I was talking to a year 6 teacher this week who was saying that their are lots of falling outs between the children in her class at the moment and they are getting cross and arguing with each other more than usual. I explore with her how they were feeling about the SATS and whether the stress and anxiety of this is making them more worried and less resilient than they are usually.
I suggested she talk to the class about this and acknowledge and help them to name their feelings. I also encouraged her to make a worry box in the classroom with pen and paper next to it and encourage the children to use it to put their worries in. I suggested she encourage the children to put their name on their worry if they wanted her to talk to them individually or to leave their name off if they wanted her to talk to the whole class about the worry. I asked her to check the box each day and make time to talk to the class about the worries.
She started this on Tuesday and told me on Friday that she felt the class were more settled and using the worry box on a daily basis. The SATS may not be until May, but the stress and anxiety starts long before this.