This blog post is for my biggest boy. He has been sitting his KS2 SATS this week. As a secondary teacher, I believe that they are pointless. Just another way to judge a school and judge the teachers. Put a number on a child as to whether they are capable of learning how to answer an exam in the way that is required. I know that secondary schools will do their own tests and make their own judgements. But on Sunday night I failed and got really annoyed with my son. Despite me whining on about spellings for the last 6 months he hasn’t really bothered to learn them. Let’s face it, a few hours before an exam is never the best time to start learning the vast numbers of words that a 10/11 year old is supposed to know.

I got angry. Made out his life depended on it. I was very very wrong.

His work ethic is somewhat slap dash, but he is an 11 year old boy. Maturity is a huge thing when it comes to exams. As children go he is pretty mature. Just not when it comes to learning spellings. His reading and comprehension is above that of his age and surely a love of reading is more important at this time.

In short I was wrong. I got caught up on whether he is “better” than other children of his age group when that’s not important. What is important is that he is inquisitive, polite and kind. Qualities that aren’t tested but mean more to me than being able to spell the word controversy. I can also tell you one thing for sure. If there were SATs for solving Rubik’s cubes then he would most definitely hit exceeding expectations.



Has you child sat their SATs this week?