SATS revision help.

*mudangel*

Daughter's doing her KS2 SATS in May.

Anyone know of any good websites which could provide help with revision?

Thanks in advance for any help.

balletshoes

the best bit of help I can give is - don't revise for this. No point putting any pressure on for these tests whatsoever, they don't mean anything for your child, only for the school. They will not have any effect on your child's future schooling.

If you really want to help, try and ensure your child is well-rested and has a decent breakfast the week of the exams. Apart from that, leave it well alone .

natbags

we are using IXL, which I think is really good for maths (varying levels per school year) - you can do 20 questions per day Free of charge or set up a monthly payment (which we will do nearer the time). St Josephs school Pickering, have all the past papers and marking notes online, which you can view or print off and the BBC Bitesize site is fab HTH

*mudangel*

Thanks, both!

balletshoes, so difficult to know what to expect. She's an only child, so not been through the whole SATS palarver before.

Daughter recently did some mock SATS exams and got into such a state afterwards because she didn't get the marks she wanted (though the school happy with her marks and so were we!) that I thought she may feel a bit more relaxed if she does a bit of revision.

You're probably quite right about the pre-exam rest and food though. Good point!

balletshoes

I get where you're coming from mudangel, my DD is also an only, we went through this last year. Maths is her weaker subject, she also tended to stress about test results, even in class. But in the end her SATS marks reflected her classwork mark, and I didn't see the point in making her revise for 4 months outside of school, when they were doing plenty of that in class between January and when they did the exam week.

She's now at secondary school, where they have occasional "set by subject" tests, and she's nowhere near as stressed out about those as she used to be in primary school.

Moomum

Saw in water stones a ks2 test pack, was about £4.99 and looked quite good.

glitter_fairy

what age do they do these?

*mudangel*

balletshoes, our daughters sound quite similar! Her literacy is very good, but she's fairly average in maths. Trouble is, she sits near some mathematical high-flyers and wants to be as good.

glitter_fairy, key stage 2 SATS are year 6. So, children are 10 or 11 when they these exams.

Spendless

Another one who says that Secondary school will do their own tests and decide on ability by that.

However, when my eldest was in yr 6, he got a very poor mock sats result for literacy. This was then followed by 2 weeks of hell when he couldn't grasp his homework. As I knew that this area was a weakness for him and had been for some time and with no idea how the local Secondary school 'streamed' their kids- they'd taken how well you did in French and Maths collectively to set ability groups when I was there -admittedly 25 years earlier! On seeing a card in a shop window advertising for a tutor I rang her and 4 lessons later she'd solved it-he now understood.

I am still glad that I paid for a tutor but more so DS grasped what he was being asked than to make sure his SAT levels were raised (iyswim).

susancs

Great advice from Balletshoes IMO, SATs are only for the schools to prove they have taught your child to a reasonable standard and for their position on the SAT league tables. In my experience, Secondary schools place little value on the SATS results obtained (due to the fact some schools over coach children in the specific skills needed to pass KS2 SATS) and usually do their own tests to stream children into ability groups. The only benefit of SATS IMO is that children will learn how to answer questions under controlled exam circumstances which will be a benefit for future exams in secondary schools. I would not be doing extra revision outside of school as your child will probably be getting enough of that in school.

mrcow

As a secondary school teacher, I absolutely have to agree with Balletshoes.

The KS2 SATS results won't make a blind bit of difference to your daughter's future or progress. To start getting her stressed out about practice tests or even talking about it (these aren't for 5 months!) is pointless and upsetting for her.

They don't mean anything. Her new school will baseline her anyway with their own tests. We take everything primary schools say with a pinch of salt as the results are so varied (and often quite different from the actual levels of the pupil).

Play the whole thing down. She's 11 years old and has far better things to be worrying about than this. She certainly shouldn't be compared to (or comparing herself to) others in the class. There are plenty of years ahead for exam stress.