11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi - advise needed!

With DS having got into GS, how do we stop him resting on his laurels for the SATS?

He told me the other day that it doesn't matter how he does as he has got a place at GS and now in the Mocks (second lot so far this school year) that he did last week he has dropped 2 levels in his maths which is usually his strongest subject (although he did go up in his English ). He has gone from a 5B to a 4A.

I asked him if the teacher went through the paper so he could see where he had gone wrong and he said yes. It was mostly silly mistakes rather than a lack of understanding or knowledge. I thought we had sorted out the silly mistake making but obviously not ! DS just shrugged it off as having a bad day

We have stopped with extra maths work he was doing at home in favour of getting him to read more but I am now wondering whether he needs to be doing more?

Has anyone else had this problem????

Thanks
Plum

Does it matter?

Hi

That's what I'm not sure about! I know that SATS are done very much for the school but I also thought the results are sent to the new school.

My main problem is that I don't want DS to think he can coast along - he may be able to do it now but he certainly won't at high school.....

Px

SATs are a measure of the schools performance and really matter to the school, not the child.
However, I teach secondary and use SATs results to help in setting groups. So I use SATs to set by ability and this may put your DS in a lower ability group that would not be suitable.
Also a quick comment - it should be almost impossible for a level 5 to drop to a level 3 without a determined desire to fail. It sounds like your DS deliberately set out to fail, rather than just being not bothered. Sounds like he is trying to make a statement.

Many secondary schools conduct their own tests very soon into year 7 to access the new intakes ability.

I wouldn't worry too much.

He has dropped two sub'levels rather than levels. We were told recently that the levels are being adjusted so to expect some drops don't know if this would account for it.

If he is on target for a 5 the school will want him to achieve this so try asking them what they think.

Hi

Thanks for advice. I had a chat with DS's teacher. She said that by the looks of things he was having an off day and made lots of silly mistakes (thought we had worked through that ) We got him to do a maths paper last weekend and he only got one wrong so he's still got it in there somewhere!

DS's teacher told me that they still don't know if they will be having SATS yet, or trialing the new type or if it will just be teacher's assesment, so they are having to work on the basis that they will have the real deal - must be very frustrating on for teachers at the moment.

On the plus side, DS did well in his English and managed a 5B Now he just needs to work on pulling it all together.....

Plum