Year Six Sats ..

[HenleyFamily]

My daughter and I have just finished a mound of homework together and I've just realised that if she sits the Sats later this year that it is going destroy her confidence in herself.

I'm at a bit of a loss .. I've looked through the archives and was actually shocked that so many people are prepared to defend them.

Does anyone have any practical experience as to how we can withdraw her, not from the revision, but for the actual hours of the exams. Or for her to do an "unmarked" paper?

"pupils who've joined the school after the end of KS1 won't be counted [in value-added scores]"
If this is true of primary schools, why are junior schools being judged on KS1 scores achieved in a different school?

It isn't true which is one of our great problems as we often have children join in Y6

Well, I didn't think it could be...

We have a similar problem, as our SEN provision is outstanding - we tend to get a lot of children who have not made progress at other schools arriving in Year 5.

Last year we had 3 children arrive at the end of the spring term which doesn't give even the best teacher the chance to "teach" anything.

I have the same problem! (Some schools must have a wholesale clear-out in years 5/6!) From starting with 18 in September I now have 22. Of the four that have arrived one came into Yr 6 with an IEP as long as your arm and with the best will in the world will struggle, and one came into Yr 5 at L2 but without any IEP at all!!!

"pupils who've joined the school after the end of KS1 won't be counted [in value-added scores]"

Sorry, what I should have made clear was that I was talking about children for whom there are no KS1 scores either because they weren't in the UK education system i.e. have come from abroad or were home educated or because they missed the KS1 assessments.

So what I said is true, very much so for the school I taught 6 in for 6 years as we'd often have more than a third of the year group joining us part way through KS2. One of my Y6 classes had 28 children, 7 of whom had joined from outside the UK in Y5. All of them got level 4 or above (in spite of 5 of them not even speaking English when they joined us) and yet they counted for nothing in our value added.

"Regardless of this being about SATs, avoiding stressful and scary situations is not necessarily good for people either. 'Feel the fear and do it anyway' is my moto!"

There is something in this .. (Drifting totally off topic and possibly revealing some of the reasons why I care so much about this). (and this is Mr H speaking rather than Mrs H) I was sent to an awful prep school in the mid 70's (on the basis they had a nice uniform and lots of homework), and then onto boarding school where I would be caned for having dirty shoes and where bullying was if not encouraged at least turned a blind eye to. At the age of 39, I would trade every one of my academic qualifications to have had a happy childhood.

You mention stress in one sentence and fear in another they are totally different things .. Fear is what you overcome by getting back on the horse that you you broke your arm when you fell off last time. She has no problem with anything like this ..

The problem is that it's not fear it's stress. The children seem to understand that the exam is not just for them but that they will be letting down the school if they do badly and I think the stress of this will cause her to do badly.

fear and stress are not different things. Stress is a result of fear.

I still don't see how removing her is going to help. In 9 months time she will be in secondary school where she will be tested on an almost weekly basis on different subject and her homework will proba;u be marked in levels. If she is the stressful type she needs to learn to handle it earlier rather than later.

I'm not necessarily a defender of SATs but ime those who tend to be stressed by them are often the parents rather than the children ... who then pass on their stress to the children. Even without the tests there would still be some kind of assessment - so you can't back out of them in that sense.

As others have said it's the context of league tables that's more the problem. Remember that at this age children take the 11+, private school entrance exams ... all of which have far more stress attached to them and which can impact on their lives longer term. At secondary school you will find there are regular topic tests, end of year exams etc. I think you need to talk to your dd and to her teacher to see what's causing her to be so upset and look at that.

Having said that, the one really positive thing about SATs is that in Y6 there are 'booster groups' which separate children into smaller groups to 'boost' scores and work on problems. These were a godsend for my dc's who fell into the middle of very bright class and were overlooked.

Was Year 6 teacher and once saw new head and burst into tears cos didn't want repeat of what I had to put children through in old head's drivce to raise standards. I think there should be a petitiion or something from parents who are concerned about SATs. Not the things themselves but the lengths some schools go to to improve results. I had to do three afternoons revision from January. Broad and balanced curriculum --yeah right. But perhaps things have changed?

I like the concept of SATS.

However I would ban League Tables. The LEA need to know that the school is broadly speaking 'value adding'. The teachers need to have a comparable measure to see how individual pupils are doing. SATS fulfill these.

