11 Plus Exams Forum

My DS has just told me that his entire class have been sitting SATS this week?!?!?!?!

What is the benefit of putting an entire class in a whole year too early??? There is a very wide range of abilities in the class. I thought that my DS had been a little stressed recently and it seems that this is why, I thought that it was the prep for his Sept exam so had given him a little bit of time off but it seems that he has been a little worried about the SATS as he worried that he hasn't done well in them.

I am sure that he will have done fine in them and am confident in his abilities but just confused as to what the benefit is of doing this?

Any ideas?

they are most likely QCA tests, often referred to as 'mock sats'

They are not externally marked and are used by the school to track progress. They are the same format as the KS2 year 6 sats papers, but are optional.

Ok so not the real SATS then, thats a relief but still why bother doing this with Y5?

To assess pupil progress

(Nice to have them too should you ever need to appeal and show evidence of academic ability)

it gets the children used to the format and provides feedback for the school in assessing progress.

This explains it quite well

https://orderline.education.gov.uk/gemp ... ars345.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Lots of schools use the optional tests every year so they triangulate the teacher assessments.

They are known as 'optional SATs' and they can be taken every year in KS2 if schools like.
My son was most aggrieved last year that 'optional' didn't mean he could opt out of sitting them.

Ok, that all makes sense now, thanks. Amber that made me laugh.

If we have access to these should we ever need to appeal then I will be very grateful that they did them

DS2's school do SATs every year as a way of monitoring progress. He did Y6 mock SATs a couple of weeks ago in preparation for the real thing in May . Overkill in my view.

I think I agree with you andyb though it is parents evening soon and I do love all the info that they give me about him such as levels and reading ages etc. when I go