Do stats results affects what set you get streamed into in secondary school ?

[WildBluebells]

I thought the secondary schools did their own assessments ?

It’s based on sats results and then obviously movement once kids have settled in (after there first lot of tests in December time)

It's SATS and depends on the school. Some will set right from the start using SATS results (not a good idea in my opinion). Some ignore SATS completely and do their own assessments and set a bit later in the year. Some will do a mixture of the two. Some don't set at all. Some set for only core subjects. If it is a big concern you need to check with the school your child is going to.

They are often only streamed for maths and spend the rest of their time in forms up to gcse and may then be streamed for a few more subjects. The maths streaming happens after a test at school, not through SATs.
SATs indicate a likely outcome or expected grade at GCSE but they don’t determine any of the grades or which set they’re put in.

Yes SATs have a big impact on secondary school setting, particularly in English, maths and science. Some schools also use them to inform their sets for all subjects. It’s unfortunate but ultimately one of the easiest ways to create classes at the start of year 7.

SATs only used to stream Maths at DS’s school. Everything else is streamed at GCSE

Where SATs really come into play is the school's 'progress 8' scores.
A student's SATs are used to predict what scores they should get at GCSE. Schools are then judged on how many of their students reach these grades or achieve higher Vs how many fail to reach them.

It is a flawed process though but because schools are judged using it they can be tempted to channel all their extra efforts into those students who aren't on course for this. This may mean that another set of students don't get as much extra support just because they are on target, even though they might get higher results with additional support.

It also doesn't take account of "late bloomers", students who only start to show their full academic potential age 13 or so.

Oh wow, it’s more important than I thought then

Please be aware that a lot of these posts are people telling you what happens at the school their child goes to. That doesn't mean it will be the same at the school your child goes to. At my child's school for instance SATS scores are irrelevant.

My DCs aren't set until y9. The school's theory is that setting too soon denies opportunities for pupils to progress upwards from lower sets which makes good sense.

Their school does their own assessments early on.

SATs aren't an even playing field as different primary schools coach to differing degrees, often at a cost to wider curriculum time.
Some schools are better than others at accomodating additional needs. DS1 didn't meet his targets because alledgedly he didn't need the extra time because "he was doing well enough" (not the point!!!) But that's to the gain of his secondary. He hasn't been shoved into an inappropriate set that's hard to climb out of, and he hasn't got high Progress 8 targets, so his secondary will get great value added with less pressure on him.

The only real importance of SATs is as a political tool to beat schools up with. They're lousy measures of children's knowledge and skills.

That said, DS2 had tutoring to help him, not for SATs sake, but to help him with the expected base of knowledge to start secondary. Now he's y7, the tutoring is more focused on his specific areas of need and less curriculum focused.

I’ve had people swear blind to me that it doesn’t determine where they are placed but that’s clearly a lie!

Progress 8 applies to all schools.

At my child's school they test very early into year 7 and SATs are pretty irrelevant.

ours uses sats for initial weeks then their own

It varies. I’ve asked around and learnt that the secondary school that DS is going to doesn’t use SATs to stream but other schools in our city do.

Varys.
We avoided a school that streamed (child with spiky profile), but the other 2 local schools don't set in Y7. Then start introducing sets in sine subjects. Youngest in y9, and set for maths, science and vaguely for languages (as in they only teach a few classes at any one time, so there are about 4 top sets, and 4 middle and 4 bottom).

Don't put undue pressure on SATs because if possible streaming or setting at secondary. Class moves are easy.

Most of the impact of the SATs results is entirely hidden from parents (and in many cases, teachers). It affects decisions made behind the scenes. This is because SATs inform the base level from which progress is measured in state secondary schools and "Progress 8" is an important measure with regards to how a secondary school is doing and how they are judged. A school's internal testing is just that - internal. It doesn't affect anything on an official or national level.

Setting is just one aspect. I've seen and known SATs results to affect:

• what form and band a child is in,
• what teachers are allocated to teach them in different subjects,
• whether the child has access to additional support,
• whether the child is pushed/challenged or made a "focus" or "target" for teachers,
• whether the child is taught higher content for Maths,
• whether the child is allowed to choose specific GCSE options (particularly triple Science).

Remember, to the people behind the scenes (data managers, assessment leads, SLT, etc.) each and every child has a numerical value and decisions are absolutely made in order to influence and maximise/minimise the numbers and data.

That's why I said a lot of these posts not all of them. Progress 8 applies to all schools but a lot of the other posts were explaining what happened in their kids school as if it were a universal truth when it isn't.

It varies school to school. My school doesn’t put them into sets at all at first. They do CATs in school, settle in and do a maths test and then they are put into sets for Maths.
They then get put into sets for French in year 10 but otherwise not in sets.

Every school does it differently. There should be movement between sets anyway. You need to ask the school your child will go to.

In my experience, secondaries are wary of SATs because the results from certain primary schools can be, well, ‘over generous’. My son’s school did assessments in English and Maths very early in Y7 and based streaming in those subjects on those results rather than SATs.

Our secondary (and many others round here) do CATs assessments in week 2 of Year 7 and use those to set. Only maths and PE are set in the first year.

like others have said it varies, and setting very much falling out of fashion now anyway, lots of schools are teaching in mixed groups (with the exception of maths) until gcse.

My dc's school didn't overly use them to determine sets in yr7 although they were a factor along with some early exams. Predominantly though they had mixed sets for subjects through to GCSE, which wasn't great but a different issue.

Where it did make a difference was the invitations to extra support sessions where the focus was on those who had higher SATs but were not achieving their targets. Those who had lower SATs than their current achievements were given less support because if the child was predicted a 3 and was on track for a 4 they were exceeding targets even if they could possibly have achieved a 5. Someone predicted a 7 but on track for a 6 was given interventions. It worked out fine for my dc (over achieved) because they had been able to put work in independently. Some friends though were put under a lot of pressure to increase grades when they just really struggled with many subjects at secondary school.

Essentially SATs might affect your child at secondary but I think perhaps overperforming on SATs might be worse than underperfoming unless possibly if it impacts sets early on and the lower sets are very disruptive.

It depends.

Ours were based on the school’s banding tests for streams and then subject tests as he terms and years went on for Maths and English sets.

I was a ‘late bloomer’. August born twin. Got below average in all yr6 sats. Got mostly as and some bs for gcse. Showing my age, born in the 90s 😂 as know they don’t use letter grades anymore!

They streamed using SATS at DS secondary school and then gave them a further test, CAT’s after a couple of months for all subjects. It was a regular comp, he was in top set for every subject, no disruptions. We chose the school because they streamed.