Anyone Opted Out of SATS?

[Highlander]

have just found out DS1 will 'be tested' within a couple of years of starting school

riven on Sat 24-May-08 09:13:09
"and I find it weird that teachers think the children don't know."

My dd only knew about her Yr2 SATS because we'd been talking about them. And we only talked about them because I find them fairly uninteresting= not a stressful subject. But many of my friends' dc's genuinely did not know.

A child once asked me when they would be doing their tests. I had to answer that well actually we were in the middle of doing one of them now (and had been doing them all week).

We do ours now in small groups in the classroom and in the 6 years i have done KS1 SATs no one has got stressed apart from pushy parents.

If the school is not pushy and your child has a good relationship with their teacher there should be nothing to worry about.

We have been told by people in the local authority that by next year KS1 will be totally done on teacher assessment with no test.

What happens if a child is absent on the day of SATS? Are they not recorded at all in the final figures?

Absent children will bring the score down and risk the school being lower in the league table. I believe that they will be given a zero score which will lower a schools overall performance. (perhaps someone can confirm this-it is just my understanding).

When DD was doing her Y2 SATs we had aletter home telling us they would be doing some tests but that we shouldn't let them get worried about it.DD handed me the letter & asked 'What are these tests I'm not supposed to worry about?' I told her that if she could read the letter she obviously didn't have anything to worry about!

Children can be disapplied if they are working below Level 3 for KS2 SATs, I don't think there are any circumstances where they can be completely removed from the statistics - the 'headline figure' on which the league tables are based includes all children, though the numbers disapplied or not taking the tests would be shown in the full table.

At the school I work at, we had a child arrive from Denmark a week before the SATs started, speaking about 3 words of English - it was too late to get him disapplied, but it ws obviously ridiculous to expect him to do the tests. So he wasn't even counted in the disapplied statistics- in a year group of 50 it just took 2% off our statistics straight away, which can make a massive difference to the league table placings.

I thought that as well. Was confused that a poster said that high achieving schools encourage low achieving chn to be absent.

A friend of mine got a Drs note so her DS didnt have to do SATs because he suffers with stress, but the headmaster wasnt having any of it until she said she would get a letter from her GP.
Also on the subject of SATs, I had an appointment with the headteacher (at the same school) to discuss something totally unrelated to SATs and whilst I was waiting there was a yr6 pupil waiting for her mum to collect her and it turned out that she had tonsilitus and had come into school to do SATs.

If you Google it you find children in hospital being taken their SATs papers!!!

Riven - we did work every day in school, SATS was just more work. No big deal. The word test was not mentioned ever, the children just got on with their work as usual.

There is a big difference between Year 2 SATs (Key Stage 1 aged 7) and Key Stage 2 SATs. (Year 6 age 11).
Y6 are timed tst and done on set days.
Y2 are tests and tasks that can be done any time from september to June and are used to inform teacher assessment.

In DS`s class ,YEAR 2

1 child had to go home as he had got so upset on the first day of the SATs

1 child had to be dragged into school

1 child has taken to bed wetting and
nightmares
and they are just the 3 I know off

Why?

Because the headmistress is obsessed with them and said to the class that if they did`nt get a 2 they would not go up to year 3

Our teacher who is lovely is in turmoil over them

They are only 7

My ds (year 2) has no idea that he has done SATs. None at all.

Anyone elses school do QCA tests too ?? My two dd's in yrs 3 and 5 have just done theirs, the week before yrs 2 and 6 did their SATS.

In dd2's class two boys broke down in tears during the Maths QCA test .

indianajane if a child is absent it will impact on the school's results and placing in the league tables. In small schools this can be a major problem.
It really depends how schools work whether children will know they are being tested I know in my school we don't give out test booklets every week so I would imagine children would notice something different.

when I look at the 2 schools close to us, I have promised myself that I will not look at SATS results.

I think it will be more useful if I ask how they cope with struggling readers. Do they keep teaching reading until each individual child is clearly independant?

Don't know what the equivalent question is for maths though

didn't exactly opt out, but sent them to independent schools that I chose as don't do Sats.

You could sign the petition to scrap SATs if you feel strongly petitions.pm.gov.uk/scrapsats/

DD1's teacher told them that they were doing a test so SHE could know what to teach them.

If indeed these tests were, as I think, SATS, DD1 did genuinely have no idea. None whatsoever. And no, this is not because she is especially slow off the mark or somehting.

dd1 had no idea when she did them in year 2 - I also have no idea of result as I chucked them unopened.

she is year 3 now and told me yesterday that she couldn't wait to do sats in year 6 as they have a special cupboard full of biscuits and special treats for the year 6 sats kids

We did what MABS did, went independent to escape not only SATs but the National Literacy and Numeracy strategies and to a lesser extend the National Curriculum. Round our way SATS were very clumsily implemented in more than one school, frantic to avoid further slump in the league tables for our borough's schools. (Well that worked, we are now bottom ). I think SATS are an abomination. I think most teachers will cheerfully agree with your views, highlander. They don't like them either.

Yes, I agree, Marina: our teachers shudder if you mention the S-word.

DS doesn't know the "SATs" word. I realised (from reading MN) that he must be doing him so lightly questioned him - only way of finding out anything as he is not big on volunteering information - and he has done some. So much like a lot of others here.

What all this adds up to is that the impact of SATS depends almost entirely on the levelheadedness (or not) of the adults involved. My dc's have been fortunate in attending schools that did not succumb to complete hysteria. So if I were to sign a petition it would be almost entirely on anecdotal evidence.

Admittedly, dd had to do her Yr 6 SATS when she was not well. But she is growing up, and understands that the world is like this; sometimes you have to work when you're not well. When she was in hospital, she attended hospital school.

The main thing is, the school didn't make the SATS out to be a major deal. They did try presenting it as 'a chance that will not come back'- but dd knows too much about the examination system to be taken in by that one; she knows perfectly well noone will ever ask to see her SATS results again.

Keep them off school if you object to the SATs. Honestly. I would never normally advocate parents authorising unnecessary absence, but SATs are different - we need parents of sense to boycott the frigging things.

Key Stage 1 SATs are flexible so can be taken at any point over a six week(ish) period so unless you keep your child off for that full time the teacher will be obliged to test when they turn up. Key Stage 2 is different with all the tests being completed in one week.