SATS- is there any benefit for the child?

[MinnieMountain]

DS is in year 5. His teachers have already talked about SATS preparation. We told him that we won’t be making him do any extra work as there’s no benefit to him and he will be assessed by his secondary when he starts.

He told the TA this yesterday and she said that he must do the extra work as it will help him at secondary. Will it?

It doesn't benefit the child at all. But it's also quite unhelpful to instill a "sats are pointless" attitude in your child, because they have to sit them, and the school will spend a lot of time preparing for them.

I didn't do any extra prep at home, but I did tell my kids that they had to work hard at school same as they always had. I also made a big point of saying that you can't "fail", it just highlights any areas you still need to work on.

What will help him at Secondary school is having a really solid grounding and performing well enough to be in one of the top sets.
Many secondaries assess students with their own tests during the first term, but SATs results will dictate expectations and predictions.

How much this will affect final outcomes is hard to say- hopefully there will be some secondary teachers on here who can clarify.

He will be assessed by his secondary when he gets there.

However, the impact on him is potentially through the grade setting process.

From his sats results target gcse grades a generated. These are normally shared with the student and with their parents.

If students have low sats results then their target grades can be below a pass (so gcse grade 3 or below). Some parents find it upsetting as they think their child is being "written off".

As your child gets closer to GCSEs interventions and extra support are decided on the basis of target grades. So if your child does badly in sats and has low target grades, they may not be offered extra support.

We’ve probably gone overboard with SATS are pointless as PILs were both primary school teachers and are very anti them. Will reign it in.
We always make sure DS does his homework. He’s in the top sets currently and we’re involved with his school work in general.

What will help him at any stage of his education is not having parents telling him that any part of that education is pointless.

It can have more subtle positives too. It can keep children motivated for learning at this age, when they are less motivated by "pleasing" the teacher. This means a more purposeful learning environment.

If he's in top groups now, he could aim for greater depth, which will give him high target grades for his GCSEs.

This!
A bit of practice in exam sitting, getting a score he might be proud of is important

The flip side is the pupils are coached heavily for their SATs and gain stellar grades.
These are then extrapolated to high targets at GCSE.
We have kids who have targets of 8 or 9, in reality, they will be lucky to get a 5.
It is shit for both the kids and the teachers.

If he is at the upper end then in some ways target grades are more important.

What he gets in his data will impact whether he gets gcse target grades of a 6,7,8 or 9.

If he does really well and gets gcse target grades of 9's some kids find that difficult through secondary as they are often "off target" unless they get perfect results. It can be dispiriting for some kids.

However, if he has high target grades he is more likely to be offered extra opportunities - eg maths challenge, maths trips, extension clubs that are invitation only etc. (examples from maths because I was a maths teacher).

I worked in primary for a while and sats are really dispiriting for some kids. But they do matter.

In my opinion, they go beyond pointless - they are an absolute hindrance. I’m a secondary teacher and you would not believe the world of grief that SATS results give us every year. They are usually a totally unrealistic view of a child’s ability as they have spent the best part of a year doing nothing but SATs prep - some children have clearly had help during the actual tests too. The results are used to generate their y11 targets which is a nightmare for some children as they spend 5 years being forced into interventions to help them get a certain grade by any cost. I also hate the fact lots of primary schools now spend all of y6 doing nothing but maths, English and science and miss out on drama, art, music, cooking etc.
Having said all that. I don’t share my opinions with my own children as having a positive attitude towards learning is so important. I generally go with the view of ‘try your best and we are proud of you whatever’. I’ll be doing absolutely zero extra SATs prep when the time comes, that’s for sure!

There's a lot of misinformation about SATs, especially on here. With the changes made in education over the last 10 years, the SATs have become increasingly important/impactful to the child.

The main reason is one that many parents and even many teachers are unaware of. A core measure when judging secondary school effectiveness is their Progress 8 score. This measures how well they develop children from their starting points as measured in their SATs. Secondary's own tests are irrelevant for this. A 0 score means that children make the expected level of progress, a negative one shows lower than average progress and a positive one shows higher than average progress.

Senior leaders are constantly monitoring the rates of progress both at a cohort level and at an individual level. They then have this in mind when making decisions about the school, ranging from how to set children to where to deploy their most effective staff to which children get access to additional support/challenge/intervention.

Children having a higher target, due to getting higher SATs scores, means that they will be challenged more and, if they go off track, they will be brought back on track through support and intervention.

Children having a lower target means that less will be expected from them and, in some cases, if they are already on track to achieve that lower target, they won't be prioritised for support/challenge/etc.

This is not necessarily how education should be but it is what is happening practically in schools at the senior levels of leadership.

