my poor Grandaughter has been up and dressed since 5 oclock this morning,
its the dreaded SATS exams today, she has been tossing and turning all night,

so to my beautiful grandaughter and all the other children in England and Oz

GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR EXAMS,to all


nan,xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

yep it's the equivalent here(Perth) aswell, it's called NAPLAN. My son sits his this week (tues, wed and thurs) good luck to all our little darlings

Both mine have them....eldest is 11, so it's SATS week for her, and other one is 9 (year 4), and she's got em an'all. Think it's too young for the 9 year old...specially mine, cos she might be 9, but she acts more like 6, so i don';t think she'll cope well.
Good luck to em all!!!!

Mine forgot she had them until she was about to walk through the school gates when she remembered!

Too much pressure is put on our children with these SATS, life is about more than passing an exam!

my grandaughter came home from school at dinner time and said the science exam was too easy ive been biting my nails and worrying and she is as happy as larry,
she has said she is not going to be too confident though, she has the rest of the week to go yet english and maths over the next 4 days

My 7 year old has them this week but the teachers help them out a bit to ease the pressure as they dont agree with them either.

My son is sitting his SAT'S all this week, he said it was his Science today, i told him just to do the best he can and not to worry too much. My heart goes out to all children sitting them.
And the fact we wont know what hes got until we land in Oz, is even more daunting as i have to email the headmaster at his school in the UK to find out his results. Bless

thats what we said, do your best you cant do anymore, my grandaughter is 11years old so wants to do well for when she gets to Oz, we are very proud of her, but then what grandparent isnt

The SATs are only for year 6. The exams your year 4 child is most likely doing are optional QCA papers. It is unfortunate that the school have decided to do them in the same week as the SATs as that does seem to put more emphasis on them then there needs to be. They are just a standardised assessment tool for teachers to coincide with their own judgements made throughout the year. This helps with setting future targets and support required.

Sick to death of hearing about SATS. My kids are both far too aware of them. Its a way of marking the performance of the SCHOOL, not our kids!!!

Lets just let them be kids for now. Life is shit enough after school

Especially if you have no qualifications and no direction in life eh!!!

But passing exams and getting on in life is important too surely

By assessing kids you can tell the academic ones from the practical, hands on ones and steer them in the right direction... They all have to be measured in some way...

Yes but these are not exams for the kids. Its to assess the school performance.

Any teacher worth their salt knows how a child is doing, what their strengths and weaknesses are and how to position them in the class. They dont need SATS to do that for them.

Formal exams in secondary schools are needed for the CHILDREN to take as qualifications to further education or jobs. Also the hope is that, by then they will have a bit of direction and the maturity to cope better with the stress.

I have always agreed with exams. I think life is about challenges and realising you have to really apply yourself at certain times is a life lesson. The fact kids do exams all at the same time now I think is great as it teaches them that the 2 weeks in the middle of May are test time. Kids are only under as much pressure as their parents put them under. Ultimatley you cant ignore Johnnys school work for 48 weeks of the year, hear at the school gates there are tests coming up get into a tizz, stress the kid with threats if he doesnt do well then blame the school when he doesnt....IMHO of course!!