Has the SATs caused this reaction in my 11 year old?

[SunsetOnTheHorizon]

I have a reserved shy 11 year old. She's not into any new trend or doesn't have any social media or a phone. She's loves shopping, stationery and enjoys singing. So nothing worrying there.

She's returned to school this term and the teachers have gone gung ho about the SATs. Like full on constant reminders about how many weeks are left. They have tests to complete at home (at one point she spent 2 hours stuck to the laptop and even took it to her bedroom as it was getting past her bedtime)

The teachers are more stern generally, they want the best results. And this school has a reputation for obsessing about the SATs (even a rumour about the Head leaking the papers - way before my time)

Now - this week. She's became a shell of herself. She is constantly exhausted. Either in bed or on the sofa. Nothing interets her anymore. She hardly talks to anyone. I've sent her to school a few days this week only for her to return crying. And now I've decided not to send her until I meet with the SLT (which is happening next week)

Now - can I attribute this reaction in her to the SATs? Bearing in mind she had a sickness in the holidays but she fully recovered. These symptoms presented once she started the new term.

She refuses to go back. Doesn't like her school. But never in my life did I expect her to end up like this...

I heard SATs can be stressful - but this? I'm really concerned about her - hoping she bounces out of this phase. She hardly laughs or plays with her sister anymore.

Any input would be appreciated.

I can assure you DC go on holiday. 2 weeks in Florida! I was a school governor and they just go. They are not chased after to do the sats. I don’t approve of it but parents will do this. It’s not a legal contract that a parent is breaking! Schools won’t make that much effort! Some parents just won’t agree to the tests.

It sounds like you have much bigger problems than just SAT's. She isn't coping and that's not good. Other schools don't put in such pressure, however she does need to learn to cope.

Do you think she has any SN? Anxiety? Why on earth did you let her take her laptop to her bedroom. She's not like the girls in her year? ASD?

I don't see SAT's the same way most MN parents do. I see it differently. It does affect your life. It sets a forecast and a projection. Yes secondary make their own judgement and tests, but they then monitor where you were, projections to GCSE's and if you are maintaining your projection. They are put into sets for maths early on at some schools and taught exam technique in year 7,8 and 9, in preparation for GCSE exams. I see this as good. Preparation. How is she going to cope with all of that? I think you are going to have to help her in many areas or else she's going to seriously struggle.

You can only do the exams in the week of or the week after, which is why they aren't chased. If a parent chooses to take a child away then that's a choice they are making but it absolutely is against the law which is why you are fined for it.

However, the larger impact would be on the child. They would be one of a handful of children who do not have official data and therefore would not count towards the secondary school's progress measures. As such, the secondary has no vested interested in maximising progress for that child beyond just hitting the "pass" grade as they do not count in progress 8.

This is the first year the Yr 6 kids have done SATS since 2019 so I think the schools are putting a lot of pressure on them this year. I have a Yr 6 child and since before Christmas it seems to be an endless cycle of assessments and past papers. It's utterly shite for them. Luckily my DS is a) quite bright and b) totally unfazed by them but many of his friends are super-stressed.

This!

Sorry I was referring to the above. There are so many odd myths surrounding SATs and what they affect and who they are for…

No, last years Year 6’s were the first year to sit them

I wouldn't be moving schools this late in year 6. It's a recipe for disaster and she will feel more isolated. They are already in well established friendship groups.

I wouldn't allow her to take a laptop to bed and would want all electronic devices to be used downstairs under my oversight. I would also check what DD has been looking at online.

I would say that school is not optional and she has to go in.

I would have the meeting with the school but talk to your DD first. Tell her you are going to get this sorted and ask what sort of parameters she could work with. E.g. 30 mins after school revision, or even just reading X amount of pages of a book. Go to the meeting and tell the teacher that you will be doing X at home and no more.

If you let her stay off school now you are storing up future problems for both of you.

BTW, my son is also in year 6 at a very high achieving school and he is more tired than normal.

If he seems stressed about work then I'd take him away from it and just send a note in saying "he's not done the work because I thought it was too much for him".

I also have a DD doing her GCSEs this year. Last night she revised 2 hours (she wanted to revise for 4 hours) but after 2 hours she looked stressed, so I took her away from it.

I wouldn't be allowing more than 30 mins of homework a night at that age. The night she spent 2 hours on the laptop you should have taken it off her.

