Daughter expressing self harm thoughts regarding SATs - what options do we have?

[PiFilling]

I just received a call from my daughter's head teacher saying that a concerned parent contacted them to say that my DD had expressed to their child that DD would self harm if she did not do well on SATs. I am absolutely livid about this, as I have been very unhappy with the amount of pressure that the school have been putting on the children. The head teacher was adamant that this is not true and said they'd be looking into doing more PSHE with DD and all the children in the coming weeks.

Is it possible to have DD not sit SATs? What other options do I have? She runs anxious/depressed, so this isn't 100% out of left field, but I've never been aware of her making statements like this in the past. I'm obviously very concerned.

You need to make an appointment to speak to your DD's head teacher in person to express your concerns about the pressure that school has been putting on your DD. Don't go to the meeting alone - take your husband with you. Schools are very practiced in undermining parents.

Unfortunately I have no proof of the pressure from the school, only what my daughter has told me. I don't know if there's anything I can say that they can't just deflect with her "being sensitive."

If your daughter is able to articulate that pressure in words, either direct quotations from teachers or by articulating scenarios that she has lived through at school, surely those are evidence that you can provide to the headteacher? You can politely but firmly ask the headteacher to provide an explanation for the words or scenarios your daughter has witnessed and that trouble her.

Many years ago one of our DC was under a great deal of stress at school and school tried to deflect it onto us. I was VERY firm.

There didn't seem to be any way to get kids out of doing SATs, if they miss the day it seemed they would do it later. But maybe it is possible as then I found this:
www.schoolguide.co.uk/blog/why-i-took-my-son-out-of-school-during-sats-week#:~:text=Yes%2C%20parents%20have%20the%20right,from%20school%20during%20the%20tests.

My DS was ill for some of the SATS and it made no difference to anything at all. He went to a great school and although there was no pressure they managed to make the whole week really fun around the SATS to take the pressure off. They were hardly aware they were even taking SATS let alone it bring a huge issue. It was handled exceptionally well. It was a great state primary all round really. All the DC were very well set up moving onto secondary school. As confident as each one could be and as academically ready as each of them could be.

We never discussed the SATS at home or did any work towards it at home. Home was home and school was school with regards to SATS

She might be able to sit them but not receive the marks if not sitting them isn't looking possible. Of course you can always deregister a child but she may not want to miss out on the rest of the year.

Are you also putting in a CAMHS referral or getting some help in another way? Because there will be so many assessments if she's going to mainstream secondary school. One of my children does them termly for all subjects. Helping her through these feelings now, whether she does the SATs or not would be really helpful.

Is she autistic or is it something you've considered? My eldest really struggles with perfectionist thinking as part of her autism and exams are a big issue.

My son was agreed by myself and the school that he shouldn't even attempt to sit sats. He had such severe anxiety and struggled to even get to school let alone engage. They had to get my permission for him to not sit them. So it definitely can be done

teacher of 30 years :

SATS are utterly pointless and must be scrapped asap !!!!

no secondary school has paid any attention to those scores because some school hot house students to breaking point

my daughter did not sit them
tell your daughter she will be absent in sats day and forget about them

The first step is to talk to her and let her know that you know about these statements. What did she mean by them? Children often don't mean them, but then if her friend was worried, perhaps they were serious. Talk about how SATs are just tests to see what they know and what they still need to learn, so that their high school knows (it doesn't work like that, but she doesn't need to know that!)

Has school been giving the children full curriculum in the last few months?

Talk to the school. There is a two week period a child can sit SATS. SATs week itself is ironically usually the most relaxed period of the whole SATs regime. DS only ever talked about the extra snacks they had in that week, didn’t mention the tests.

But if your child is exhibiting severe stress then you need to have a plan

I think you need to talk to DD first, there are too many potential misunderstandings or Chinese whispers in the account so far.

For example if the girls were having a conversation where they were jokingly escalating and DD just went a bit far, so the other girl was shocked, then it's ok. If DD was upset and confusing in her friend, that's totally different.

However, this is a really odd presentation of self harm, to announce it in advance to emphasise stress that might not even happen. It's normally secret and a "relief" from overwhelming feelings at the time. It might be worth seeing where she's picked it up from, look at what she's watching on-line as well, she has the words to articulate feelings she doesn't even have, so she's heard it somewhere.

I don't think she'd want to miss out on the rest of the year!

She had a referral to CAMHS previously, but unfortunately we found it to be absolutely useless. The therapist we had was terrible. I suppose it's something we could try again, but I did reach out to someone privately who was recommended, so we will probably give that a go in the meantime. Yes, I obviously worry that if she can't handle SATs, then she'll have more issues as she continues through school!

I've often thought there was a chance she was on the autism spectrum (and she exhibited many of the "signs" as a baby/toddler), but she's been to see a few therapists over the years and no one has suggested this is a possibility, so who knows. She definitely has issues with perfectionism regardless.

Thank you -- I'd heard of this happening in fairly extreme cases, but I didn't know what exactly could be used as a rationale.

I absolutely know this and I've tried to make this exceedingly clear to my daughter. However, so many of the children seem completely stressed out about it. DD has told me of her friends crying because of the scores on their mocks, etc. I really get the impression that the school is putting a lot of pressure on the children for whatever reason and I am not a fan one bit.

Yes, I think I want to bring it up with her -- I just feel it will be hard to do without escalating the situation, which may not actually be warranted. I asked her best friend's mother if she was the one who'd reported and she said no (it seemed odd she wouldn't have told me directly), so I'm not sure who did to get more information from them. I'll probably just have to sit DD down and ask her about it.

She has no access to the internet, so don't think she's seeing anything she shouldn't be. She does like really dark books though! She didn't use the words "self harm," but rather she would "stab herself to death" (according to school) if she didn't do well on the exams.

Secondary school teacher who used to be an attendance officer here :)
If your daughter was to miss SATS week, nothing bad would happen. The school might not authorise it, but that wouldn't impact you or her at all, unless you're already going through a legal process for attendance at this point in Y6 it simply wouldn't matter.
Therefore what's best is probably to talk to your daughter and assess how much it's actually affecting her.
Of course, the downside of not attempting the SATS may be that she is disappointed in herself long term for not participating in what's perceived to be such a milestone event (albeit a totally pointless one which only serves as an accountability measure for teachers).