My son is in year 2 and will be sitting SATs either at the end of this term or in May. I am not sure how it works. Do children still sit tests or is it done on teacher assessment?
I found some old papers and mark schemes on the internet. It has been a bit of shock how rigid the mark scheme can be. I get the feeling that quite a few marks can be lost by not understand what is required, even if the child has no problem with the maths, reading or writing.
For example am I right thinking that in Maths if a question asks you to show working out and you only give an answer with no indication of what method you have used then the child will get a big fat zero. Even if their answer is right. Similarly a child can get a wrong answer but get a good proportion of the marks if they show they understand what they needed to do.
How do you make sure that a child has the best chance of showing off their ablity and not throw away marks. I really don't want my son to do practice papers or get stressed. He is only six and too young to have a care in the world.
However I do not want my son to end up in the bottom sets next year with the nightmare kids.