I'd be asking for a meeting with her teacher and explaining very clearly the impact this level of bullying (which is what it is) from the school is having on your dd.

I'd also write to your local MP and/or the minister for education and ask why young children are being subjected to this.

Assuming she'll be going to secondary in sept it seems a bit late to move her from this school now but if all else fails you could pull her out and homeschool until secondary. Might give her chance to reboot a bit..

I spoke to the school to find out if there were any past papers I could walk Ds through without overlapping any years the school would be covering in class and as practise tests. That meant in the comfort of our home I went over a past paper with Ds and then it wasn't this big, scary, unknown thing looming in the distance. We went through the mark scheme so he could see what answers they were looking for and he realised it was all very doable and within his ability range. He was a very average child in primary.

Along with CATs they used SATs to set them for secondary and annoyingly used it as a flight path to GCSE grade predictions too. Ds excelled in secondary and went way beyond his average grade flight path.

This is also why some secondaries basically sit end of year exams from year 7 onwards in the hall to get them used to revising and the hall setting for tests so that GCSEs feel a bit calmer.

I am sorry that your DD is feeling this way, it could be puberty and/or health but certainly the pressure of SATs isn't helping. Giving children that amount of work is not healthy and you should have a cut off time to say she tried for X amount of minutes and this is what she was able to do in that time. Some children just freeze at one question instead of moving on to the next question. I have worked with low ability children and they tend to do this so we work on building up their resilience and circling back to questions they were unsure of.

I missed your last 2 paragraph of this post on my first read through the thread.

This is very worrying. I would most definitely be allowing no unsupervised access to the laptop/Internet and I would have strict parental controls on it.

Look at what she is viewing online and check her history.

My kids school changed head when my youngest was in year 3 and by the time she got to year 6 SATS it was awful, so much pressure, one kid said she was told that if she didn't do well in the SATs she would have to retake year 6! (Obviously I don't know if that was actually said but the kid was upset enough to believe that's what she heard)
I am thankful DD is my youngest as I would never send another child there. She was so stressed by it all it was just horrible to see even though I kept reminding her that it didn't really matter.

Your poor DD I hope you find a way through this for her

My son was very affected by the SATs. He has lots of nightmares etc. His school made a lot of fuss even though we were calm. It wasnt an outstanding leafy school, it was actually in requires improvement.
He is now doing his gcses and isnt anywhere near as stressed out by them as his sats so maybe it is a bit of pain now for you, for a bit of gain later? He survived the sats, went to secondary and yes targets were set but the sky didnt fall in.

Our school sounds similar. They've put all the higher performing children into boosters during lunch and after school, to get them to perform even better. She is one of these children and it's exhausting her.

My dd keeps saying the teachers are going on about it all the time. Our school is one of the highest performing in the country and I know they want to do even better.

My dd has just been referred to cahms after saying she wanted to kill herself and indicating an attempt to do so. There are other issues too, but the sats plays about 70% part though.

I spoke to the teacher about the sats and he says the pressure comes from social media. I explained she isn't on social media but he says they'll all talking about it. However all of the children in the class are saying the teachers are piling the pressure on. It's probably a combined of both but it comes from the teachers.

I honestly think the children would perform better with less pressure!

All of this, but a lot of Y6s also have a bit of a wobble in January just because transition to secondary feels so much closer. Psychologically, it’s now happening “this year”, not “next year”. It can cause some panic.

If that’s a part of it, it’s worth looking out for some useful reassuring resources (I like Go Big by Matthew Bruton) and making sure she is flagged up for additional transition support by both schools as soon as possible.
It might not be that at all though, she’s the only one who can know, so you need to give her space and to listen.

I’m not sure why people think not doing SATs will affect anything at secondary. My ds didn’t do them as he was home educated and it made no difference. They didn’t stop pushing him because his data wouldn’t count! Also there’s a huge difference between a 10-11 year old and a 16 year old; there’s plenty of time to learn to deal with exams.

Ive got a slightly different perspective as I know quite a few home educating families whose children have had no problem doing GCSEs at 16 despite never having at an exam or been in an exam hall before. We’ve got a strange habit of thinking everything needs years of preparation, kids need to go to nursery to prepare for school, they need to do exams at 11 to prepare for exams at 16 etc.. Children mature and change without huge pressure.

