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

The Government uses SATs to measure Progress in Secondary Schools. Doesnt mayter what other testing the school does, the Government has a statistical outcome a child is expected to achieve based on their average SATs score. So really, the Secondary schools want them to under achieve in Yr6.

I think some people also forget that for a child to move up a Set, someone has to move down. DD year group has this issue... there's over 40 of them that could easily be in the Top Set, (of 4!) But they can't all be. But it does mean Set 2 has lots of high achievers as well.

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.

Tell Ofsted that they’re not important. Under the new framework the starting point is the schools ISDR which details the school’s KS2 results (primary) or KS4/P8 (secondary).

P8 is paused for two years because the current year 11s didn’t have SATs.

Every time you hear a parent say that they aren’t important, or that their child won’t be in school that week, think of the teachers and school leaders who are held accountable for the results.

All schools have to use sats results as a target grade. If a child arrives without sats results they will use cat testing to set this.

No matter how meaningless you want sats to be the fact that schools MUST use them to set progress 8 means they do have an impact & resources will be thrown at children not meeting their target grades.

True - and yet people keep believing that their school don’t set/do their own tests etc etc.

What is even more revealing is how this system you describe actually ends up meaning that pupils who passed
their SATs at 11 do tend to be the ones (illness/difficulties aside) that pass their GCSEs - because secondary schools have to make it so.

Are SATs a good predictive measure of GCSE success or are the accountability measures forced on secondary schools making it a self fulfilling prophecy?

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.

Depends on the school. My child was set just in maths in year 7 and they were set from sats results combined with CAT testing in the first couple of weeks. I suspect the schools CAT tests held more weight to get in the upper sets as they know some schools train to pass the Sats and some don’t. Some of the kids at our primary school were absolutely soldiered through SATs and they won’t have done as well at the CAT tests.

“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.”

I think the general point still holds - it just depends upon your local school.

Strong year groups/school = top set gets left alone and will get 9-7 A*-B but middle sets gets all the attention/help/booster groups/TA/best teacher as that will alter the schools overall % pass marks the most

Average year groups/school = top set gets all the attention/help/booster groups/TA/best teacher as that will alter the schools overall % pass marks the most

Ultimately targeted support will be based on which child/group/set (however they are actually organised physically in school) move the needle the most.

As the OP alluded to at the top - it’s not all equal and not all pupils get the same amount of help.

Are SATs a good predictive measure of GCSE success or are the accountability measures forced on secondary schools making it a self fulfilling prophecy?

On a population level they're a good predictor. Obviously individuals will not all follow the same path. Some will achieve "better" than the SATS prediction, and some worse.

The biggest P8 gains are getting a student from a U to a G1 so all this talk of bottom sets and low prior attainers getting nothing is rubbish.

Plenty of schools do push resources into students on the g3-4 borderline because for those students it is the difference between having to resit, and not.

Otoh P8 means the progress of every student counts, getting a G7 to a G9 isn't easy.

This isn't a secret. Schools used assessments (including SATs) to "flightpath" kids. This doesn't mean you can't exceed expectations, or that you won't, but there's a layer of accountability placed on schools to ensure kids achieve in line with their predicted flightpath that means:

• schools will appear to perform better "on paper" if they put their effort into ensuring a child does not slip below their "flightpath" potential, than if they put their effort into stretching a child above their flightpath.

The policy objective here is justifiable in theory - the aim is to ensure that bright but deprived DC, who have potential to achieve but lack a supportive home or communitybenvironment, don't slip off the rails in secondary/through the teenage years when the poverty gap in educational attainment can widen.

Yes. This is results in schools 'teaching to the tests' instead of a wider curriculum and expecting children to do before and after school extra classes to improve results. SATs are designed to test the school and are not for the benefit of the children. They make no difference to the child's future (my grandsons' secondary school re-tested them all anyway) and nobody is ever asked for SATs results when applying for university or a job.

Oh and lower sets are still a bigger priority.

In most schools the effort goes on (in order):

• getting least able kids to a gr 4 in maths/English
• getting borderline kids to grade 5
• ensuring kids don't slip miles below where their flightpath suggest they should attain

Stretching the most able is lower down the list, along with pushing average attainers to exceed expectations. It doesn't mean teachers won't do their best on both, but resource is finite and the list above will be prioritised.

