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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

year 6 sats....am i doing the right thing?

19 replies

bubblepop · 04/04/2008 23:53

hi everyone, just been reading the other thread about the little girl in yr2 worrying about her sats..got me thinking

ds1 is now in yr 6 and at parents evening a couple of weeks ago we were told he was expected to reach mostly a level 3 / 4c in a couple of subjects aswell. i know he is'nt top of the class academically but it does'nt worry us. the head has been banging on about 'sats' for months now. its almost as if he is panicking now doomsday is approaching! a huge pile of old sats papers were sent home months ago for the kids to work through at home...ofcourse we hav'nt even looked at them, they are under his bed! he would much rather be outside on his trampoline or on his bike. our attitude is 'let him be a kid' for god sake,he's eleven years old, we think its far too much pressure for primary school, but maybe we are ignorant/uninformed? do you think we should have had him sat down, ploughing his way through these papers? would it really make any difference to the end result? opinions and experiences appreciated.

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Jessie3 · 05/04/2008 00:09

Nope, it wouldn't have. If the teacher had given you next steps to work on, then that might have had an effect e.g. work on punctuation, particularly within sentence commas, etc or practice with multi-step problems in maths (sending some home to work with perhaps). But past papers? They test such a wide range (from 3c to 5a) that they would be pretty useless as homework. (I taught Y6 for 5 years until recently, and never sent past papers home, apart from completed marked Science papers as an aid to (optional) revision, with key vocabulary written in.

Christywhisty · 05/04/2008 00:20

We didn't get hardly any sats papers sent home last year and not a lot of pressure. DS used to go into school half an hour early to use a computer revision programme, but that wasn't compulsory. He enjoys that kind of thing and to be honest really enjoyed his Sats

Most of the boys in his class were at scout camp the weekend before sats started, so I doubt very little work/revision was done that weekend.

roisin · 05/04/2008 00:54

Well it depends whether you think he is doing OK for his abilities. If he doesn't get a 4c he will be performing "well below average". If you think that represents under-performance for him, then maybe you need to consider giving him a kick up the backside in some way, and get him to knuckle down.

In our school if a child comes in below L4c then they will get on the intervention programmes in yr7 (which is a good thing); but when it comes to yr9 and yr11 they will not be automatically pushed/have access to booster sessions if they're not on target for hitting L5 SATs and GCSE grade C.

Some schools completely ignore SATs results anyway, and don't use them in this way.

We haven't done any SATs work with ds1 (yr6) but then he is very academic anyway and reads loads, and I know he'll do fine!
I concentrate on trying to encourage him to spend more time outside

Christywhisty · 05/04/2008 01:08

I think you may also want him to start getting used to setting some time for homework as we have found in Year 7 homework seems to have taken over our lives although it has seemed to have tailed off this term.

ScienceTeacher · 05/04/2008 07:20

My DD is in Y6 and does quite a lot of Sats practice in school (too much imo), but never brings anything home for practice. I think the school has recommended commercial practice books, but we haven't gone with those as DD already has a scholarship to independent school.

She is already achieving 5a in everything, so is fairly bored at school. Once the Sats are over, the teacher is going to take the top group and give them the L6 work they are eager to do, while the headteacher teaches the rest of the class.

AbbeyA · 05/04/2008 08:49

I wouldn't plough through the papers-I would have a holiday and go back refreshed.

popsycal · 05/04/2008 09:02

I taught year 6 for 7 years abd was head of year for six of them. Please don't plough through papers with him
If you feel he would like to do a bit of revision, try bbc.co.uk/reviswise.

Kids tend to love it and it revises all the key stuff. The maths and science are espeically good. I don't rate the English one that much.

HTH

edam · 05/04/2008 09:04

Do SATS results actually have any bearing on the child - affect what secondary schools they can go to, or which sets they are placed in?

If not, I wouldn't worry too much. SATS were originally supposed to be a measure for the school, not the child. And that's what they should have remained IMO. Seems have become a re-hash of the 11+ in some areas.

popsycal · 05/04/2008 09:06

Edam - SATs results can be used as one factor in setting in some secondary schools. They would be foolish to use it as the only measure though. After all, a SATs test is a 45 minute snapshot of 4 years of work.

ScienceTeacher · 05/04/2008 09:22

If he has been given homework to do these papers, then he should and you should encourage him. Picking and choosing what homework to do, and getting parental support for lack of homework, only serves to undermine the authority of the teacher, and his subsequent teachers.

If you have a problem with the homework, see the teacher.

While it might not be the best homework in the world, I don't see the harm in taking 20 minutes out of his trampoline time to do a few questions.

popsycal · 05/04/2008 09:24

Sorry - did not read properly...she has been compulsory homework of past test papers?

roisin · 05/04/2008 09:25

At our school we get SATs test results and Teacher Assessments, which can be more accurate. In the subjects which set (English, Maths, Science) this is the data which is used to set them. (It is the only data available at the time.)

Students sometimes are transferred between sets mid-year, particularly in Science, but I can't recall this happening ever in yr7. So it is important in some ways.

It is a crude tool, but in a big secondary where no-one knows everyone, data is important for these sort of tasks.

NaughtyNigel · 06/04/2008 19:51

Burn the papers and go and jump on the trampoline with DS.

SATS test papers at school are one thing - to get the children used to the format of the workbooks and questions.

asking parents to coach the children is tatally not on.

hippipotami · 07/04/2008 09:33

I am in two minds regarding SAT's. Ds is in Y4 and at his last parents's eve we were told he would be getting one hour after school help in Maths and one hour after school help in Literacy next year in preparation for Y6 SAT's as he is predicted to get 4c without this but 4b with this. I have mixed feelings. Ds is an August baby and almost the youngest in his school year. He is very bright, but not acedemically bright if that makes sense.

I don't think I would want to spend the entire holiday ploughing through papers but would do a little (say half an hour every day) going through them.

The secondary school we hope ds will go to uses SAT results to initially stream the Y7 children, but will then in the first term test them all using their own tests and then re-stream them accordingly.

Twiglett · 07/04/2008 09:38

I wouldn't be banging through sats papers no but I would be asking whether DS is capable of, and how to help him master the skills he needs to acheive level 4s across the SATS he is due to take and then I would look at FUN ways of doing this .. the BBC website offers some online games (just type BBC KS2 in google) and there are other sites

CorrieDale · 07/04/2008 09:42

My friend's DD lay awake at night worrying about her SATS. Your DS clearly doesn't give a toss. I really hope my DCs are like your DS - trampoline and bike and all - and NOT like my friend's DD. Time enough to cope with exam stress when they're doing GCSEs.

AbbeyA · 07/04/2008 13:24

BBC website is a great idea-much more fun and they are bite sized.

OrmIrian · 07/04/2008 13:30

My DS does a few papers a week in school. Nothing at home. Thank goodness. He has enough hw to do without that.

cory · 13/04/2008 23:33

My attitude is, I don't care if dd does well in her SATS or not, but I do care whether she is learning as much literacy, maths and science now as she will need in secondary school so as to perform to the level she is capable of. I've never worried or fussed her about school, but I don't want her to get into the habit of coasting either. So if the teacher sets her old SATS papers as homework, then homework has to be done, but I wouldn't be rushing out buying extra books or hiring tutors.

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