Booster homework:SATS

bestpud

Lagoon wrote: »

Indeed. Based on the comments of the two people that have quoted me I feel I should clarify what I meant a little. I don't want it to offend the OP or anyone else.

I'm not saying 'he needs to learn to deal with this stress right now', I was just saying that based on how he's reacted to the pressure and an hour of homework a night, it's probably best to start tackling this slowly and carefully starting fairly soon, because you don't want to be in this same situation three/four years down the line.

This is a warning sign that a young boy is struggling with an hour of homework a night, and that in the future he's potentially going to have at least double that expected of him no matter what ability group he's in at school.

I think you've grasped the wrong end of the stick.

securityguy

Just tell the school to back off, or you'll home educate. Your child already has a place in secondary school, they're perfectly used to children arriving without SATs results (from private schools, home education or abroad) and no-one, other than a silly head, is going to be disadvantaged by a nice spring and summer going on some museum trips. Primary schools stop teaching anything worthwhile by the middle of Y6 and go into SATS lockdown, so they won't miss anything useful.

Spendless

bylromarha wrote: »

How ridiculous. And I'm a primary teacher. Ridiculous.

Can I just say though that the schools are really feeling the pressure to raise standards? Dear old Gove is making this happen to you OP... Level 5 used to be the gold standard for year 6 for the gifted and talented. It was achievable for the top raft of kids. Level 6 is putting 11 year olds under too much pressure to stop being kids. Some of the stuff they have to do I first met studying for GCSEs in the 90s.

If your son gets a level 5, 4,3,2 or 1, who gives a damn? It makes no difference whatsoever to his secondary education. They redo all the primary assessments anyway as they don't think primary schools can assess kids properly.

Just wanted to warn you OP, my niece was a high achieving Aspie and her secondary school ignored the Aspie factor and pushed her through her GCSEs early. The pressure was too much for her and she barely scraped through. Felt a failure and never pulled herself back from that perfectionism fail. So be firm from the outset with the secondary school - if they try to pile the pressure on earlier than his peers, be very firm and let him go at a pace he can cope with.

All the best.

EDIT: See - from the other SATS thread

And I'm thinking that the reason they don't (my eldest's secondary HT said they didn't either when we attended out first transition to Secondary meeting at beg of yr 6) is because they have so many pupils all from different Primary schools and they can't tell which school has just let their pupils sit the exam, which has had booster classes for weeks, maybe months before, so they do their own testing and decide from there?

I'd have been tempted to call HT bluff and said go ahead with the move to a lower maths set. Really? With around 10 weeks left of the academic year. What difference would that make? Not easy if your child is going to be upset by it though.

choccymoose

I am thinking of keeping my son away SATS week, the school identified he was gifted at Maths at the end of year 2, they gave him a year 6 SATS test then and he came out at a 4a. However they have done nothing with this and have not differentiated any work for him. We have paid for a Maths tutor to challenge him. He has passed the 11 plus and has got into the grammar school that he wanted to from his own hard work and determination. The school has not really played a part in it so my thinking is why should they benefit from his SATS score, year 4 was a complete waste of time and the teacher has now been sacked ( its hard to sack a teacher so he must have been crap) only thing is he wants to sit the test as he likes them...Mad child!

Oh and the grammar takes their 11plus scores for guidance and then detests them anyway not long after they start

securityguy

Egypt191 wrote: »

Although there is an argument that he is not handling stress well, which may impact on his future, the school have not been teaching the children the correct curriculum for level 6

Level 6 is entirely pointless. The syllabus isn't the same as KS3, and therefore it is not remotely comparable to a Level 6 in KS3. It's more a sort of Level 5+. No secondary school will care, as even if they set based on KS2 SATs (which they largely don't), it will not have a set available only for children with Level 6; a good Level 5 would be precisely the same. No secondary worth its salt would do this anyway. If you're worried that they might, then your son is better off without a SATs result at all.

If the school's threatening to move your son down a group, either let them (so what?) or, if that looks likely to upset your son, withdraw him and home educate him in the garden. It's nice and sunny. The primary school will lose a Level 5 from their results, but that's their problem, not yours.

Madmel

securityguy wrote: »

Level 6 is entirely pointless. The syllabus isn't the same as KS3, and therefore it is not remotely comparable to a Level 6 in KS3. It's more a sort of Level 5+. No secondary school will care, as even if they set based on KS2 SATs (which they largely don't), it will not have a set available only for children with Level 6; a good Level 5 would be precisely the same. No secondary worth its salt would do this anyway. If you're worried that they might, then your son is better off without a SATs result at all.