I have heard this from other secondary teachers. And they know pretty well which primaries over egg their own results as the children fro these 'amazing sats results' schools are not then overly represented in the top sets in yr 7 after cat testing.

Our schools set per sats in some classes in year 7 but to re assess them. They then do end of year tests which they base year 8 sets on. These are then for a wider range of subjects. But they do get tested termly at the end of each term on what’s been covered that term. So sats are used as a guide, what else would they have to go on moving up from primary.

My children school tests regularly throughout year 7 and shift to children around between sets as needed. My daughter has just been moved up a set as a result. It's definitely the set she deserves to be in fact she's doing very well in that new set but I think she had a wobble in sats week because their teachers coached them far too much and she was just exhausted

So yes I agree that working hard to get children into the best set possible really can make a difference but equally it isn't the end of the world at all.

And as my daughter's example shows too much pressure can be counterproductive. There was no pressure from us at home but the amount of pressure put on them by the headteacher I was ridiculous. They would be coached all morning and then sit the exam at the end of the morning by which point she was shattered and then they would have to do more prep all afternoon. My son was at the same school (different head) and whenever they weren't doing exams in sats week they just got to play in the playground or do nice gentle activities

It depends on the school entirely.
I know the secondary schools round bere all do different things.

• one school requires all students to sit a test upon joining year 7 and determines ability and sets through that, its not a selective just a normal school
• one school has no sets and actively discourages streaming
• one school uses sats to determine sets

And that is our three nearest standard comprehensives

My kids schools didn’t split into sets until year 9

But all 3 will be doing what we have described because of accountability measures - what you’ve described them doing is lovely but irrelevant for GCSE - SATs will be the only benchmark then

I have 2 dc at the same high school.

One didn't take SATS due to lockdowns. The other did.

Both were tested with CATS in yr 7 and only settled after that. Both have friends who have been moved sets over the years and the teachers have always said setting is fluid and moving is based on half termly assessments and homework.

There has been zero difference in experience for the ones that do and don't have SATS results.

My school did sets in year 9. My kids school did it in year 8, and then did a big review in either year 9 or 10 (alongside moving people up and down at any time if they needed it). I find it strange to do the main one for the start of year 7

Oh I give up - all the processes described above are all on gov.uk for all to read.

Please listen to the OP - it’s not what you are told or what set they are in or if they don’t set or if they tell you they don’t set but do or only do it in yr 9 - no state secondary school can escape the accountability measures in place and all these measures for secondary schools are based on ks2 SATs scores.

As for the ludicrous idea that test scores can somehow measure a child/the school/the parents/the peer group I want to laugh and cry. Academic test results are always a reult
pf the mixture

Genuinely think it’s insane they continue to use test results from year 6 to predict grades in year 11 but yes, you’re right. My DS is predicted 7s even though all teachers acknowledge he will get 8 or 9 and it’s partially due to SATs results. They weren’t even proper SATs either because of Covid, just a few tests his teacher marked.

Everyone changes in 5 years and the difference between a 10/11 year old and 15/16 year old is vast.

They matter heavily to the school but it doesn't impact a child's life. GCSEs and A-levels and uni matter (despite what the "grades don't matter crowd" say). But the year 6 SATS don't have any impact.

I remember (in the years of the coalition government) that when my child did the year 6 SATS the school would take one group to sit level 6 paper in maths and English (this was he group my child was in). And another group (mostly of kids who would end up at the local comprehensive) would get taken to a room where the teachers would give unfair help and occasionally even directly tell them the answers because otherwise the school would have looked bad.

I'm not a super tiger parent but always expect my children to do well academically and they have.

Some of those children in the second group actually fixed up in secondary and have good paying jobs now (and actually got into uni)

The school are measured on the progress made by students from y7-11 using SATS as the benchmark.

Lots of schools use FFT to set target grades, to ensure that students are making appropriate progress. Many schools don't predict 8s or 9s because they are the top of the top (especially a 9, top 3% nationally). SATS also only test maths and English and are extrapolated to predict (sometimes ridiculously) for other subjects.