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

[Inthehottub]

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

It is worth emphasising again that Progress 8 is NOTHING to do with schools. It is Government-mandated.

But they’re not irrelevant. Both of your children will likely have a flight path that the school look at that begins with SATs or lack of them. How can you possibly know her not doing them has made zero impact?

The Government - not schools- are back to measuring attainment for these two years 🙄

My child's school tested all kids early in year 7. Results and SATS were both taken in account to SET for maths only. Mixed ability in all other subjects. English/Science is set in year/9. End of term assessments in all subjects, and movement across Math sets too. My child's school is not private but lots of emphasis on tracking their individual progress. It's a high performing school nationally. I would conclude the school was very interested in SAT results, but, they've never disclosed it.

Ok, but the OP was asking if SATs mean anything. As they are the basis of FFT estimates, lots of people have pointed out that yes, they do mean something. Schools tend to push resources towards meeting progress targets.

Im confused by your post as the government mandates that they are used as basis for the flight path. Nothing to do with schools ‘being lazy’

I know what it’s based on, I just don’t think it’s especially helpful! Also, my role for the past couple of years has been in a MAT leadership role - our secondaries don’t use FFT and that really did surprise me.

A good secondary will be supporting children across the board. Even from a statistical point of view, a school cannot get a positive P8 unless a majority of kids do better than expected. Which means that if a positive P8 is the aim, teaching has to be good for all kids.

This obviously doesn’t apply to schools just scraping a 0 P8

In case you didn’t see it in my previous post, I apologise for my snipey post to you that you’ve quoted.

I’m interested to know how your secondaries measure progress 8 if they don’t use FFT?

And especially those you have minus p8 Id imagine

We have our own standardised KS3 assessments and a wildly talented data team! I come from a huge school (2000 students) in a massive MAT where it was all based on FFT. When I took this role it was a pleasant surprise that we do things differently.

The ongoing emphasis on exams, grades and data is my main reason to be actively seeking to get out of education entirely. We’ve lost sight of what actually matters and frankly I want no part of it.

My youngest didn't pass his SATs and now he's on course to get at least 4s in his GGSEs so no, in my opinion, they're not important.

I don't actually remember what mine got for SATs as KT was more important to the parents and SATs seen as a school promotional thing. I know DD was always middle table, middle ability and apparently far too sensative to the screaming aggressive boys, according to the teachers. Then the CATs came out and she was in top 5% nationally, much to their shock. Suddenly they all tried to suggest it was because they had "stretched" her by putting her in remedial maths for a year! Only discovered she is actually autistic in her mid-teens which is why she can't work alongside loud boys who throw things, shout abuse and don't like people who remember things. SATs literally mean nothing in the face of all the other tests she has had since.

ETA Sorry not sure why it has quoted your post!

Haha don't worry 🤣

I think we should take a step back and look at the bigger picture. In reality, it is very similar to the Singaporean streaming system. Pupils are streamed from Year 7 based on their KS2 SATs results, and in many cases that label remains with them until they complete their GCSEs.
From the perspective of policymakers and the civil servants , it is a highly cost-effective model. It effectively transforms comprehensive schools into a grammar-school-like system, but in a much subtler way through ability setting rather than formal selection.
The highest-tier pupils are already academically very strong, so achieving excellent GCSE results is largely predictable. Many also benefit from strong family support, making those outcomes even more likely. Likewise, lower-tier pupils are generally expected to achieve weaker GCSE results based on their earlier attainment (SATS) . As a result, poorer outcomes are often viewed as consistent with expectations, reducing the extent to which the school is held accountable for those results. The main objective for the middle tier is to ensure they do not fall into the bottom tier, rather than expecting them to compete with the highest-performing group.
Under such a system, the quality of teaching may have less influence on the school’s overall results because much of the outcome is already shaped by the initial streaming. This can also reduce the pressure to invest heavily in teaching quality, making the model more cost-effective.

If you are in a Grammar area however, it gets messy. Here all of the other schools are left with the kids who haven't been tutored and aren't expected 5's and above across the board, so you end up with half of the kids not achieving because they are already labelled thick at 10/11.

P8 and A8 scores don't work like that. It is absolutely to a secondary's advantage for all groups to get as high grades as possible over a fair spread of subjects.

The problem is that the KS2 results can be subject to rather, erm, enthusiastic support in some schools. This is very clear when comparing the perfectly expected 100-105 scores at SATs to the neutral CAT4 assessments and you see that not only do you have children who suddenly go from as expected to 'Oh, gosh, these are really able kids' scores, you have a significant number where in a three week period have gone from as expected 100+ scores to borderline and below the level where you'd be looking at urgent assessment for SEND and in some cases, EHCP applications.

This then means that whilst there will be some who you can reasonably say, certeris paribus, will be on course to get higher grades at GCSE, there's a significant number where even if they get the sort of grades that are only seen in the very top 5% of schools in the country, they will still be contributing to a negative P8 or A8 score.

As a result (and because bad things also happen to teenagers, they have later diagnoses of SEND, family breakups, illnesses, bereavements, etc), it's as important to get everybody as high as possible, as it'll help to mitigate the effect on data of those who really weren't likely to have been accurately marked and those who through no fault of their own or the secondary, are not able to match the projected grades arrived at through an average of Reading and Maths standardised scores.

I suspected this is what our child's school does too, but they've never confirmed it. It is a large state secondary so streaming the students into sets using SATS results each year is going to be the most manageable method - it can all be done in one Excel spreadsheet.

I would think though that in general the sats do reflect the ability. Someone who gets a higher grade in maths in sats will likely be more capable at maths and end up in a higher set regardless of whether the basis is sats/ teachers input.

It's like everything - good exam results lead to more choice in life.