If the school's threatening to move your son down a group, either let them (so what?) or, if that looks likely to upset your son, withdraw him and home educate him in the garden. It's nice and sunny. The primary school will lose a Level 5 from their results, but that's their problem, not yours.

Completely agree with this post. I too am a teacher [p/t secondary so am not skiving, honestly!] Both my DDs were very able. DD1 did SATs before the level 6 test was used again, so achieved 5a, as we had hoped. She got into grammar school and is now in the top set for Maths. Some of those whose teachers had assessed them as level 6 are not in her set; read into that what you will. I can access KS2 SATs results at school and it is true that they mean little a couple of years on.

DD2 had also passed her 11+. Her y6 yeacher was a nice lady although not a very good Maths teacher, but there were only 2 year 6s so she spent much more time focussed on the demands of year 5. For various boring reasons, I was incredibly unhappy with the school, but as DD2 only had half a term to go, kept her there. However, I was quite prepared to keep her at home or at work with me [her new school] during SATs week to make their figures look bad. DD2 herself decided to do them. The teacher asked her to try the level 6 paper and she did appallingly badly as she had not encountered those sort of questions, but was given a 5a anyway. She is coming to the end of year 7 and is working at approximately level 7 in Maths now anyway, so the lack of a level 6 at the age of just 11 is utterly irrelevant.

OP, look after your DS. No teacher should be putting that sort of pressure on kids of that age for something which is unreported anyway. I think I'd be tempted to keep him off school for the SATs. In that situation his reported levels I think are down to the teacher's assessment. And as everyone says, most secondary schools test children early in the autumn term for their baseline assessments anyway.

angelsmomma

securityguy wrote: »

Level 6 is entirely pointless. The syllabus isn't the same as KS3, and therefore it is not remotely comparable to a Level 6 in KS3. It's more a sort of Level 5+. No secondary school will care, as even if they set based on KS2 SATs (which they largely don't), it will not have a set available only for children with Level 6; a good Level 5 would be precisely the same. No secondary worth its salt would do this anyway. If you're worried that they might, then your son is better off without a SATs result at all.

If the school's threatening to move your son down a group, either let them (so what?) or, if that looks likely to upset your son, withdraw him and home educate him in the garden. It's nice and sunny. The primary school will lose a Level 5 from their results, but that's their problem, not yours.

I did this and the week before sats the deputy head phoned me begging me to take him in just to do his sats "so you will know where he is up to".

I told her I know where he is up to thanks, I have been home educating for 4 months. They only wanted him for his sats score not for his own sake. I know because the week he left I was told the school was no longer insured for him so he would not be allowed to go into the school for the evening Valentines disco they had been planning for weeks.

It just validated my decision to remove him and we have not looked back.

Claire212

It's a shame that schools are putting so much pressure on our kids.

I experienced pressure from my sons school, but for the opposite reason. My son was bullied in primary school and his work suffered. They put him into every extra class they could and gave him work to do to 'catch up' during playtime, which he could bring home to finish if he didn't manage to get it all done.

Seeing him so unhappy I feared that he would be put off learning at Secondary School. I wrote him an informal note for the school saying he was no longer to do any work during break or at home until after the SAT's. We encouraged him at home by helping him with his maths and english when we could but with no pressure and as fun as we could make it.

My son took his SAT's and achieved Level 5's. We were so proud. He was working at Level 3.

Which goes to show that pressure for any reason is not always a good thing. We know he would have crumbled under the pressure.

ohdearpuzzle

I am a teacher and have worked in primary for many years and now secondary. This situation is awful. No child should be put under this amount of pressure. I would tell the Head to back off, ask them to revise their inclusion policy as they clearly have no idea and give your son huge amounts of praise for all the hard work he has put in but tell him that he doesn't have to sit this Level 6 paper. Good luck.

unschooler

This is one of the reasons we home educate and we know lots of people who pulled their kids out of school just for year 6 then they went back in to year 7 and did really well.

Gove is the worst thing that could have ever happened to education in this country and it's just getting worse. Don't have a single doubt about taking the pressure off your child. It's damaging him and it's not even for his benefit. Fight for his rights.