It's time again for the dreaded and stress inducing SATS. Teachers and students alike are stressing. The principal or head teacher wants to look good on the national league tables. The teachers want everyone to know that they're the best. As for the students, they've heard so much about these tests that they're terrified of failing, or at least not doing their best.

There are some children who excel at tests and love them. At the other end of the spectrum are those who become completely stressed over exams. Most kids could live just as well without them. If your child stresses to the extreme, how can you help?

Actually the SATS were created to assess schools and not students. The government wanted to know two things: how well are children doing as a whole, and how well is each school performing? In hopes of finding these answers, children are tested when they are 7 in order to get a baseline score. When they reach 11, they are tested again. The difference between both scores is supposed to show how much the children have learned in the four years. This score is called the "value added". The goal is to enhance the educational level of eleven year olds, and SATS give that measurement.

So how is this relevant to your child? It isn't! The SATS have almost no relevance to an individual child. The secondary school will not use the SATS scores in planning their teaching - they will do their own assessment of each child. Besides, the scores on the SATS, called levels, are so broad that they do not really tell you how well your child is doing. The average eleven year old is supposed to score at level 4. But if your child is at level 4 you still have no idea if your child is the high end or low end of average. If your child scores at a lower or higher level, that too is unlikely to be news to you. Even without the SATS you would almost certainly have known if your child is ahead or behind the rest of the class - and so should the teacher. So your child's individual SAT scores will not affect his or her education in any way.

By now you are probably wondering what to tell your child if she's worrying about the SATS. Make it clear to her that it's the school being tested, not her. Whatever her level, it won't really matter. Tell her to just do the best that she can, but don't coerce her in any way to study or practice for it. She'll have plenty of tests in her life that will make a difference in her life.

If you don't convince her, then talk to her teacher. Find out how she explains the SATS to her class. You can work together to reassure your child that she doesn't need to worry.

If you have concerns in general about your child's school progress, then have a talk with the teacher. You may even need to talk with the head teacher or the Special Needs Coordinator (SENCO). Take action instead of silently worrying.