How did your year 6 find the reading SAT today?

[Thingsthatgo]

My DS did well in all his SAT practice papers, but said the reading paper today was tough.

No, they are spread over four days. It would ordinarily be Monday - Thursday but the extra bank holiday delayed everything this year.

This year they did spelling and punctuation and grammar paper Tuesday, reading Wednesday, arithmetic and reasoning one on Thursday and reasoning 2 on Friday. No idea if the order if the same each year though as DD is my eldest.

Well that explains why so many have reported students not even getting through the whole paper!

Interesting re the comments in the TES. Makes you wonder how those managing to actually finish the paper could give the detailed responses they're often looking for in the answers!

I think there’s another side to all this. We’ve become used to sloppy standards, a culture of everyone being a winner and the slightest achievement being celebrated. Life isn’t like that. It’s also too easy for teachers to say the tests were too hard, rather than admit that the curriculum hasn’t been covered effectively. Who knows?

One of mine seemed quite nonplussed by the tests this week, said they finished the papers and had time to check the maths papers through at least. English was long but the first I heard about any controversy around the difficulty of the paper was on here. They’d practiced a few past papers in school, we’d talked through exam skills at home (have a guess if you don’t know, move to the next question if you’re stuck etc). All children should have been taught to allow 20 minutes for each section of the reading paper - if they haven’t then they will have struggled.

Past papers were easily accessible online. It is what it is. Can’t say I 100% agree with testing 10-11 year olds to the extent they’re having mental health issues, but that’s in part down to the attitude of the school and parental pressure/not. I told mine that the SATs were to test the school and not them, which is essentially what they are for.

It’s weird…I asked the year 6 TA if they’d found the reading test hard,as I’d read that it was really hard, and she said no, they thought it wasn’t too bad,- but they have been working really hard on reading comprehension. There wasn’t any melt-downs . They found the maths papers a bit hard though!

Sorry for the bad grammar and repeated use of “really hard!” Must read through before I post! Shocking!

They've published the reading paper if anyone wanted to take a look https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/key-stage-2-tests-2023-english-reading-test-materials

Thanks for letting us know. @miccoops I am surprised how quickly!

I have to say, after having a look through, I do not think these were that difficult. Sure there each reading had 1 or 2 difficult questions, but that is the purpose, to challenge some. The only thing I thought, was perhaps they could have been giving a few more minutes so less panic with the test! Esp since its one of the longer reading texts compared to past years. Curious on other people's thoughts after looking at the readings/questions?

I agree - I saw an article yesterday showing the ones that were supposedly the most challenging and thought they were fine - clearer and less ambiguous than some my DD had in practice papers, and not especially difficult. But it would have been a lot of text to read for some.
I suspect the media attention was planned before the paper was even out.

Having said that, I don't like the SATs and do think they should be made much more low-key for the children, if they must keep them.

The main problem with it was the duration, and the lack of accessibility for the lower end, both in terms of the questions and in terms of the topics. But lower ability children from deprived backgrounds are always let down by the middle class educational establishment, so it’s nothing new really!

I don’t think any question was that difficult on its own. Some were a little obtusely worded but they always are.

The difficulty comes from having to answer question after question with only around 30 seconds per mark - which includes the time to find the appropriate part of the text, re-read that part, think about your answer and write it down.

That is what turns perfectly appropriate questions into an absolute marathon.

The arithmetic is the same. A few years ago you would have some times tables, a x by 0, a divide by 1…quick and easy wins in a timed test. Now those are replaced by several questions involving long division or multiplication…processes which just take time however confident a mathematician you are.

@Hollyhead

Just curious to know (genuinely), what kind of topics would be more accessible to children from deprived backgrounds?

@Legomania things they might feasibly have encountered in real life. So I don’t think all the topics should necessarily fit that, but at least one of the reading tasks should be relatable to as many children as possible - something about TV, football, sports competitions, food, playing in the park, staying overnight somewhere, pets etc. it’s not about specific ‘deprived’ topics, just things that will have some familiarity to as many as possible. I don’t think that sheep rustling or a niche bat event ticks either of these boxes!

I’m not sure sheep rustling or a bat event have been encountered by many children!
but isn’t that the point of reading… it can open up a world of experiences you might not otherwise encounter?
To be honest, I’m fed up of things being dumbed down for the bottom 20%. I think the text subjects were appropriate, but too long for the time given. And please, NOT football! At a school I taught at many years ago (very deprived area), it was a bit of a running joke amongst the children that there would be some form of football theme. Funnily enough, not everyone was enthused by football.

In the 3 schools I have links with, there is so much focus and resource spent on the bottom 20%… I actually think it’s ok in a test situation like this to allow the true high achievers to shine.

Even to the point low/middle achievers won’t be able to demonstrate the full extent of their ability? Because at 11 I think their confidence is more important. Ok so maybe football was a cliche, but I do think 1 out of the 3 texts should be as universal and accessible as possible.

Y6 teachers are used to SATs. Nobody likes them but they get on and do them. If they say this one was unusually hard, there's a reason for it. Everyone I've spoken to says the maths and spag were fair (although spellings tricky) but the reading paper was unusually challenging. Children who have done lots and lots of practice papers without issue were upset at how challenging they found it.

But of course some people will do anything to go on about whinging teachers.

@lavenderlou i couldn’t agree more . I think they needed more time to read the text , my DS found he had to rush though it

My year 6 class found the paper fine- they actually came out asking if we could find out where the last extract was taken from so we could read the book together. I have a good mix of ability in my class so certainly not ‘the elite’ as the media portrays. They have all had a wealth of literature in the last few years as our school really focuses on reading- not testing! No tears, no stress, no child was upset at all. Teachers do have to take a look at what they are doing if their children cannot manage that paper.

Yes, agreed. My dd said her class was all fine the whole week of SATs. No one was upset. I took at look at the text after and questions when it became available online. I thought it looked appropriate. Perhaps they could have been given a few more minutes so less stress, but again my dd said she finished it and it was not a problem for her class.

Update - Nick Gibb said last month that the resting test was comparable to past reading tests.

YET - the ‘pass mark’ dropped by 5 MARKS (unheard of) AND the national % reaching the standard in reading still dropped by 2%.

Funny that! All those explaining that, yes, it's was tricky, lengthy and inaccessible to many being told that it was fine and stop moaning! We have plenty of Greater depth so the higher ability clearly could access it relatively easily but lots missed expected by 1-5 marks and they were the ones that didn't finish.

No results here yet. But I'm expecting lower within greater depth. She was 113 at ks1. And had been comfortably getting GD on practise papers.
The effect will be uneven as if they didn't finish -she didn't she may have straight off lost 3 marks.
It will be clear on the papers if lots missed the last questions. Tbh the gov should probably have voided the last question. As it wasn't meant to be a speed test.
Or if it was then everyone should know that and practise the technique of moving on...

Our secondary don't set for reading so if this happened in maths it would be worse.
Plus it sounds like the TA is passed on rather than sats marks as they don't have them till really late

We've not had the results yet, I am over stressing about it. It will be interesting to see how my DD1 performed, she's been consistently GD for reading throughout primary and scored 118 in mocks.