I think the 'Ban SATS' brigade need to recall that it wasn't so very long ago that a DC could go from 4-16 at school having never been meaningfully tested, except for perhaps an 11+ failure! This situation had to change, and I think SATS is a reasonable way of doing this.

However, every one of us who has ever glanced at the League Tables or made an oblique remark about how highly our DC's school has 'scored' in them is guilty of perpetuating this 'competition' in education. Good LT results brings cash and middle class parents, so who can blame the schools for pushing the Y6s?

All this silliness would end if the national publication of SATS was banned.

ampere, I think you're right. If the sats are to continue however, there should be some proper monitoring of how schools are preparing children for them. How ofsted doesn't spot it I'll never know and I have had ofsted the week after sats where intensive preparation went on. With that and the abolition of league tables there might be a happy medium. So my petition might be about abolishing sats preparation or "teaching to the test" not the tests themselves.

littlebylittle if league tables were scrapped schools would no longer feel the need to teach to the test

very true, mrz

I wuz going to say that too!

I have an SN DD (Y7 now) who in Y2 ats was still working TOWARDS p-scales(!), at the end of Y6 was actually working on p-scales, yet the school INSISTED she did the SATS, she didn't acheive a level (didn't predict that one ) so she wasn't included in EITHER the direct SATS results OR the value-added score. Yet had to sit through a whole year of school where she was very stressed, the school refused to differentiate her work like they'd been doing for the previous 5 years, as 'there wasn't enough time to do that during the SATS year'. I just wish I'd had the balls to HE her for that year like I was going to. They told me if I'd kept her off that week I'd have got an amazingly extortionate fine. My DS1 will be fine, he got a high lvl 3 in his Y2 SATS last year, but in class was working on lvl4 work. He's in Y3 atm and working on high lvl4 english & science, low lvl 5 for maths. DS2 on the other hand, is also SEN, and I'm already panicking, do they still do Y2 SATS? Its just the mums in the playground in his year are adamant that schools don't do that now, but it was only May '09 that DS1 did his...DS2 would be due to do them May '11. Please tell me they're going/gone for Y2....

DS2 who's now in Y4 did his KS1 (ie Y2) SATs in Literacy and Maths but the teacher assessed Science. I understood there was talk of doing away with the KS1 SATS, though.

I think there needs to be provision for statemented SN DCs, though. You seem to be saying, Loudlass, that SATS were completely inappropriate for your SN DC (which I agree with) but also telling us how well your NS DS1 has done in them. Would you really want to have your DS1 achievement go unmeasured? Don't SATS go some way towards officially quantifying and identifying G&T? So I think they do serve a purpose for NS, perhaps.

I hear you loudlass and it's an unacceptable by product of some school's sats preps taht the needs of everyone except the middle or borderline children get missed. dreadful for sen and in actual fact not much better for the most able because there can be a real tendancy to focus on providong for the children who are just missing level four. Sometimes those who are borderline level five but exceptionally able can miss out. I don't intend a crusade and this isn't a countrywide situation but people should be aware of what the reality is in some places so they can monitor what's happening to their child. Much lesslikely at ks1 though I think there are much better ways of recognising and celebrating a broad spectrum of achievement and gifts than the sats

I don't think the SATS are necessary for my DS1, I know myself what level he's working at (as do most parents, surely), and I know myself that I can choose to put him in for the 11+ if I wish. I just think that for anyone working above Lvl 4 in Y6 or below Lvl 3, Y6 is just a wasted year of education, for exactly the reasons littlebylittle points out. SEN Dc's are left to 'drift' for a year, and G&T DC's are left to 'coast' for a year. What's wrong with termly teacher assessments? Without 'teaching to the test'. Then maybe Y6 would be of benefit to ALL children. Same for schools 'insisting' that SEN DC's in MS work on the correct key stage, even if it's not appropriate. So within the framework of the NC, it's very difficult for a Y1 teacher to differentiate, and also for a Y3/Y4 teacher to differentiate. And a lot of this is only picked up when the child goes to secondary, by which point, like my DD, they may be up to 5 years behind, with only 5 years of schooling left. It's just not possible to do 10 years of schoolwork in 5 years, however you cut it, so I already know (with my DD in Y7) that she will be very unlikely to get even one GCSE at a C grade. Or even a G grade. . I HATE the way the national curriculum is enforced. It doesn't allow for the fact that each child is an individual, and may learn at a faster or slower pace. I do agree with the idea behind it (each school teaching things at different times really hurt my education in primary when I was shuffled between various family members the length and breadth of the country), but it's being enforced too strictly now.

