Parents of children starting Year 6 in September must look ahead to SATS. Just as GCSE results come out, for celebration or sympathy, parents of younger pupils starting their final year of primary school in a few days’ time feel they should look ahead to SATS in May!
SATS. week for Year 6 pupils next year take place Monday – Thursday 14th – 17th May 2018.
SATS kids worked harder than ever this year: – what will the future hold?
The results of this year’s’10 and 11 year olds have reflected the tougher 2016 Standards and Assessment Agency tests. Schools had the option of formally testing grammar, punctuation and spelling – there was no choice about any of the other changes.(Teachers assess the children’s writing skills without a set test.) The government decided we were expecting “too little” from our youngsters, and that this was holding them back in later learning. Education chiefs also ruled that the old grading levels should go.
As the BBC reported:
Up until last year, Sats tests were graded on levels – for example Level 4 was the expected level for children finishing primary school. But these national curriculum levels have now been scrapped.
Instead, parents will be given their child’s raw score (the actual number of marks they get) and told whether they have reached the national average.
So what else is new? So far, the government says that the 2016 SATS were a pilot scheme for 2017. In these uncertain times, though, it could pay to keep a watching brief on the government’s own website.