Are there any benefits to maxing out year 6 SATs?

[StuntNun]

My DS3 is on course to easily get greater depth in both his year 6 SATs. This is a huge relief since my DS1 and DS2 have behavioural and learning difficulties so SATs were hard work all round for them when they were in year 6. However, DS3's teacher wants him to do extra practice papers at home over the next few months, as well as the two practice papers they still have to do at school. My question is, is it really worth him putting in a lot more effort if it's only going to move him from scoring 117 to 119? It makes me wonder if it's more for the school's benefit than for my DS3's sake.

Just as a parent not a teacher...

The higher the Sats mark, the higher the gcse expectations. This could be good or bad..

If he's academic and wants to do it, it's good for him to be challenged and achieve. When I was in school I was given the higher papers without the prep. I remember thinking I could have done this with more support. It would have been nice to have achieved that. Though I wouldn't put on much pressure why not try.

We decided not to do any SATs prep hw given by the school. They were already giving SATs practice exams at the school and dd completed the 11+, which is more difficult then SATs. So we did not do any of the extra SATs mocks they gave as hw weekly.....she still got GDS in everything. Not sure it makes much of a difference to get 119s instead of 117. I would just not do it. Its different if he needed the SATs to get into a school.

@PuttingDownRoots I believe the SATs results are banded to predict GCSE grades so it wouldn't make any difference.

@Historybooks that makes sense. I'm slightly worried that it would be pushing him towards perfectionism though, if he feels that he's expected to get full marks.

well dd2 has high GCSE expectations.
She has had a crap secondary school experience, and won't meet any of them, but she and I don't care, and school are supporting her where she is, so that is pretty irrelevant really.

I am teacher and a parent and I was a governor.

SATS are for the school. It makes no difference at all to your child if they fail their SATS. It is a pain/sad for the school though.

And it is a good lesson for them to try their best.

Do what you feel is helpful to your dc. No need to push.

SATs are entirely for the school, and unless he desperately wants to do the extra work there is no benefit at all

Don’t do it. It is just to make the school look good. Let your child enjoy his last year of primary, he’ll get lots of homework at secondary.

I can understand teachers wanting to get a 'borderline' child above their 'line' (eg scoring 100 for meeting the standard, or 110 for greater depth) but I can't understand why the teacher is so keen to see him achieve a 'top' score that they are expecting him and his parents to put in a whole lot of work at home. Aren't SATs supposed to reflect the teaching at school?

If the school is teaching him well, he will achieve the mark he deserves purely from class teaching in school. I'd only consider providing him with extra practice materials at home if he was particularly asking for them, and only then if I was comfortable that he was really enjoying the work and had a genuine ambition to do as well as he can. If I felt he was responding to pressure from the school, I would remind my DC and the teacher that SATs aren't a competition.

I'm a primary teacher.

110 V 120 makes no difference to the pupil or the school. The only thing that might be of benefit is practice with revision techniques, but seems unlikely that it'll be particularly transformative.

That's really useful @Thisismynewusernamedoyoulikeit thank you! He's currently sitting at around 117 so it doesn't sound like there's anything to be gained by doing more preparation above and beyond what the school is already doing (which seems like a lot since they have four mock tests over the course of year 6.) He's very smart but he's quite anxious and emotionally labile so he really doesn't need any more pressure in his life at this point.

Our secondary set using SATs 117 would probably put into set 1 at most schools but depends on intake.
I would still do the homework as it maybe a topic hes less strong on.
At our secondary the dont really spend long reviewing y6 work and it seems to pop up on the y7 tests.

Agree scores are used for setting in some schools. Only real advantage I'd see is if it helped reduce anxiety on the day, but lots of practice could also have the opposite effect. You say 'both' SATS. You know there is reading, maths and EGPS? Writing is teacher assessed.

My DD made it into Set 1 with 109... itvwas top 25% of the year. Unless its a grammar school I think 117 would be topvset material at pretty much every scchool!

Yeah my DS is in set 1 for maths too and he ‘only’ got 108.

That would be set 2 here. I was quite shocked when I found out what sets some children, who I thought to be pretty solid mathematicians, had been put in. Very average area, if anything higher than average pupil premium.

SATs just measure the school and teachers performance and how much progress they enable the children to make within the national curriculum.

Secondary schools find SATs results unreliable, varying greatly from primary school to primary school. Secondary schools utilise CATs often when streaming, they are a truer measure of natural aptitude.

@Blinkin our high school retests and he did very well on the half term exam so maybe they weight that more highly than the sats.

Some secondaries. And whether schools like it or not (generally it's not), SATS are what their official progress is measured against.