To think that SATS are more important than people let on?

But you have year groups currently with no sats data.......

And my dds are absolutely not having to prove themselves year on year from the beginning again. The school uses their own assessments and is fluid in moving them.

On mumsnet I always find that the general consensus is that SATS aren’t important.

Once upon a time I would have agreed.

However, now I’ve experienced having a child go through secondary school and GCSEs, I would say that SATS results are very important.

Our experience was that the SATS results determine which sets the child goes into in secondary school and also the GCSE predicted grades. I know that there are other assessments too, but SATS are a large part of it.

Our experience of secondary school was also that the ‘top set’ kids get absolutely everything thrown at getting them those top grades. I was also told by teachers and pupils alike that the lower sets tend to have more disruptive children so it’s harder for the quieter less able kids to work their way up out of the bottom sets.

Obviously that’s only my experience having had two go through secondary school and one now approaching sats.

Interested to know what others think.

Yabu - SATS are not important
Yanbu - they are very important

Externally invigilated, SATS aren't. The stories some y7s tell of SATS and the help they got. Not in all primaries obviously.

No they definitely didn’t.

Although of course children can move up or down.

Anecdotally there were more that moved down than up though.

Schools can (and do) alter target grades based on the student, not FFT. However, they will be judged on the FFT target so would be foolish to disregard it.

Because it's what the school is measured on. No school is avoiding that - every school is judged on kids getting the targets they are set by their SATs.

It's just a fact in all schools, even if parents aren't aware of it.

They aren't independently invigilated. Or not consistently. My daughter's headteacher was cheating with impunity and I expect has spent her entire career doing the same (she has lots of accolades for dramatic improvements in SATS results at each primary she heads up)

All schools will want students to do the best they can, of course. But in the real world, resources are limited and the school is judged on getting the best P8 possible. For this, they need students to get the target grades set by their SATs results. If one child has a target grade of a 2 and is achieving that, no issue. The school will use its finite resources to ensure that the kids predicted 6s, but achieving 4s, get extra support.

My school is currently putting together our GCSE intervention groups based on the recent mocks results. We will be selecting small groups of students who are currently under target ... based on their SATs results. Those students who got low SATs results and are achieving them are never going to get this additional support to reach higher grades, this it is beneficial for kids to do well in their SATs.

That seems ridiculous of the schools.

Why can't they trust their own assessments, homework data and interactions to form an evolving opinion of a child?

Luckily that's what my dc high school does. They have had to for the last 2 yr 11 groups as there were no sats to go for...

That seems ridiculous of the schools.

Why can't they trust their own assessments, homework data and interactions to form an evolving opinion of a child?

Luckily that's what my dc high school does. They have had to for the last 2 yr 11 groups as there were no sats to go for...

I'm a secondary teacher. Every school I have worked at have used SATS results to set. I'm very surprised by the number of people here saying otherwise.

A student might be moved up to a higher set during the course of the year as it becomes apparent that they are doing better, but in a large school, they can easily find themselves set again in the lower sets the next year. I've seen this happen a lot; they essentially have to prove themselves over and over again because the leaders don't know them personally, so they revert back to being set based on SATs each year.

Also, if a child has a low prediction, as long as they are getting that, the school isn't overly concerned with them. Of course their individual class teachers will support them to overachieve, but they won't receive the centralised extra interventions and push that those with higher target grades would get.

My youngest is about to do her SATs, and much though I want to think it won't matter, I have to acknowledge that secondary school will be easier for her if she does as well as she can.

20+ years in education teaching GCSE and A level. I can assure you SATs tell us nothing about GCSE predictions. They measure the primary school, not the child.

Surely if schools want the best possible progress 8, they will encourage all children to do better than predicted? Locally to me, the schools all want to have a high positive progress 8.

Of secondaries are to be held accountable for p8 based on ks2 SATS then primaries should have to have their SATS externally invigilated, marked and moderated.

They are.

Anyone in secondary school management will know exactly how important SATs results are. It’s a complete lie or lack of understanding to say it’s only a measure of how the primary school is doing.

SATs form the basis of GCSE targets and secondary schools performance is judged against these targets, so it becomes a priority to get children to achieve them. So if your child achieves well at SATs, they’ll have high predictions for GCSE and the school will go all out to get your child those grades. If your child underperforms in SATs, their predictions will be lower, and the school will have little inclination to push them to achieve above these low targets.

When I say school, I’m not talking about individual teachers. Although teachers pay is also related to their classes performance against targets, the significant majority of teachers I’ve met hate targets and want to get the best out of their students. But school resources will be allocated (intervention as
PP has mentioned) to meet the SATs driven targets.

This is where the drive for measurable performance targets has brought us.

OP, I could've written your post as i relate to it a lot but I think my experience is more to do with SATs + CAT - or in the case of my DC who missed SATs due to Covid, only CAT.
In my DC schools, these tests were largely invisible aside from termly school reports which had stated targets on them. It became clear that these targets differed by child and that they were informed by Y6 tests.
I've seen both sides of the coin with one DC starting and remaining in top sets where the other hovered nearer the bottom due to.lower SAT & CAT scores.
Progress 8 measures the progress a child makes, so I've always wondered why my lower set DC wasn't given better opportunities to get those grade predictions up, when clearly there is more for the school to gain versus focussing on the high achievers who have lower chances of higher gains.
Actually, I'd love to know which kids are the greatest focus in a state comprehensive as my experience tells me that the higher sets get no praise or recognition as they're expected to do well regardless - and sometimes they get the less experienced teachers on that basis.

Of secondaries are to be held accountable for p8 based on ks2 SATS then primaries should have to have their SATS externally invigilated, marked and moderated.

They are.

Anyone in secondary school management will know exactly how important SATs results are. It’s a complete lie or lack of understanding to say it’s only a measure of how the primary school is doing.

SATs form the basis of GCSE targets and secondary schools performance is judged against these targets, so it becomes a priority to get children to achieve them. So if your child achieves well at SATs, they’ll have high predictions for GCSE and the school will go all out to get your child those grades. If your child underperforms in SATs, their predictions will be lower, and the school will have little inclination to push them to achieve above these low targets.

When I say school, I’m not talking about individual teachers. Although teachers pay is also related to their classes performance against targets, the significant majority of teachers I’ve met hate targets and want to get the best out of their students. But school resources will be allocated (intervention as
PP has mentioned) to meet the SATs driven targets.

This is where the drive for measurable performance targets has brought us.

I have no desire for the following to be the case BUT

Of secondaries are to be held accountable for p8 based on ks2 SATS then primaries should have to have their SATS externally invigilated, marked and moderated. It is really unfair for primaries to be able to stitch up their local high schools in this way. Whilst making themselves look.amazing for ofsted.

Our high school has a couple of feeder primaries which have amazing ofsted and sats profiles (they're from a very slick MAT) . Those dc from those schools are not in any way more academic, better educated or brighter than the rest and they do not go on to be mostly in the top sets in a disproportionate way post yr 7 CAT tests. They do not go on to get stellar gcses in an overt way either. This seems very unfair on the high school.

I do think some proper longitudinal research into this would be interesting as it's a locally focused phenomena (and the non researchers in the local community all feel the MAT inflates their results or provides far more coaching and help than it should during SATS)