EQAO - Who pulls their kids??

[Sunshine25]

I will be opting out of the Gr 6 testing. The teacher put so much emphasis on how important it was to do well on this test, it completely stressed my DS out despite us telling him we only want him to try and do his best and it would be a reflection of the teacher/education system and not so much him.
She even placed an EQAO test on their desks on April Fools as a joke which I thought was cruel.

 

[alc571]

I will be opting out of the Gr 6 testing. The teacher put so much emphasis on how important it was to do well on this test, it completely stressed my DS out despite us telling him we only want him to try and do his best and it would be a reflection of the teacher/education system and not so much him.
She even placed an EQAO test on their desks on April Fools as a joke which I thought was cruel.

That is so wrong on every level. Why stress kids out needlessly? Why torment them with a test on their desk because you think it's funny? I think April Fool's jokes are lost on children. They just think they're mean. We've always stressed to our son that it's a reflection of the teaching he's received that they are testing and that it doesn't count towards his report or anything, but still.. he hates school as it is, so why make him hate it more. I haven't fully decided what we'll do yet. We are going to WDW some time in the spring, but probably not for EQAO time. We'll just play it by ear, I guess.

 

[disney is my life]

I wouldn't pull him. Like DisneyMath mentioned once he gets into high school the OSSLT will be mandatory and the math EQAO will likely be part of his mark for the math class that semester. As someone who has anxiety for me personally skipping the grade 6 one would just push all that anxiety to the grade 9 one causing me to be have double the amount of stress and anxiety in grade 9. Make sure he knows that his mark doesn't matter, but let him write it so he gets an idea of what it requires.

I'd also take into consideration that if you pull him for the week he's going to miss all his other class work for the week as well. While EQAO is about a week long they only do it for about 1-2 hours of each day so he would be missing everything else that is being taught as well.

Obviously its up to you - but as someone who's been through all the EQAO's and OSSLT I wouldn't have wanted to be pulled from one and then still expected to write the others.

 

[NDollie]

last school year my kids were in grade 3 and 6. My daughter did it one week, my son was supposed to take it the following week, but we were booked on a trip to Atlantis Bahamas...boy was he happy to miss it....get back to school the week after vacation and they pulled him and a few other kids who were away and made them still do it! My daughter had the last laugh LOL