SATs - Stress About Tests

A little controversy for a Tuesday night.

According to last week's TES, an online survey has revealed that many parents believe SATs cause too much stress in children and that they also have little or no confidence in the abilities of their children’s teachers.

Now - putting the SATs thing to one side for a moment - as a teacher and the parent of a child at school, I immediately feel very defensive about such a finding. But the fact remains that many parents do perceive teachers in this way, which is as much a damning comment about the image of education in this country as it is about any particular teacher's ability to do the job.

And certainly exams will always bring with them a certain amount of anxiety but the important thing is to learn to manage this stress. I suspect that some of those parents who think that SATs are too stressful for children are also the ones worrying about how their children will fair and so impose their own anxieties onto their children, making the whole thing a self-fulfilling prophecy.

To read more about this topic click here. To find a simple solution to exam stress, click here, and take with a warm drink at bedtime.