Nervous about SATs

[son1309]

My son is 10 and will be taking his sats in a couple of weeks. He is bright and able, so we have no concerns about his performance, but he is making himself ill with worry! He has mithered all through the Easter hols even though I've told him he will be fine and they are not that important, but he was up at dawn with diarrhoea before setting off for school. He gets attacks of the runs quite regularly, and after keeping a diary for a while it seems to be stress related...he also gets it before a football match! I have had a word with his teacher this morning and asked her to have a word with him, but is there anything else I cando to calm his nerves? I am toying with the idea of pulling him out of the Sats altogether, but he will have to do exams at High school so that won't address the issue..hmm...any ideas?

Pulling him out of SATs will be a major hassle to you.
I don't understand why he is so stressed -- why does he think it should matter so much to him? What have the school done or told him to make him feel this way?

My son sounds similar to yours. He is certainly feeling the pressure (not from us I hasten to add!) and has become very difficult to live with. He has also had a sudden crisis in confidence, especially in English. I just keep reminding him (and myself) that in 4 weeks time it will all be over and how much fun it will be at school for the last half term when all the pressure is off everyone.
You're not alone

Ruby is absolutely right - I'm old enough that my DC1 was the in second year of SATs being introduced, and then the line we were fed was entirely that it is a check to see that the teachers are teaching the right stuff, nothing more.

If your DS doesn't know the answer to a question, it's because he hasn't been taught that topic well enough and the government need to know that. That's always been my line with the DCs and it works well.

By the way, my son knows full well that SATs are to test a schools performance, so in his worst moments he tells me he's going to do as bad as he can so that it shows badly on the school
This from a bright boy who usually loves school. Grrr to SATs is all I can say that's polite