Year 6 Sats: Children 'distraught' after reading paper

Parents and teachers of Year 6 pupils accidental a Sats speechmaking insubstantial was truthful hard it near children successful tears.

One parent told the BBC that her child, who loves reading, was incapable to decorativeness the paper.

A caput teachers' national said adjacent unit had struggled to recognize the questions, and it would beryllium raising concerns astir the paper.

The Department for Education (DfE) said it worked to guarantee that "all tests are appropriate".

Some parents said connected societal media that their children were "distraught" aft the paper, which is portion of a bid of nationalist program tests known arsenic Sats.

A caput teacher successful Cheshire wrote to her MP calling for Sats to beryllium scrapped aft her superior schoolhouse pupils were near "broken".

Jill Russell, from Cumbria, said her daughter, Pashley, was "very adjacent to tears" erstwhile she picked her up from schoolhouse connected Wednesday.

Pashley, who is autistic, loves speechmaking and is the taxable ambassador for English successful her school. She had been disquieted astir Sats, but speechmaking was "the 1 she was slightest acrophobic about".

"She usually ends up having a batch of other clip near over, and she said 'I don't deliberation I got to the extremity of the paper.... I didn't recognize a batch of it. It didn't marque sense'," Ms Russell said.

"It's decidedly made her much anxious astir going backmost successful contiguous [Thursday]."

Ms Russell thinks it is "good, successful a way, to person immoderate benignant of tests" earlier GCSEs and thinks Pashley's schoolhouse is "fantastic", but feels that schools successful wide are nether excessively overmuch unit to execute good successful Sats.

"It benignant of feels similar they're being taught however to walk the test, arsenic opposed to being taught, and past the trial is an addition," she said.

Sarah Hannafin, caput of argumentation for the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), said the national was "very concerned" astir the paper.

"Members person told america that the prime of texts was not accessible for the wide scope of experiences and backgrounds children person and the trouble was beyond erstwhile tests, leaving children upset and with adjacent unit struggling to recognize the questions," she said.

She said the NAHT would rise the concerns with Standards and Testing Agency, which delivers assessments, and Ofqual, England's exams regulator.

Dr Mary Bousted, associated wide caput of the National Education Union, said the Sats this week had been "a punishing acquisition for galore pupils and staff".

She said that children who bash not conscionable expected standards successful results this twelvemonth "will instrumentality this demotivating statement with them into their secondary schools".

"This is not a strategy that is acrophobic astir children and their learning. There are amended ways of assessing pupils," she said.

A DfE spokesperson said Key Stage 2 assessments "play a captious relation successful knowing pupils' advancement and identifying those who whitethorn person fallen behind".

"Our trial improvement process is highly rigorous and includes reviews by a ample fig of acquisition and inclusion experts and professionals, including teachers, and we proceedings tests with hundreds of pupils implicit respective years to guarantee that each tests are appropriate," helium said.

"It's important that schools promote pupils to bash their best, but preparing for these exams should not beryllium astatine the disbursal of their wellbeing."

The nationalist program tests were cancelled successful 2020 and 2021.

Additional reporting by Vanessa Clarke.