Are year 6 SAT results used to project GCSE results?

[Marypoppins19]

I think DS will do in ok in SATs but I also think he could make much more progress in Secondary school. Primary has been bumpy with changes of teachers, one sacked! He has suddenly grown up, found a bit more of a commitment to working hard - but probably all a bit late in the day for primary results.
How much will sats effect his secondary school journey?

There's no one answer, schools and individual children are different but in my own experience year 6 SATS results had absolutely nothing to do with how my DC did in GCSEs. I'm sure someone else will post with a different view which will be equally valid for their experience, you can't generalise

Mostly secondaries use their own CAT scores to set the initial GCSE target scores, as improbable as that sounds. A few use SAT scores but it's much less reliable as they've been taught to the test. You'll need to ask the school your son is going to.

In most schools sats results are used to plan sets, but schools will also do CAT tests on Year 7 pupils.

Dd is in Year 10 and her projected gcse results are partly based on sats results as well as on work she has done throughout school.

Yes the secondary school will use them to predict GCSE grades. But that doesn’t mean he can’t exceed predictions- in fact, his secondary school will be delighted if he does, cos progress!

Yes they do-it’s how the progress 8 is measured by the government-that’s not to say they don’t do their own tests for setting etc of course

His official gcse predicted grades will be based on the SATS results, as that is how secondary schools are judged - progress from end of ks2 to end of ks4. Whether these are the targets that he gets told depends on the way the school work, but they will always be the official targets.

My DS' secondary school totally disregarded SATs as they know children are coached for them. They sat another test (can't remember what it is called) in the first term of year 7.
I think the SATs results might have been part of the value added measure, but that counted in his favour and he was one of the top value added performers in his year ( but not the highest achiever).

I'd have thought Year 6 SATS had no bearing on anything. Bear in mind, OP, that children at prep schools are likely not to do SATS at all (none of mine did, though they did do Common Entrance/schools' own exam papers in Year 8). However, they all seem to fare reasonably well later on.

If your DS has discovered an interest in learning towards the end of Year 6, I would imagine that this will stand him in very good stead as he progresses throughout secondary school.

The school I work at does, yes.

So if you felt that your child had under performed, obviously you’d want to ensure the secondary pushed them to make excellerated progress not average progress? That’s my worry for him I guess. Getting stuck in a lower set and not them aspiring.

I think just for an initial indication. But most will assess again at secondary school.

My DC in year 8 is purely streamed on SATs, whereas his older brother (in the same school) was streamed on CAT and SATs. However, for both DC, there is movement in the streams at least once or twice a year depending on exam results, so theoretically, a child placed in the bottom set in yr 7 could end up in the top set over the course of time. This has happened to a few DC.

School would like an under performance as they can add loads to his VAM! Don’t forget they move around sets as necessary-indeed DD who is Yr10 is only set for maths and everything else is mixed ability, which I seriously don’t understand! There are children struggling and children bored who can do it all-I don’t know how that is the best teaching for either end of the spectrum or how a teacher manages that (IME they are not!)

Yes, DH teaches Business and has his classes' GCSE predictions set based on how they did in their maths and English SATs in Year 6! I am wondering if there will be a move away from this now Ofsted are focussing less on internal data.

It's a risk OP. Hopefully the school will recognise that he's 'better' than his SATS results and move him up to a better set, or they will do CATS tests at the start of yr7 which he can do well in, but there's no guarantee of that. It's one of the many reasons I don't like sets!

It just scares me you could be in a set for a year before being moved?! I was thinking they might termly adjust?

Are CATS very different to sats?

I am wondering if there will be a move away from this now Ofsted are focussing less on internal data

The KS2 SATS will likely be even more important, as the only data that will now be considered by ofsted is the amount of progress from the end of ks2 (so, SATS) to the end of ks4 (GCSE). Schools will be able to do whatever they like with cats tests, internal assessment etc, but ofsted won't look at that data.

Dd school they definitely set on sats. She’s year 8 in too low maths set due to sats result not reflecting her ability. Doesn’t seem to be much movement between sets. Sats seem to be very important though we were told otherwise by the school

Movement between sets can be hard. For someone to move up, someone else has to move down. If the child in the set above has a higher target (based on their SATS) the school needs to get that kid to their target, or they will have a negative progress score. So the school will be unlikely to move a child with a higher target down a set in order to move a child with a lower target up.

At my dcs'school they use the sats scores to initially set the eventual target. They then do their own tests for streaming in some subjects after Xmas. As they go through school they get targets for the end of the year which to begin with are in line with what their eventual target taken from the sats are. However those end of the year are adjusted according to how they're doing. So if a pupil is doing better than their target for that year by Xmas or Easter they just give them a higher target to reach. By the end the headline figure is whether or not they've met the target set in yr 7 for govt collation purposes. However most of them will in practice be working to different actual targets depending on their progress through school. And although they are streamed, the streams are flexible. So there is actually quite a lot of movement both in terms of targets and setting. By the time they're a couple of years in, how they did in their sats has no bearing on what happens with them and it only resurfaces again for statistics purposes after GCSE results.

That should say those end of year targets

I can totally imagine that 😭

You really need to ask the school itself as from reading what others are saying it works differently in different places.

HaroldsSocalledBluetits - well that’s a lot more reassuring.

I’m going to need to really work with the school to get the best for DS