How do SAT test for primary schools work?

[Pennies]

I am in the proces of trying to select a schol for my dd's and I want to compare SAT results. Can someone explain how they work please?

TIA.

I was a teacher in a past life and I would recommend that you visit all the schools instead and get a feel for them as SATs results don't tell a reliable story in my opinion. Some teachers just teach to the tests and cram the children, which wouldn't be the type of schooling I would want my LO to receive. Also they don't look at the progress children have made, for example in a school in a more well off area many of the children are going to be acheiving more when they first start school so that their improvement might not be as much as in a poorer area where the school may have lower results but the children have improved themselves much more. Another thing you can look at to find out about schools are the Ofsted inspection reports, which you can find on the internet. These again can be unreliable, but they do look into more things than just acedemic achievement.

Hope that helps, let me know if I can help you with anything though, I'll try and remember how the results tables work when I get a minute, all I can remember at the mo is that Level 2 is what the government would like the majority of children leaving infants to be achieving and level 4 is a good achievement when leaving primary school in year 6 (level 5 would be considered excellent!) although it is over 3 years since I taught so thats assuming they haven't changed it since then!

SATS are tests for 7 year olds and 11 year olds. They are taken by all children to assess their level of achievement in numeracy, literacy and science. When choosing a school, you can check SATS on the Ofsted and County council websites and compare them to the county average and national average. At 7, pupils doing very well will be reaching level 3.

Remember though, that these are tests and not all children perform well in this environment. There is also no recognition of creative achievement eg. art and design, music etc. when looking at these.

Hope this is helpful.

I don't think that at KS1 they sit the tests any more, it's just teacher assessment. But I could be wrong.

I would also check what proportion of pupils are privately tutored (eg for 11+/entrance exams). We have a local state school with very good stat results, but over a third of pupils are tutored in at least one subject from Year 3.

If you do want to look at the SATs though, I would recommend that you compare the Average Point Score as well as just the %age of pupils getting the basic target (eg Level 4 at 11). An Average Point Score of say 30 or more would indicate that over half the pupils are getting Level 5 at Year 6.

I'm with sparkymum, SATs tell you very little about a school, the only way you can decide is to go and look round. Did your dds go to nursery? If so, use the same method you employed to choose a nursery. If you do want to use SATs results as part of your decision making process, look for a school that has 75%+ level 4 and above for all subjects at KS2 (age7-11). Think SATs are still done at KS1 but are administered very differently to KS2.

I would agree sats tell you very little about how the school encourages and cares for children. I have very recently heard (secondhand)that brighter kids are not being encouraged and pushed because to push them along would mean spending time with them, when they are doing ok really so why bother? Instead the kids who are struggling get the attention. Plus if they are pushed and encouraged and moved along at the childs pace, that may affect the Value Added scores, so is frowned on too. All so the overall sats look good. Whilst i appreciate that the struggling kids need help, what about the others who will become bored and switched off, and maybe lead to problems in the future? I hadnt even thought of that and my main reason for choosing the school DS is at was the results.....So now i know that SATS are not everything. I am getting more and more concerned about the state education system, now my son is in it i can see it for what it is a lot of the time, number crunching to suit the governments targets. His teachers are nice but bound by the system, and probably just as frustrated as a lot of the parents are! So I would say the overall ofsted report is a good place to start too. Talking to other parents helps!