And ampere...what if you have an SN child who (for whatever reasons...) isn't statemented, and is 'only' on SA+ due to LEA refusing to assess and primary school refusing to help me....It's only now she's in Y7 at secondary that the secondary have sort of gone eeeeep!...and are going to help me get her statemented (Sec. school are unsure MS is an appropriate setting for her, think she needs SN school, exactly what I'VE been saying since she was 3.5yo...)

Loudlass, it sounds as though you and your DD have had an appalling experience. Her school should have been teaching her the skills she needed to be taught regardless of the KS she was in. Nor should she have been entered for the end of KS NC tests at the end of Y6 if she was below the level of the tests.

Not every Y6 teacher in the country will leave SN children to flail and G&T children to coast for their final year of primary school. Some of us will do all we can to ensure this doesn't happen precisely because we know it's of no benefit to anyone and because very few of us trained as teachers because we had some kind of sick desire to humiliate children and force them to jump through hoops set by the governnment.

Hiya all,
I personally think the SATs are rubbish my daughter last year sat her yr 6 SATs and it was so stressfull for her that it lead to low results and her crying most days up to the exams and while doing the exams so this yr my other daughter is due to sit them as she is yr 6 isnt im takin her on a unautherised holiday. i spoke to her teacher and she isnt happy about this as there is only 16 pupils in her class so they will loose 8 per of the marks and thats all she was bothered about but i do know her class teacher is against the SATs also....

SE13mummy, please come and teach my kids!

we're hopefully relocating back to UK later this year and my kids will be in year 6. I have no idea how they will do on SATS - current school does not follow UK curriculum. However, they do loads of tests at school. Every 6 weeks they are tested in every subject. At first it was too much for them and their results were rubbish (parents here are test obsessed and the stress in the classroom panics the kids), but now they are getting used to it and results have improved.

I don't agree with the SATS (some schools/parents/teachers seem overly obsessed and obviously pass this on to the kids), but some test practice is good for the kids and will help them when they're older.

I took my 10 year old out of school so she did not sit the SATs. There are no repercussions.

She is in year 9 and in middle to top sets across the board.

My daughter is a late August birthday and in my, her mum, opinion, she was emotionally immature to suffer the pressure.

Her secondary school managed to somehow continue educating her, without Yr 6 SAT results. I found that the SAT results in primary are not a true representation that the high school can use. The kids are emotionally linked to their primary teacher as they see him or her all day 5 days a week; when they go on to high school, the constant changing of teachers for different subjects prevent the connection and resulting need to please, their achievement levels go down.

By-the-way, I home school my youngest and he will start secondary school without taking a SAT.

I have been following this debate with interest - partly from the perspective of a parent who did not let my (now) 18yr old do SATS and also as a former director of education and currently a school governor.

What the law actually says is that state schools have to provide the tests and register the pupils. The law does not say anything about children having to sit them. If that were the case, then the children in independent schools would be subject to the same requirement.

You can just write a letter to the school telling them clearly and firmly that you do not want your child to sit the tests because you feel it will have a detrimental effect on her health / development / confidence or whatever. Go and explain your reasons beforehand or follow up your letter with a visit or phone call if you like. The letter is to make your position clear and also to enable the school to explain why particular pupils are not sitting the test if they are asked by other agencies. Personally I would just send my child to school on the day of the test as normal but you may want to discuss this with the head.

As one of your other commenters noted - we don't have SATS in Wales any more - their abolition was one of the first things the Welsh Assembly Government achieved.

I really cannot think of a single redeeming feature of SATS. They were designed and introduced to measure the performance of schools, not of children. Subjecting primary age children to written public examinations simply to use the results as a performance indicator to measure the effectiveness of the education system is at the very least exploitation and in my book, borders on abuse.

Assessment should be an aid to learning, not a barrier. Assessment For Learning (as opposed to assessment of learning) is a relatively new approach which focuses on giving constructive feedback to pupils, helping them set their own goals and targets and encouraging them to reflect and analyse their own performance. SATS does none of these. There is no evidence that SATS improves individual learning - only evidence of intensified teaching and a reversion to the age old practice of teaching to the test.

So, if you think it is wrong for your child, just say no!