We object to DS being pressured to do extra work when he’s doing well at school already.
I see the point about GCSE predictions, especially for maths (his favourite subject).

For the chiid, it’s learning the curriculum well. They allow experience sitting an exam. What’s the point sitting music or ballet exams? Many professional exams are no indication if you can do the job and are beyond pointless. We often sit them because it gives a piece of paper. Maybe it’s good children learn about preparing for pointless exams.

Agreed.

Parents should try (within reason) to be as consistent as possible with the school. Otherwise children get confused/ start to think school is pointless etc. Which is definitely not helpful for them.

SATs do get them used to a bit of academic pressure and working to achieve something, which are not bad things in terms of setting them up for future education.

You can tell them it's important and encourage them to work hard and do their best, without having a 'the rest of your life depends on this' attitude.

This is a school problem - their attitude is horrible putting pressure on the kids and the parents. All they are bothered about is their results!

You probably think I am anti sats, I'm not. Luckily our school took a different approach and didn't want to make it a tough time for the kids. Mine did well. They were put in sets at secondary due to the results and sets are adjusted throughout their time there if needed.

Ps yes a mistake telling your child they are pointless, far better to say they are not to be worried or stressed about - if you want to get a dig in then it's a test to see how the teacher has done!

I think looking at this in terms of extra work frames it incorrectly though and I'd say that, if the school is framing it as that, they aren't taking the right approach.

It's about ownership. Y6 and the SATs are the time when children can learn to take that higher degree of ownership over their own education and development. If they didn't understand something in the lesson, review it and then ask for additional advice/support. If they think they've forgotten something, review it and ask. Etc. Etc. Etc.

It's far better to learn that skill and take that step in primary where you are, typically, one of thirty pupils sharing the attention and efforts of one teacher who knows you extremely well as opposed to trying to learn that at secondary where you are one of two-hundred that teacher sees per week and they don't necessarily know you.

Yeah, I would definitely reign it in - it's really not helpful messaging for a child to hear their parents disagreeing with their school.

(Especially when it's just your PIL's blowing off steam - SATs are stressful for teachers).

These exams are going to be a big part of your son's life for the next year, whatever you say/ do. He's going to have to sit them, and he'll have a more pleasant year if his parents encourage him to do his best than if they keep telling him how pointless it all is. Can't think of anything more discouraging!

I hate the over focus on SATs and to me it’s insane that exams from that age are used as predictors for GCSE and insane that such a large proportion of the year is spent teaching FOR the SATs.

Having said that, it is what it is. I don’t agree with SATs or any formal tests in primary really, but that’s what we’ve got and I guess we all have to learn to thrive in the world we live in. My son is doing then next year, I’ve said I don’t particularly agree with them, but that part of education and having jobs is occasionally being able to do things to “show your competence” even if you don’t think it makes sense or is useful.

This. If he gets this mindset now it'll likely stick with him throughout his education

As a secondary teacher I agree, SATs are pointless. My DD is at an indie where SATs aren’t taken and this was a deliberate decision by me.

If she had gone to the local (and very good) primary her last couple of years would have been focused on SATs and I happen to think there’s more to education than helping the government create league tables.

If DD was at the local primary, we wouldn’t be doing extra work and I’d keep her off school during SATs week too. That would be unhelpful for the school as she’s very able but why would she need that stress at 11 years old???

Perhaps better to start secondary school without a SATs grade so the school has to do their own assessment and rely on only that to set groupings and grade targets?

You have to be balanced about them. My dd has found all exams, starting with SATs, incredibly stressful. One senior school teacher told me that at their school the results put them on their flightpath for GCSEs and set their target grades. They help the senior school set the new intake, and tell the senior school what the kids are capable of, in case they aren't working to target.

I 100% agree. My DD is in year 6 and because we live abroad she won’t be doing them.

When children regularly came from abroad to my school without SATS results, we just had to test them and put them in the correct sets accordingly. On SISRA, a predicted grade obviously couldn’t be generated so it was left blank, which meant there was no ceiling target. The sky was the limit and this should be the case for everyone. If we go back to the U.K. my DD can work towards grades that are appropriate for her.

Good secondaries don't use SATs for streaming as they understand what a dodgy measurement tool they are.

Check your local one OP

I'm also a secondary teacher and agree that in and of themselves, SATS are "pointless". And regarding paperwork and timetabling etc they're a PITA.

However, helping kids with learning methods and styles, developing techniques for answering certain types of task, learning how to learn, learning that sometimes in life we have to do things without an immediate reward....is all part of doing a "pointless" thing towards the end of Primary.

Just ask the secondary school OP! Ours doesn't use them for anything at all