Y6 SATS - will you or won't you?

[PrettyCandles]

Will you be supporting your headteacher and withdrawing your dc from the SATS, or will you support Ed Balls and have them sit the SATS?

our school is going to do the tests (for internal monitoring purposes) but are not going to send in the marks for assessment. So they are boycotting the SATS. My child isn't in that year - but I would support that approach if he was.

I can't bring myself to care either way about the SATS: they are there for the benefit of the schools/education system, not for dcs.

Ds is only in Yr5, but I wouldn't fuss if they are abolished- or not abolished- by the time he gets there.

If ds does not sit them, he will just have to learn things anyway: it's not as if you can only learn by doing this particular set of tests.

If he does sit them, I will mitigate any stress by explaining that these exams have no bearing whatsoever on his future.

I hate it when schools do not tell the truth about this. Dd's headteacher told the children that doing well in the SATS was vital for their futures. I told dd that the only person whose future might be affected by this was the head, not her. Some of the other children (and parents) believed the head and worked themselves into a right state.

I don't think they can do that with this years tests legally throckenholt. If they are boycotting the papers have to be not openened.

They can use previous years tests though for internal monitoring.

ok - well that is probably what the letter said - I didn't read it too carefully

I do remember they would do some tests, but not take part in the official sats.

Our school is doing them but they are in special measures and need the data otherwise they will not get out of SM (they probably wont anyway but that's a different story).

My DCs are not old neough for them yet but I would consider not letting them sit them, unless they really wanted to.

Does anyone NOT know what is going to happen in their school- cos I dont- we havent heard a word either way ? so am assuming that they are on .

We don't know if we are or we aren't yet ...

DD's school is doing them. They've given us a presentation, a leaflet (8 pages) and loads of websites for revision.

Poor old dd.

Mind you, she's pretty laid back about them.

By Jux Wed 05-May-10 17:32:17
DD's school is doing them. They've given us a presentation, a leaflet (8 pages) and loads of websites for revision. sad

but the tests are in two days!

Our school are having an Ofsted inspection tomorrow
That may scupper the year 6's doing hours of tests for the rest of the week!

cory

I completely agree that SATS are not for the benefit of the children.

However I also disagree with you as the problem with SATS is that they DO affect a child's future (not in a good way). Secondary schools receive Fischer Family Trust data telling them what targets they have and children who score lower in SATS will have lower targets from there on for streaming and setting and GCSEs and A level.

Wrong wrong wrong in my opinion.

It's not up to parents to withdraw them. It's a headteaching union strike and it's up to the head teacher.

mrz, they start on Monday. The presentation and stuff was weeks ago. They're spending all this week cramming, according to dd.

maggotts, not all schools pay that much attention to the SATS results: lots of them do their own testing in Yr 7

and just because you end up in one set in Yr 7 doesn't mean you have to stay there; I know several children who have moved up

dd was ill on SATS week and did not do herself justice: she is still in top sets in Yr 8

FFT data just puts teachers under pressure to achieve unachievable targets with some children as it equalises expectations across subjects that a child may or may not have aptitude in.

agree with you Cory.

and setting within secondary schools is always pretty fluid.

so, i wonder, did any of you look at the sats results before deciding whether to send your child to that school? didn't someone else's poor kid have to do them to give you some form of satisfaction? yes, of course we did tests 30 years ago, that's how we were set for maths at high school. our parents just didn't know anything about it and neither did we.

We weren't set for high school at mine - first year was mixed ability classes. Not that I'm in favour of that either, but the point is it didn't happen to everyone 30 years ago.