SATs at Year 7

[BEANBAG765]

Starting Year 7 this Friday.
Amongst instructions about the start of school, our Secondary told us they are going to hold the SATs that kids missed at the end of Year 6.
Anyone else having the same message?

No, not SATs, but I imagine all schools will be doing testing of Y7 early on in the term.

At the start of year 7 children usually get tested using CAT tests or similar. They will not be doing official sat tests as these are provided by the dfe and haven't been distributed this year due to the fact they were scrapped. I imagine all schools will be doing some assessments as children return in order that they can work out where there are gaps in learning.

The newsletter says that they will be doing the usual tests to assess level.
They will be also doing the official SATs which will be assessed externally and results shared with parents and kept on record.
I am certain I did not misunderstand.

No, no plan to do SATs. As far as I'm aware they were completely cancelled not rescheduled. We'll be doing CATs as normal I believe. We don't use SATs results for anything really anyway.

www.google.com/amp/s/schoolsweek.co.uk/coronavirus-2-7m-cost-of-shredding-cancelled-sats-papers-revealed/amp/

Official SATs papers have been shredded.

I'm not sure how this is possible. The 2020 papers were shredded (at a high cost) and the content is being kept for future years. I'm not sure who they'll be using to externally mark them either.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/schoolsweek.co.uk/coronavirus-2-7m-cost-of-shredding-cancelled-sats-papers-revealed/amp/

Did they specifically say that they were the SATs which were missed? Dd is adamant that she did SATs early in yr 7 and there certainly was a day of yr 7 testing. Many at her school come from the private sector and the school like to have a baseline. It could be a typo carried over from previous years. Some schools use SATs for their initial setting/ streaming. I imagine that they will try to do some sort of testing, whether it is official government approved SATs is doubtful but maybe a past paper.

How to settle the kids in.
Poor things.
I’ve had a letter about a maths test for setting them in groups (apparently this is for GCSE). But nothing SATs wise. Mine was due todo hers and was set to do bloody well, so in one sense she would like to prove herself. In another it’s been 6 months without a proper education and school so I think it would be nothing but counterproductive

She won't have done official SATs in year 7. We have lots that come in without SATs. We do CATs and use that data for all. It's a morning of exams usually.

She says they weren't CATs, she has done both and these were definitely SATs, and labelled as such. Results were not shared with parents (although we did not ask as she had done SATs in primary).

“On return to the academy, KS3 students will undertake baseline tests in core subjects to identify gaps in learning and to allow the academy to target intervention accordingly. Students who join the academy in Year 7 will complete their SATs tests. These will be sent externally for marking by AET and will be returned to the academy electronically, with results shared by the academy with families. Curriculum catch up will be planned according to Question Level Analysis from baseline tests. “

Sounds like CAT tests rather than SAT

This is exactly the extract from our newsletter. Word for word.
I am starting to decipher now that AET is the Academy trust, so perhaps it is badly worded.
Also the “will complete their SATs” rather than will take assessment....

It sounds like an external company is offering a SATs service that the school has bought. Or it may be organised within the MAT.

I can see a logic with them trying to play catch up after this, especially secondary starters with a mixture of children from differing primary’s. The holes need filling, but they need to find them first.

However I’m not sure how good it will be for mental health.

My DC starting y7 will be tested by the school in a few weeks to see what group they should be in. But this was always going to happen. The school uses their own test to place them. But the school also has exams at the end of every term so the kids get used to them.

The AET is the MAT-it’s just them doing their own internal tests.

CAT tests measure verbal, non verbal and quantitative reasoning. SAT tests look at maths and English. Schools often test either in the summer before or soon after entry. It sounds like their normal procedure.