprehension... not the fun stuff like creative writing or literature).

Put away those CGP books and go for a bike ride. Learn to code a game. Make a birdhouse. Make a curry from scratch. Seriously... anything else other than more maths and SPAG.

The SATs results affect the child way more than the school.

For the school, they are just a generalised look at how their curriculum is working and whether children that attend there:
A) make progress from their starting points and mid-points in Y2, and
B) achieve as a comparision to the national average.
The overall data here is used both internally and externally for around three years (to help identify trends). Individual results aren't used or examined.

For the child, the expected attainment at GCSE is determined using the SATs results. This isn't a "some schools" thing: this is all state schools. State secondaries are assessed on how many of their children successfully achieve "progress 8" or above (i.e. make the progress that they should make from their starting points).

This means that if your child has a high target (from getting high SATs scores), they will be pushed and supported to achieve high GCSE results. If they don't have high targets, they aren't as likely to get the intervention or push even if they could achieve higher. It's good if they do over-achieve but "off-target" children are the priority for secondary schools when it comes to time and financial investment.

When it comes to revision, I wouldn't set it up as "revising for SATs" as that suggests that learning should only be reviewed as part of preparing for a test. Children should learn to review learning regularly as part of a memory-based approach to learning and have knowledge of metacognition in order to help them do this. See attached cartoon. So children learning to spend a small amount of time (little and often vs cramming) reviewing what they have learnt and getting into this as a habit are really setting themselves up better for the future.

@Iamnotthe1 yep agree with you.

I will be pushing my year 6 child quite hard as we only have one standard comp as choice for secondary so good Sats results are a bit of insurance that they’re pushed to get high grades rather than seeing that they’re on target.

DC has also had a wonderful primary experience and doing well is part of thanking the school for doing such a great job.

Its a good idea to get into a habit of revision, it'll help them so much in the future even if the actual SAT results aren't that important (whether they are or not, I don't know). Since learning how to revise for exams (done frequently throughout the year in her school system, which I think now is a very good system) my daughter does so much better in the subjects she previously struggled with.

Secondary school governor here. The SATs don't matter at all for the child, only for the primary school. Secondary schools know which primaries revise the kids to the hilt because they get lots of kids from those schools whose SATS suggest a particular grade at GCSE and they all score lower.

The secondaries obviously like kids to underperform at SATS because when the kids then appear to overperfoem at GCSE and then it makes the secondary look good.

Secondary school governor here. The SATs don't matter at all for the child, only for the primary school.

That's just demonstratively untrue, as I've already explained. You've even seen it within TV programmes about the inner workings of schools. There was one a few years ago about a secondary academy trust who found themselves able to fund 1:1 tuition with teachers for a small focused group of children. Who did they select? The group that was most "off-target" based on their SATs scores (white working-class boys). Other students could have benefitted from that support but they didn't get it because they were already achieving their target grade.

In a local secondary to me, the bands the children are in are set from SATs results. Unless you are put in the top tier band on entry, you don't learn the knowledge needed for the higher maths papers nor get the opportunity to study triple science.

SATs results have a clear impact on a child's journey through secondary school and how well pushed/supported they will be. Secondary SLTs often like to pretend to parents that they don't so that more of their incoming children underperform and get lower targets as a result.

Exactly what @Iamnotthe1 said

My DC had different targets from Yr7 up based on SATs

So we get told the actual marks then? I'm sure in Yr 2 they didn't tell us anything.

I am sure all the secondary schools we looked at said they did their own tests in yr 7 to put them into sets, however, they only stream them for certain subjects e.g. maths.

@belowfrozen do we get told their 'targets'?