Primary SATs

I had the same, son scored extremely highly on SATS but was always “ below expectations in art, DT, and PE- the fact that he is dyspraxic didn’t seem to count!

One of the main problems that I have found is DS got full marks for his SATs and very nearly full marks in his CATs - he is now in year 8 and his report says that he is below expectations in PE and art because, despite trying hard, he is pretty rubbish at them! His high exam results have predicted him 9s in everything - which clearly is not helpful.

My oldest child is very academic and got excellent SATs scores. He is now 18 and he has continued to do well. Lots of his friends (who did not score well in SATs and did not pass 11+ etc..) are getting the same results as him. I think children develop and learn at dfferent rates. As parents we need to support as much as we can and chill out a bit especially when children are so young.

DD's "minimum target grades" for most subjects were 9s. We were repeatedly told that pupils should be aiming to do at least as well as these minimum target grades. Meanwhile, most subjects did not predict anything above level 8 for anyone until year 11, because "it is too soon to tell". If it isn't possible to tell in year 10 whether they are likely to get a 9, how is it possible to use SATs to set it as a target?

I suggested that perhaps they could consider using "8+" instead, which would seem more realistic, and also stop them feeling a failure for being predicted an 8.

The year she came in the top 200 in a national competition, I asked her teacher whether she would get "exceeding expectations" on her report that year. No: her performance in school was still only what was expected!

To clarify again - secondary schools will not measure or target progress based on SPaG or Writing results. Like the Government, they ONLY use scaled scores in Maths and Reading.

Edited to add: and that will be at the ‘score’ level, not the ‘grade’ level. Someone with 119 averaged across Maths / Reading may well have a different target from someone averaging 111, despite them both being ‘GDS’.

Schools are measured, ranked and assessed by their ‘Attainment 8’ and ‘Progress 8’ results. The latter is calculated as better / worse progression than the average expected from their SATs results (specifically, their scaled scores in Reading and Maths - the SPaG score and Writing levels are not used).

Unsurprisingly, given its impact on the school’s performance metrics, schools will track students’ progress against their SATs results for their own understanding and plans for the cohort and for individual children.

Schools vary, however, in what they share with pupils and families - it could be ‘flight paths’; it could be progress vs grades predicted from SATs; it could be progress from other tests taken at the start of Y7; it could be simply raw results from tests done this year; it could be vs FFT-generated targets, which themselves can be set at different levels of ambition at the school’s choice.

However, because the school will, inevitably be publicly judged and measured by the Government on the basis of progress from SATs results, it WILL be something they do track internally. They have no choice.

Being good at Spag at year 6 give you a boost in year 7. Which carries on throughout.

It's not just about- it not mattering if they have words spelt wrong in their exams.

It's about how the standard of work they have produced in years 7-11 are better because they are good at SPAG. It help with organising their thoughts and making coherent arguments which is fundamental to doing well at history.

Maths/ reading and SPAG are the foundation upon which other subjects are built.

So being good at these will usually mean they do better in all subjects.

Even Art I assume they have to some reading or research on artists and different styles of work. And exam / coursework aren't just producing art work?? Though not sure on that.

And it's not just about the exams not having a mark scheme for SPAG in the exam. The standard of work they have produced over the last 5 years will matter.

I was replying more generally. Some people are saying that SATs are pointless and a load of rubbish. I disagree. There tends to be a correlation, though of course individual children can be outside that correlation.
You yourself raised SPAG link to History. Obviously you can have rubbish SPAG and be great at history, or vice versa, but there is a correlation on a cohort level between kids who do well at SATs and those who go on to do well at GCSE.

I agree with @TaborlinTheGreat someone with good English at age 11 is likely to be better at history GCSE than someone with poor English at age 11 (assuming not EFL or major disruption to schooling from eg illness).

It isn't about the remembering facts, it is about being able to put together a cohesive argument of this leads to this because this etc, being able to look at sources and comprehend the details potential bias etc.