On a wider note I think we’re doing young people a disservice to make them think that academic achievement is the main thing in life. In adult life and work, there are so many other qualities needed. My ds’ head of year 12 said she’d found ds playing chess in a free period and asked him whether there was something better he could be doing (ie study!). What’s wrong with teaching yourself to play chess?! He likes to take on challenges where he can progress - piano is another. I think this is just as valuable/more so than doing homework!

There’s little difference at the end of y6 regarding a holiday to avoid and home educating! Both avoid sats. Just withdraw dd. I would see a doctor too. I’m not sure how you play the next few weeks. Or months.

Sats isn’t training for exams. No one had this years ago. Dc still managed exams at 16. We have turned education into a high pressure exam factory.

@Dacadactyl "I wouldn't be moving schools this late in year 6. It's a recipe for disaster and she will feel more isolated. They are already in well established friendship groups."

That's what I would have said, until my friend actually did it in the middle of Y6. It's really quite an out-of-the-box idea - we had a very distressed child by this stage and we hadn't seriously considered anything other than just gritting our teeth and counting down the weeks.

My friend got it right. Her daughter ultimately hooked back up with her old friends at secondary so nothing was broken. She had a huge lot of pressure taken off her, and I think my friend sent a really powerful message to her child that she was more important than her SATS. I very rarely regret my decisions, I tend to think I did the best I could with the info I had at the time, but I do regret keeping my son at a school he was struggling to attend for so long.

This is no time to change school OP. She will be moving in July anyway. It is unfortunate that the school you chose for her has failed her at this stage; but I guess that is the problem with "results-driven" schools - a lot of window dressing.

Teachers do become stressed by SATs - it is a judgement on their success as teachers. And OfSted do look at them as a guide to how teaching is going in certain subjects. So - lots of pressure on staff.

I am CofG at a primary school and the children are not put under pressure over SATs - we would all have something to say about that if it were happening.

You need to take control of what is happening in your own home and set a time limit on homework - you know your own child and what is or isn't appropriate for her.

Personally my child would be off sick on the SATs day.

DS's school was terrible for this last year. It had traditionally been much more laid back about SATS and results.

Unfortunately our part of town has a falling birth rate and a surplus of school spaces and the schools are now falling over themselves to prove their academic success to get bums on seats. Even school holidays we were given work books and were told they had to come back completed on the first day of term. It was truly rubbish.

The transition to secondary has been a breeze in contrast.

I hate the way our education system is sucking the joy from learning and childhood.

I get your concerns
My yr6 child is struggling too but keeping them home and changing schools Mere months before the end of primary school is not the answer. She needs to build resilience and what you're suggesting isn't going to help with that there are worry books or one called the hidden chimp which can help her work through her emotions and anxieties.
There will be SATS at the other school and tests throughout her life she needs tools to support her with these pressures not be facilitated to hide from them

We got to the point where if we mentioned homework DS would go and hide behind the sofa or burst into tears. We agreed with the teacher that he would not be doing any hothousing or excessive extra practice at home, there would be no pressure or comparing scores, and he would simply do the best he could on the day.
Your childs SATS score puts them on a tracker that will be used to predict their GSCE grade and they will be compared to that level all the way through secondary. (well it was in our school).
Due to the intensive preparation DS did well in both his English and Maths SATs, but he's actually not that confident in English and eventually disengaged through being told he was underperforming and "not good enough" all the way through secondary school. I honestly think this intensive cramming does DC no favours.

@crazycrofter
In essence I agree with you. My DD1 did sats but who really cared? I think teachers do care about their borderline DC. They obviously want Dc to get into the higher group. However getting the brightest to do more and more is pointless. It’s not education. It’s exam training. They will not do exams all through their lives. Most dc are perfectly ok with a bit of homework and revision. It’s more detrimental to secondary education not to finish the broader y6 curriculum and be anxious about learning. Most dc do better if they are enthusiastic and happy.

DD2 didn’t do sats (private prep) and didn’t do 11 plus. Didn’t make a jot of difference to anything. Both DDs had a huge array of extra activities after school and we kept homework to a minimum. However they sang, danced, went to brownies, swam, played musical instruments, did orchestra and even saw their friends! Stress free childhood was what I wanted for them and luckily we achieved it.

Also secondary schools know Dc are crammed for sats. They don’t like it. It does produce anxious Dc who cannot perform at their predicted level at secondary so end up disappointing everyone.