So many people say they hate SATS tests so what would happen if....

[Blu]

...every parent who objects to the the test kept their child off on that day? In schools up and down the country? As a national parents protest?

I am talking especially about the Yr 2 tests.

Hard because there isn't an 'appointed day' nationally, but time and time again this comes up as the thing parents (and teachers) say they really hate - the ridgid targets and curriculum, the testing of young children, the practising for the tests, the teaching to the test. The government has not listened - so what would happen if parents simply kept their children off en masse?

I know it would be hard re childcare etc, but that aside?

I don't hate SATs - I just think they're there for the benefit of thje school rather than the children...think they are quite good in terms of getting children to work within a given time and to complete tasks...no need to be stressed really - I think everyone gets uneccessarily hysterical about them..isn't going to kill them !

Teacher assessment is more productive and relavant than sats. Great idea Blu!

I don't have a problem in the way they happen at our school. The Y2 SATS weren't higlighted to the kids in any way. They had no idea that anything important was happening. Because they didn't want the parents finding out and pushing their DCs - as if that would ever happen at our school .

Yr 6 SATS - they most certainly do know but that is a bit different I think.

I think it depends on how the school handles them. Making children stressed about them is terrible. If they just happen one day without any fanfare (which is what my school did before Wales abolished them) then I think they are ok. We did not teach to the test or practise for the test. Possibly our results were lower than they might have been, but we thought we were giving the children a better education overall.

I think also that once they are coming up to secondary school things are going to get tougher, so it's good practice

The trouble is, all the kids would have in effect 'wasted' their school year up til then as all the work is geared towards them..
Imn fact, my son's year 5 is having to do SATs prep and work with the Year 6s for some reason....

My DS1 got a result for his Y2 SATS- but I was completely unaware he'd 'sat' them- or perhaps the school just made their own assessment. I have no problem with this, either way- at Yr 2 SATS, I feel the teaching is being assessed, not the DCs, and I'd FAR rather have a 'problem' officially flagged at 7 not 12! As for the Yr 6 SATS, they are a different kettle of fish. Life, like it or not, IS becoming more 'serious'. I've a big problem with parents who cry 'Only the best for MY child' i.e. most academic re secondary school 'choice', then also reserve the right to throw up a hue and cry at the idea that little Sophie/Alexander might have to prove they've earned their stripes via SATS! 'Too much pressure!' etc. Yes, 11 is very young to make long term prognosis of intelligence so hooray the demise of the 11+ in most areas (and I speak as an 11+ 'success'!) but surely one needs to monitor children's progress.

Finally, for those of us old enough to remember, SATS were introduced, along with OFSTED when it was finally twigged that many children could and DID emerge from 10 years of schooling unable to write or read the English language.

The school goes down in the national league tables and parents who care about such things remove their children...

The problem with SATS is that teachers teach to them. I don't care about three hours of exams. I care that the childen have spent the best part of three terms preparing for them. Often doing really really dull work for exams that won't directly benefit them.

Blu - what a great idea.

Y2 ones, I reckon the teachers at the Inferiorettes' school would kiss us all on both cheeks and say thank you.

I have real issues with teachers having to teach to tests at such a young age. Crazy

it has been explained rather clearly to us, by teachers who agree that it is bollocks, that there isn't an actual day that tests are taken but that they will do them over a month or so

so you can't keep your child off on 'a specific day' because they'll get them the next one, or the next

You can run but you can't hide...

I understood that you could simply withdraw your child from the test although I suppose you wouldn't want them to go in on the day.

Miljee - aren't there lots of children still leaving school being unable to read or write the English language. Perhaps it isn't as bad as it was, perhaps now all children leave with at least the experience of a limited curriculum.

I wrote to my mp about them .. my letter was passed on to dept of education

I got a 'tough, you're wrong, the Association of Headteachers and Teachers' Unions are wrong, and we're right' form letter back which I binned

I do actually agree with some aspects of having a uniform curriculum - I think my junior school education was quite spectacularly awful. (It included a religious maniac who made me terrified that as a non-Christian I'd go to hell, and a woman so thick she shouldn't have been teaching anyone, let alone getting hulking pubescent 11 year olds sticking strips of wallpaper to other sheets of paper for days on end.)

SATS for seven year olds, though, pah.

The girls were all taught to knit by the maniac old fart who taught me, while the boys were taught joined up handwriting.

We only found this out whe the boys and girls schools merged. So I never learned cursive handwriting properly.

I agree that some degree of similarity is a god thing. Likewise tests. We had end of year exams every year from year 3 onwards.

What we didn't have were the months of bloody cramming

Explains SATs simply www.coxhoe.durham.sch.uk/curriculum/SATs.htm

Have only read the OP - I'm still waiting for the HT to arrange the day/evening with us Yr2 parents as she said she would.

Eeek, must now read the thread.