Any individual child can out perform their SATs, or indeed underperform them, but the likelihood is that at GCSE a child with 120s SATs will outperform a 110 who in turn will outperform a 100

Yes, but this data is a blunt instrument. It's great at predicting outcomes for whole cohorts, not as great for predicting outcomes for individuals. Of course there are kids who have great SPaG scores, reading ages etc who turn out not to be good at history. But on average, bright students with good language skills are much more likely to have good memories and be good at subjects like history. I was an anomaly in that regard. Great memory, excellent linguist, shit at history!

Our local high school pretty much ignores SATs as far as I can see and they use their own tests at the beginning of year for setting and then setted subjects like maths are reconfigured each half term on feedback from homework and end of unit tests.

I find it fascinating that a local Outstanding Academy chain gets far higher/better SATs results than the surrounding primaries (despite drawing on almost identical demographics) yet the students from the less well rated/lower achieving primaries are overrepresented in comparison in top sets and GCSE results.

If I was Ofsted and whoever is involved in moderating SATs I'd be speaking to the high school to work out what they think goes on. Are these children genuinely outperforming their local peers at the end of year 6 but losing all that "extra" over the summer holidays? Or are they genuinely outperforming their peers but that increased attainment is actually not useful/relevant/platform for KS3/KS4 attainment? Or is the local Outstanding Academy chain up to something and those DC would get different results if they sat their SATs in a neighbouring school?

You can't understand how having an excellent grasp of spelling, punctuation and grammar may help someone when they are doing history or answering questions in a history exam?

I think its obvious.

Thank you @CatatonicLadybug for your informed and nuanced response.

My DD was the first (I think) year of the new SATs, and scored 100, 97 and 96. She wasn't really 'secondary ready' but also not quite bad enough to get extra support. Ultimately you can recover if no underlying issues but if your literacy is low on entering secondary it will impact all subjects.

SATs are a load of old boll**s!

DD got 120, 120, 119 in her SATs and has been saddled with target grades of 9s in year 7

Former head of core subject in a very large comprehensive.

Both the SATs and CATs test scores are used as data which inform the flight path for the student. Also attendance percentage for Y6. How much weight every school and every head of department give to each of those data points and any additional points added is unique - data analysis is very much a strategy and is not a standardised process across the country, though there are obvious examples of good and bad practice.

In my school, we also tend to get a one sentence comment from the y6 class teacher that can often hold far more weight. All sorts can be shown in that one cell on a spreadsheet: ‘scored surprisingly high/low’ tells us the child is different in class attainment than in exam conditions, ‘must be encouraged to write’ for a child who is actually quite able but is not self-motivated, along with things that might be relevant pastorally, like they have trouble with friendships or are moving up with a student they could really have done with a fresh start from, and sometimes a note of whether a child is known to be tutored or parents don’t believe in homework or whatever thing they feel compelled to report. Often it will just say ‘no problems’ for a typical child. Not all primary schools do this (state schools cannot require extra reporting), what they say is vague at best, and not all secondaries pass it on (some prefer everyone to just be a raw score and have a completely fresh start for the rest). But at the most, this is the data given to subject heads at the start of year 7.

Equally, subject heads know all the faults of the testing used. So if a kid gets an unexpectedly low SATs test score (every child who ever sat that test with a fever or stomach bug, I see you!) and work at a level higher than that straight out the gate in the first half-term, it will (should be!) caught and setting and expectations adjusted. Equally if they aced it by sheer dumb luck or start year 7 with a dreadful attitude, they will probably move down a set after Christmas.

As for GD scorers looking like they are not doing well, it’s just a case of adjusting to a secondary marking mindset. Especially when you get to GCSE - the first marks of year 10 will look rubbish purely because they haven’t seen all the material yet, so if they went in to sit the final papers that day, they wouldn’t be ready. We aren’t giving an imaginary grade of where you would be if you keep working at this exact level, we are telling you where you would be if it was all done right now. Obviously it’s not all done right now, so you will move up! Not all schools are entirely consistent on this either, so ask for clarification if you are ever unsure. The teacher will be able to tell you.

But if you achieved GD on Year 6 SATs and you have decent work ethic and attendance, you should be achieving excellent results across your subjects at GCSE (and yes, literacy really does impact success in other subjects that much) so don’t get bogged down in data analysis. That’s someone else’s job. Yours to help keep that student on track so you get the same sort of happy exam results at the end of year 11 and 13, when they really count!