You are so right
about SATS, my mum is an infant teacher currently teaching yr2s and all she does is get stressed over whether enough of her class is going to meet the targets. She's been teaching for 35 years now and says it was never like this when she started, and things were so much better then. Education should be relevent and about learning, not about taking exams. I went on a summer school when I was in my lower sixth year and remember it being so brilliant just because we could ask to be taught whatever we wanted just for the sake of learning it without the pressure of an exam at the end. Exams are extremely stressful, I ended up in the doctors at the age of 15 just before my GCSEs with high blood pressure, for goodness sake! I now have problems every time exams loom, which is fun because I get examined every term at uni, so frequently end up losing silly amounts of weight while eating silly amounds of chocolate and hyperventilating and crying on random people spontaneously. Admittedly now it's my own choice and am getting help from the university counselling service, but I blame it all on those schoolday exams!

And yes, I also agree with the saying blame the parents. It really is their responsibilty, not the teachers.
(Petite chien is going to do science to it, Fri 18 Apr 2008, 18:29, Reply)