It’s that time of year again, when all of my fellow Year 2 and Year 6 teachers - usually calm, rational human beings - are agonising over every possible variation of the same old questions: the ones that the children always forget how to answer.

Yes. It’s nearly time for the annual “make you question your ability as a teacher by demanding our children complete a series of tests written by adults who don’t work with children” week. More commonly known as Sats week.

Every year, Year 2 and Year 6 teachers get more and more wound-up as the tests loom ever closer.

We live in a world driven by results and performance. From football managers, to the manager of your local peri-peri chicken chain restaurant, we all have targets to meet, because targets are seen as a catalyst for motivation. But in a primary school, who is the pressure placed on? The headteacher, ultimately, and then the hard-working souls in Year 2 and 6.

In another life, I worked in admissions and marketing for a large sixth-form college. Each year, we had an applications target to meet, usually slightly higher than last year. I didn’t mind. It was part and parcel of the job. Overall, the responsibility wasn’t solely mine because if the website didn’t work, an email wasn’t answered or a teacher was rude on an open evening, these things were not seen as my fault alone. We were collectively responsible as a team.

In schools, I don’t think it works like that. Do we appreciate that over 80 per cent of the questions in the Year 6 tests are pre-Year 6 content? Do we take into account that the skills taught in the EYFS and Year 1 lead on to the Year 2 tests? It’s a collaborative effort and sometimes we lose sight of that fact.

The difference between high expectations and pressure

And just as we must take care not to put the burden of Sats solely on Year 2 and Year 6 teachers, we also have to make sure that we don’t put all of the pressure on to the children.

The overarching message of a Sats information session for parents should be: “Please try not to talk about the Sats. Just leave it to us. Just ensure that they get a good night’s sleep beforehand and a good breakfast in the morning.”

Ultimately, sitting up for three hours going through word classes and calculation methods for division isn’t going to make that much of a difference. No offence to Mum, but I’ve been working on those skills with him every day in class for nine months, not to mention the work that all of his previous teachers have done with him, and if he hasn’t got it by now, he won’t get it by tomorrow.

Pressure is a part of life. There is no getting away from that. However, it has to be shared out amongst the staff and not put on the shoulders of the children. We need to make it clear that Year 1 affects Year 2 Sats and that Year 3 affects Year 6 Sats.

So, this Sats season, make sure that the difference between high expectations and pressure is clear to your staff, and that those high expectations run through the entirety of your school - rather than just the classrooms that currently have very worried members of staff in them.

Gavin Goulds is Year 1/2 class teacher and maths leader at Kennington Primary School in Preston, Lancashire. He tweets @goulds_mr

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