SATs (Yr 6) are more important than I realised - honestly, did you coach?

[LightShinesInTheDarkness]

Prompted by posts elsewhere on the board, I actually rang the secondary school my DD will be going to in Sept, to ask how important the SATs results are in 'streaming' the kids when they start in September.

It turns out that, along with the teacher assessments and CAT (?) they are important.

I asked the Yr7 tutor the direct question about whether I should coach my child so they get the best results possible, or whether I should leave the school to do it, so the results are a reasonable reflection of what she is capable of without additional help, but he said it is a matter of personal choice.

Have gone from being quite relaxed to now a bit flummoxed.

Don't coach. Primary schools do a huge amount of preparation anyway. And SATS are only one of the criteria they use for streaming - CATS and the secondary school's own assessment count for more.

And anyway, you don't want your child to be coached to a highte SATS score, then find himself struggling in a too high stream in Secondary school.

I would never get a child tutored for SATs. One of the problems imo is that we (note generic use of term) get our children tutored then they may flounder when put into a group/stream etc that doesn't actually suit them.

Of course what works for me may not work for others.

IMHO SATs are so the government can make tables of schools.

Secondary schools probably will use SATs results to give them some idea of how children have done, but their own assessments and CATs (cognative ability tests) will also be useful for streaming.

Don't coach. Most schools will pressure the children quite enough already.

Are you sure the school streams? They are more likely to have sets, ie different groups for different subjects. A good school will move children up and down sets regularly depending on their work.

Thinking about this logivcally.If they are going to use teacher assessment then they really can't stream before the October hal;f term.
By then they will have recent CATS results and most importantly assessments made in a non-exam situation over a period of weeks by their own staff ,how much weight do you think they will attch to SATS results which will already be 6 months out of date.
TBH the response you got from the secondary school sounded like fobbing off an over anxious parent

Please, what are CATs I obviously should know this.

Katie, they will use teacher assesments from the primary school.

Katie - oh no? Do I really sound over anxious? Do most people not take an interest in this stuff?

Don't want to be labelled before she has even started!

Secondary schools know that SATs can be unreliable though, and will juggle sets accordingly.

Some schools (ds1's secondary) don't do any setting/streaming whatsoever in year 7, or at least not until later on.

At the school I work at they do set for Maths, English and Science (using KS2 SATs data), but not for anything else. But if children are patently in the wrong set they move them quickly. In Maths/Science they move them around quite regularly after assessments.

In all three all sets follow the same scheme of work, so at the end of year 7 when all sets/classes are reconsidered/rearranged for the following year there are now barriers to movement.

In setting when using KS2 data we would always pay more attention to the (primary) teacher assessment than the actual test score.

In answer to your question, no, do not coach your dd. Yr6 and SATs are boring enough as it is, without doing extra at home.

God, I have so much anguish over whether my child gets into any of the nice schools we have optimistically chosen, rather than the condemned No Hope High School that I really don't have any emotional energy left to worry about SATS
When we find out in March, then I'll worry about SATS...

DS's school wanted to know the raw scores for Sats, did Cats in July before they started and also came in and spoke to the Yr6 teacher and set in maths, english and all other subjects from the day he started.

Feeling better again now after all your input, will go back to relaxing about SATs. Thanks!

CAT
Cognitive Assessment Tests
They are a way of assessing academic ability - but are not content based, to try and level out the influence of different schools/parents so that you get a baseline score for ability.
They are usually taken early in year 7 if a school uses them - not all schools do.

Each group (when streamed) will overlap somewhat in ability with other groups. So it's not essential to get the streaming perfect unless you think your child is borderline.
What's more, the best thing streaming can do is is to find the best group on average, for your child.
So... you shouldn't coach. The very opposite. You want your child to produce their average quality work when they go into SATs -- not their best quality work. Else they could end up in an ability group that is too difficult for them (they might struggle and have their confidence undermined). Likewise, you don't want to undermine them significantly during SATs week so that the end up doing significantly worse than usual quality work.

That's my take, now... but ask me again in 2 years time when DC1 is in Y6, of course I'll want him to come home with great results, I might not be SO sanguine. Luckily DS1 will not cooperate, so my middle class aspirations misplaced ambitions will be nicely squashed, .

they end up.... sigh

As others have said, the streaming doesn't decide their future forever. And there is no advantage of being put in too high a set.

"And there is no advantage of being put in too high a set."

That really depends on whether you have the type of child who will rise to the challenge & raise their game to keep up (thereby benefiting from the raised expectations) or give up hope and flounder don't you think? Trouble is it's sometimes difficult to know how an individual child will react until afterwards.

Well, if they will rise to a challenge, then maybe they can rise to the challenge of working their way into a higher set. It's not as if the sets are fixed in stone.

Some children just don't work like that cory and those that do will usually already be achieving to the best of their ability & find themselves in the right set to start with. It's the slightly lazy children who are happy to be average in whatever group they find themselves and whose underperformance hasn't been recognised or children with unrecognised SEN like dyslexia that could benefit.

Don't coach! They will use them as a guide to start-they will very quickly make their own assessment.Children change sets-they are not set in stone. Over tutored children often can't cope and have to go down.It is much better to start low by mistake and go up IMO. Leave it to your DC.

Most secondary schools have found that SATS on their own not very helpful. They use lots of other evidence as well. So dont worry.

Hmmm, well locally the best comps have sets and the behaviour in the bottom 2 sets for Maths/English is very different from the top 2. I know that some parents coach in order to ensure that their children aren't in the bottom sets for any longer than strictly necessary.

So I wouldn't coach for SATS with a view to getting good scores and then never worrying again. But I would keep an overall eye on how they were doing in comparison with their peers and putting in some extra effort if you felt that they weren't achieving their potential.

no, I wouldn't coach..we didn't with ds - agree with seeker's post

BUT - if you have a child who is good at the subject, but hmm, shall we say a little 'away with the fairies' when it comes to taking tests, it MIGHT be worth just making sure their exam technique is up to scratch. (Although if your primary school is anything like mine, they will be doing that anyway).

I only say that because DS is really switched on in maths, in the lessons. In an exam he goes a bit rubbish, so 'only' got a 4 when he was predicted a 5 by his teachers.

As a result he was placed in set 3 for maths in Yr 7. (Because even though his teachers predicted a 5, enough other kids got a 5 in the actual SATS for that to be the bench mark. IYSWIM)

However, just this term, his High School have seen he was finding the work too easy, and he has now been moved up a set...

SO basically what I'm saying is, if the secondary school has said it sets as the results of SATS, then the results will be important to your child. But only you will know if he is likely to achieve his potential, or if a bit of timed test practice might be useful.

DS#1 was streamed by CAT tests that they did at the end of Yr6. And they have been reassessed regularly. The school didn't even have his SATs scores until we went in for a parents' evening in December because the SATs had had to be remarked. They asked if we knew them so they could be put on his record.

DOn't coach. Really don't. IME the school 'coaches' them more than enough