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

Well in terms of progress 8 scores if a kid scores average SAT's (and has average predicted GCSEs) but the school can see the kid could do much better they are very motivated to support that. Dcs school has two columns for predicted. The predicted spat about by the national data set and the schools predicted with a plus or minus system to indicate confidence.
Both my two have excellent focused support to achieve to the best of their ability. Dc1 worked up from lower sets in year 7 to top set.. So yes the school is obliged to use the national data but they also don't let it dictate the quality of the offer. All kids are supported to do the best they can. Kids who piss about or disengage can't always make use of this, but this was ever thus in many schools. They do very well on progress 8 scores btw.
OP, in a good secondary SATs don't matter, although they are 'used'....

They're aren't!

All schools will want students to do the best they can, of course. But in the real world, resources are limited and the school is judged on getting the best P8 possible. For this, they need students to get the target grades set by their SATs results. If one child has a target grade of a 2 and is achieving that, no issue. The school will use its finite resources to ensure that the kids predicted 6s, but achieving 4s, get extra support.

My school is currently putting together our GCSE intervention groups based on the recent mocks results. We will be selecting small groups of students who are currently under target ... based on their SATs results. Those students who got low SATs results and are achieving them are never going to get this additional support to reach higher grades, this it is beneficial for kids to do well in their SATs.

20+ years of teaching secondary and you don’t know FFT are based on SATs?

That seems ridiculous of the schools.

Why can't they trust their own assessments, homework data and interactions to form an evolving opinion of a child?

Luckily that's what my dc high school does. They have had to for the last 2 yr 11 groups as there were no sats to go for...

Externally invigilated, SATS aren't. The stories some y7s tell of SATS and the help they got. Not in all primaries obviously.

No - SATs are internally invigilated (and inspections of this are relatively infrequent). Tbf, so are GCSEs and A levels, but the greater formality of these and the fact that invigilators are school employees but not directly teachers of the subject examined makes cheating less likely.

My daughters school doesn’t set until year 8. I believe they decide based on work in year 7, homework etc.
the kids are constantly getting moved up and down. My daughters in year 8 set 2 which is the second highest. She’s had kids come up, and kids go down and that’s been since September. Some have been moved up and then back to her class again. They keep an eye on it.
imo, SATs are just a way to keep track on the school, if they’re doing what they are supposed to be doing. Everything is about statistics these days.

Schools can (and do) alter target grades based on the student, not FFT. However, they will be judged on the FFT target so would be foolish to disregard it.

Because it's what the school is measured on. No school is avoiding that - every school is judged on kids getting the targets they are set by their SATs.

It's just a fact in all schools, even if parents aren't aware of it.

How? Your current Y11 didn’t do SATs in year 6. They were the 2nd year Covid cancelled. You may have done some testing in house in year 7 but you don’t have SATs data to work from.

These are the stories I hear frequently.

The lack of curiosity from Ofsted is astounding.

The local MAT that is known for this wins all sorts of awards. But no one seems to wonder why these young people who receive this 'head and shoulders better than all their nearest primaries' education in yr 6, end up with an expected distribution through setting as soon as they reach yr 7 and do CATS alongside all the dc who went to 'lower performing at sats' schools. And they are not disproportionately represented in yr 11 top grades (plenty of students at the same school are getting 7-9 so the teaching and resources are there).

If SATS are to be used in this way (I don't think the should) then they need to be a lot more rigorous and consistently applied.

Anecdotally CATS and GL assessments have been widely used to predict for the non SATS years.

But you have year groups currently with no sats data.......

And my dds are absolutely not having to prove themselves year on year from the beginning again. The school uses their own assessments and is fluid in moving them.

But resetting a child into bottom set in year 9 based on sats results, when in yr 7 and 8 they have moved up to top sets is really silly. But @plusplug says this happens!

So are you saying that the classes in the lower sets end up bigger than the higher sets? That doesn't sound very likely! Or sensible.

To answer the question. No, SATs are not important for the child, they are simply used to judge school.performance by OFSTED.

Most secondary schools use their own assessments to sort children into sets and move them up and down over the 5 yrs that they are in school, as they see fit.

Predicted grades are simply that, predictions: In reality the students can and do get better or poorer grades than predicted.

Incidentally SATs predictions are based on EYFS assessments, despite the fact that EYFS assessments do not measure academic attainment.

Our school retested in y7 and based sets off that. They had to do all the progress stuff but what we got told at home was based on what the kids actually achieved. My dd2 didn’t do that great in SATs but has soared at secondary and has offers from all 5 of the universities she applied to. I think it depends on the secondary school

Exactly.

Seems very unfair for the primaries to be able to stitch up their local secondaries in this way. And I know secondary teachers who could tell you exactly which primary sats results they don't trust, and which they think are a fair representation.

So how do kids who have come from private or schools abroad get out into sets?

Also in a good school predicted grades are adjusted around Ucas time if there is good evidence a child has stepped up their performance. GCSE predicted grades don’t matter anyway.

True, this year's targets are artificial because of the lack of SATs, and are based on internal testing. I was just making my point about how important they are in the school's processes - we're currently using the internal testing in precisely the same way as we routinely use SATs, so they are certainly important for all students doing them since the Covid years.

Good news about your dd's school. It can be hard in large schools where the pupils aren't individually known to the person doing the grouping, and then the class teacher is trying to move them but there's no room in the set above because it's already full of those with higher SATs results and target grades. I've regularly been that teacher! I'm genuinely glad some schools are better at this though.

This! Although sadly only learnt this following my DC having done their GCSEs.

Nope! SATS are pointless, particularly in a 3 tier school system like we have.
High school only sets for maths here.

Ours is relatively small (for a secondary) and dds are definitely known as individuals. They really feel and appreciate that too.

Maybe that's an important variable in all this?

I had colleagues that said for our foundation subject, they could tell which primary schools y7s had come from from the discrepancy between their English SATs grade and their subject knowledge (lack of) from being taught for the test for a prolonged period.
To add further insult, the system gives the other subjects targets based on over-coached maths/ English grades.

The only importance of SATs is as a stick to beat schools up with.

DS's secondary school love him because the shitty SENCO at his primary didn't give him reasonable adjustments because he was doing "well enough" and he didn't meet his SATs targets. This gives him modest target grades, but being a good school are setting realistically ambitious targets with support and they'll lap up the kudos for the value added.

Neither my DCs' nor my school rush to set and teach in mixed groups (albeit with "nuture" forms for additional support) through KS3. Their argument is that setting too soon causes pigeon-holing and later bloomers lose out on the ability to move up. Set 4/5 often tended to be sink groups with a difficult combination of weak students struggling to learn with a high proportion of lazy, disruptive students, whereas set 5 tended to be smaller with better support.