Y6 SATs cancelled - implications for secondary?

[noblegiraffe]

I’ve just looked in the primary section and can’t see anything about this - obviously GCSEs and A-levels have taken priority in terms of information given. What is happening about Y6 SATs? I know that they’re not happening, but I’ve also heard that teachers aren’t going to be doing a teacher assessment? When there was the SATs boycott a few years ago, we had FFTs generated from teacher assessment.
Since then Progress 8 has been introduced.

A lot is based on KS2 SATs data, is this being discussed somewhere I’ve not seen?

My thoughts are purely speculation but if we reach a stage where partial reopening of schools is considered safe, I'm expecting Y10 and Y12 to be the first year groups back (because they're easy to keep apart and in an almost empty school it would be possible to spread them out and have teachers beamed into multiple classrooms). I wouldn't be surprised if Y6 attended their secondary schools for a couple of weeks, even if only for half days. It would ensure some sort of transition, they won't hang out with the older students and I reckon the DfE would quickly find an opportunity to get secondary schools to run some baseline tests a la KS2 tests or a nationally imposed CATS type thing. I just can't seeing the government being ok about not tracking the Y6 cohort through KS3/4.

Not all schools use SATs for setting so I guess those schools will continue with their normal setting procedures.

Dd didn't have SATs. Her primary didn't do them. Her friends who went into state schools all had gcse predications so it's definitely possible without. DD's independent secondary did their own internal tests to set children, and information from the primaries. She always had gcse predictions to so guess they were determine using another form of assessment during year 7.

It’s an interesting conundrum.
I don’t take much notice of sats for my teaching but the data is so extensively used for accountability. I can’t believe that they wouldn’t find another way to track this cohort.
I suspect if schools are back properly in September they will do some sort of external exams then. Poor kids

I believe that when progress 8 is calculated (under normal circumstances) any students who do not have ks2 sats data are excluded from the calculations.
I may be wrong about that - does anyone know?
We’ve always joked that those students don’t count and there’s no point teaching them because we can’t use their data for our performance management!
Maybe we could just write off a year?

She always had gcse predictions to so guess they were determine using another form of assessment

Schools are free to set their own internal targets however they wish. However, their actual targets come from FFT and are the measure by which the secondary school is held to account. This often means that it is the one that the secondary school pays the most attention to.

Any students who do not have ks2 sats data are excluded from the calculations.
I may be wrong about that

This is correct. Unfortunately, although it's something joked about, some schools do genuinely make decisions about additional support, "pushing on" groups, focus children, etc. based on these targets and so those without them can end up missing out because their progress doesn't contribute to the whole school's progress.

Cuckoo my Y8 dc didn't receive her SATS results (whole year group annulled) and that did cause a problem with her being set very low targets.

Although the info sent from her primary was 'exceeding expectations' in maths, English and writing, this doesn't feed into progress 8 spreadsheets/flightpaths etc.

I spent Y7 parents evening explaining to each teacher why her target grades were so low and asking what I could do about this.

Eventually, they were amended in Y8 using the reading age assessment they did at the beginning of Y7.

Not a perfect tool, but better for my dc than having extremely low targets.

I also suspect there will be some sort of national test set at the beginning of the autumn term to generate data to 'show progress' with.

We mainly use progress 8 as a measure of disadvantage gap. Really not sure what will happen

Really interested in this.

We usually set from SATs and then using internal assessment data part way through the term.

No idea what we will do now. It'll be my job to decide.....

Do you think herc, for your first term lessons could all be in tutor groups, then do your internal assessments? Would be a term of more extended differentiation for your teachers, I suppose.

As a Y6 teacher, I could tell you a fairly accurate prediction of what mine would get in the SATs - could you produce a spreadsheet to send to your feeder schools to fill in? One of our local secondaries has a bastard of a spreadsheet we have to fill in - it's the only school we don't meet a Y7 rep from (it's a big school - they'd never have the time).

Those are both great ideas.

I think a term of mixed ability Maths could work really well if implemented properly. I worry that it will be another term wasted for our weakest pupils. I also fear that we have a few second subject maths teachers who would struggle to differentiate very well. I am hopeful students might be back in y6 before the end of the year so we may be able to use that time.