Boycotting SATS

[MumofChimp]

We’re taking our 11 year old on holiday during SATS week, as that break is more valuable to him than sitting in a classroom completing tests that say nothing about him and are just used to rank schools. Much of his Y6 curriculum has been wasted, doing practice tests that he’s found tedious. He’s an anxious boy who really struggled emotionally with the pressure of the Kent Test and this is a step too far for him. I always said that, if we had the opportunity, we’d boycott and - yes! - we have the opportunity. Anyway, the point of this post is, is anyone else boycotting and how are you going about informing the school? I’m not interested in counter-arguments; I’m an ex-secondary teacher and I know that the results are of little use for progression.

As an anxiety sufferer you don’t overcome anxiety by avoidance, you overcome it by doing the thing that made you anxious and realising it was actually ok. DD’s been anxious about loads of stuff, she still has to do it and slowly over time her confidence is growing.

I share your grievances with the education system I really do and I was preparing myself to boycott but as it's turned out, it isn't feeling like such a big deal. Schools don't have to make SATS stressful. Ours has barely mentioned it other than an email just giving all the standard info to parents. DD hasn't really mentioned it. The week after sats they are going on their residential so I think the attitude is get the SATS done and then it's a week of fun and adventure as a reward. Which feels like a good life lesson to them really 🤷‍♀️

I agree with @Iamnotthe1 unfortunately

And my experience in working in secondary education for 15 years shows there is an element of truth to it. Making your child deliberately irrelevant to the most important KS4 measure that schools are benchmarked against is foolish I'm afraid.

"But then I googled "the Kent test". They should just use that. No point making the kid sit two"

Entirely different thing.

@MumofChimp Do check how his secondary school use the SATS. And do consider whether, once he's done all the work it might be better for him to do them. Actually doing the bloody things is the least stressful bit.

It doesn't sound like a boycott to me it sounds like an excuse for a cheap holiday.
Fill in the holiday form and say he will be absent for sats week.
I don't agree with sats as I had August born kids but I think booking a holiday is not a boycott it weakens your argument

Why don’t you just tell them you are going on holiday on those dates? What are you hoping to achieve by making sure they know that the reason for the holiday is a “boycott”? Are you trying to avoid the fine? Making sure they know that it’s not a vulgar holiday like other people have, but a “valuable” one? Making sure that they know that he finds tests both tedious and anxiety inducing so that they will decide on a whole school SATs boycott? What point are you trying to make? What’s wrong with “we have booked a family holiday from date -date so unfortunately Brian won’t be in school that week”?
If you are trying to avoid the LA fine then you could try lying and say he is unwell. If you are trying to get everyone to clap then I think you are on a hiding to nothing.

“Now I don't want you to worry, class. These tests will have no effect on your grades. They merely determine your future social status and financial success... if any.” - Edna Krabappel

If OPs child is going to a grammar school following the Kent test, how is he going to manage the regular testing there?

@Labraradabrador your use of the phrase “school shopping” makes it sound as though you’re popping into Sainsbury’s for a loaf of bread. You select preferences, which is a completely different thing. You aren’t guaranteed to be given your preference.

In our school your child would just be sitting their SATs the following week while all the other children are doing fun, end of term stuff.
Another one who is slightly bemused by you boycotting SATs due to the pressure on your anxious child but also putting him through the Kent test?

You blame the school for the pressure of SATs but you chose to put him through the Kent Test

Seems like you don't care about SATS more because your child is going independent so you don't feel you need to conform.
As I've already said I was never a fan and campaigned against SATS in the 00s but would always support the school because of how bad it looks when parents do this but I suspect you don't care about the primary school but think you should drop the word boycott from your story and replace with cheap term time holiday.

When of course they will not only have missed the camaraderie of their fellow pupils all doing the tests at the same time, but will also miss out on the fun stuff most schools build into the week following SATS week.

I suspect that we won’t see the OP back - she came on expecting the usual supportive pile on that many people on mumsnet have for SATS. However it’s one thing not agreeing with them but quite another telling your son you can just avoid things in society which you don’t like or don’t want to do but that the vast majority are just getting on with. It’s not even a protest - you are just going on a cheap holiday which is the biggest joke of it. As a secondary school teacher I am really surprised that you can’t see how frustrating this is for teachers and the school community, don’t know how they do use SATS in secondary as benchmarks (although it sounds like you are trying for a grammar which negates your argument about your special little treasure not coping with exams and pressure); and can’t see the impact that avoidance has on children. So I think all we can conclude is this is a cheap holiday dressed up with what you think is a valid reason so crack on, pay the fine and don’t bother the school with your nonsense.

Even more reason not to do it then.

I don't agree with schools being ranked based on test results.

Quite.

As for doing the Kent Test v SATS, they are totally different and it is quite possible to be fazed by one and not the other.

That's all well and good but the knock on effect of doing this is to make your child irrelevant from a data perspective and, as a result, the leadership of the school will never see him/her as important or as a priority. This affects a range of things during secondary, for example:

• setting and access to curriculum content,
• access to particular curriculums (e.g. triple science),
• levels of support or push (or whether this doesn't actually exist for the child),
• which staff end up being allocated to their class.

It shouldn't be that way but it is.

Why wouldn't you want your kid to get used to exams; what they look and feel like without the pressure of 11+? By the time SATs roll around, some children are much better prepared for exam conditions than others. Your child should be one of the better prepared, but sounds like he needs to work through anxieties. This might be a good opportunity to allow him to experience exams without the pressure to do well.

@shearwater2 then maybe they should do the SATs as they were fazed by the Kent test so might not be by SATS

In that case our school wouldn't have cared about the entirety of Year 10 who did not do SATS in 2020. Nor did they even do tests when they started secondary school in 2020.

In my experience secondary schools do their own tests early on in Y7 and work from there.

By the OPs own admission, her child was fazed by the Kent test.

Well, the OP knows that best. The point is that SATS are for the benefit of schools, not children.

I'd prefer schools and parents to boycott all primary school testing as they are a nonsense, of no benefit to the child, in fact a serious disadvantage as schools are perpetually teaching to tests. The very opposite of encouraging the children to love learning, work towards self-directed learning and the opposite of professional autonomy for teachers. Everything is becoming scripted for teachers. They are just weighing a pig to fatten it. Seeing the child as an empty jar which they have to fill up with information tokens to be slotted into the turnstile in order to process to the next stage.

Then they wonder why so many children are rejecting school altogether.

My kids didn't mind Sats week at all. The prep for it was boring and repetitive, and they could have done without that, but the week itself was fine. They had a shared breakfast every day, and a lot of free time after the tests to play and unwind.
I think it would have been weird for them to spend so much time preparing for tests and then not do them.

My dc haven’t done SATS because they are home ed, I don’t like the testing of primary age children. However it seems a bit daft to let him do all the prep work and build up to them that goes on in the classroom and then simply not to do the tests alongside his peers. A boycott would be opting out of the whole thing not just the test at the end (which he may well end up doing once back in school anyway).

In Kent, some grammars are just better schools full stop, particularly the all girls one. They are actually far more relaxed and sensible in terms of discipline, homework, school rules and uniform and offer far more enrichment opportunities. That has been my experience anyway between DD1 at grammar and DD2 at a non-selective school. I don't blame the OP at all for wanting her DC to go to a school that will suit him best.

@Luddite26 Kent test is for state grammar school not fee paying private school.

Some schools are very good with SATS and some aren't and pile the pressure on.

They are not all the same.