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Original poster

Primary SATs

36 replies

shirtyshirt · 12/07/2025 21:15

I may have got the wrong end of the stick but I thought I read on here something about being benchmarked against your yr 6 SATs results in secondary? And if you were GD you would always look like you weren't doing particularly well. But maybe I am confused?

OP posts:
JessicaTookMyLunch · 12/07/2025 21:41

It gives them a guide as to where children roughly are. Some schools set from year 7 for maths, English and science and the rest are their form class so history, art, drama etc. It helps the school work out form structure and at my DC's school those coming in with low SATs were in smaller classes with a TA from the beginning. Sets are decided on SATs but also CATs they sit at the start of year 7.

It also gives the children a "flight path" of where they sort of expect them to be for each Key Stage. One of my children was average and had an average grade 5 projection but completely smashed through that, my other child got full marks in English SATs and almost full in maths. At GCSE they got a 9 for maths and were very able all the way through and tanked English but with help from the teacher and me in year 11 aced out an 8. My children achieved almost identical results at GCSE with a high number of 9s. Went to RG unis.

What all of this means is, deciding at 11 how good a child is at something is pretty pointless but schools have to be measured on their progress from reception to year 6, and year 6 to year 11.

Vivienne1000 · 12/07/2025 21:35

All our kids have CAT testing when they start year 7. That gives a true benchmark.

crumblingschools · 12/07/2025 21:32

Due to COViD this measure won’t exist for a couple of years

Bonsaibaby · 12/07/2025 21:32

DD got top marks in her SATs and her target grade was 9 in all her GCSE’s.
DS got about 105 and his was target 5. He was underestimated throughout school and theyd say he’ll easily achieve at least the 5 as he’s just got a 9 in his mock so I was like then change the target grade, at least for your own assessments and keep the exceeding target for the stats!

crumblingschools · 12/07/2025 21:31

In Secondary school there is Progress 8 measure which measures GCSE grades from SATs. On average pupils will be expected to get certain grades based on their SATs scores. If they do better than that is positive Progress 8 and a negative is on average GCSE grades were lower

Original poster
shirtyshirt · 12/07/2025 21:29

Thank you

OP posts:
Original poster
shirtyshirt · 12/07/2025 21:28

Yes how does a good SPAG mean you are good at art or history?

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Snorlaxo · 12/07/2025 21:28

I’m not a teacher but presumably she would be predicted 7/8/9 depending on how far she was from 120.

It’s a weird one because they use literacy to predict grades in subjects that they’ve never studied before.

Original poster
shirtyshirt · 12/07/2025 21:27

could you potentially be working towards in secondary?

OP posts:
Original poster
shirtyshirt · 12/07/2025 21:26

@Snorlaxo so dd got GD in everything but writing, what does that mean her GCSEs should be?

Is it really an accurate predictor? I was way advanced at primary but it levelled out 😆

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Snorlaxo · 12/07/2025 21:21

I’m not solute if this is what you mean.
Year 6 SATS are used to come up with GCSE predictions.
If you have high scores in year 6 then your predicted GCSE grade will be high so it’s difficult to be exceeding expectations in secondary.

Say someone else gets 100 in maths and predicted a 4 at GCSE. If they achieve 5 or 6 then they are exceeding expectations.