KS2 SAT tests
Tests
During SATS week, the children will complete six tests.
These are:
Tuesday 9th May
- Vocabulary, Grammar and Punctuation (45 mins)
- Spelling (15 mins)
Wednesday 10th May
- Reading Comprehension (1 hour)
Thursday 11th May
- Maths Arithmetic Paper 1 ( 30 mins)
- Maths Reasoning Paper 2 (40 mins)
Friday 12th May
- Maths Reasoning Paper 3 (40 mins)
All papers have a national standard of achievement. The children are given a scaled score from 80 to 120.
100 is the expected level of achievement.
Below 100 is considered working towards the expected level of achievement.
Above 110 is considered working at greater depth in that subject area.
KS2 SATS are marked by an external examiner and the results are returned to school in the first two weeks of July.
Access to the tests:
Access arrangements will be used for children who have:
- Difficulty reading
- Difficulty writing
- Difficulty concentrating
- Processing difficulties
- A hearing impairment
- A visual impairment
- English as an additional language
Children can sometimes have an additional 25% time allowance for their tests if sufficient evidence is approved by the Standards and Testing Agency. Schools have to submit this in advance. If a child has an EHCP, they automatically are given the additional time allowance.
Other types of access arrangements can be through providing readers, scribes, adults to use transcripts and rest breaks. Once again, these arrangements must be applied for in advance of the tests.
Teacher Assessment
Teacher assessment is based on a wide range of evidence from children's written, oral and practical classroom work. It is carried out as part of teaching and learning.
Teachers will submit teacher assessment judgements for Reading and Mathematics alongside the test results.
For writing and science, the main form of assessment is through classroom assessment.
In science, children will be assessed on their ability to work scientifically and on their understanding of the content of the curriculum. They will be given a judgement of expected or working towards standard for KS2.
In writing, children will produce a portfolio of about 6 pieces of work across different genres e.g narrative, explanation, information etc. it must be independent and produced without electronic aids that correct spelling or punctuation.
Writing is scrutinised using a set of criteria to meet the expected standard. If a child is not performing at the expected standard, they will be awarded working towards the expected standard. If a child is performing above expected standard, they may be awarded greater depth standard.
Writing assessment is shared across different primary schools and teachers attend moderation workshops to ensure consistency of judgements.
Teacher assessment data is submitted by 28th June.
Support for SATS
Support at school:
Children will be practising past papers in school and these will be used to check for areas of development needed. Teaching will be reviewed regularly through continuous assessment. For example, in arithmetic, the children will complete a practise assessment and the questions indicated as incorrect will form the basis of the next week of mental maths teaching.
Intervention groups are used in terms 3 and 4 to focus on areas identified by teachers when completing gap analysis. Some 1-1 teaching is offered for children in receipt of Pupil Premium or on the SEND register.
Regular practice of SATS questions.
Support at home:
- Boost confidence through lots of encouragement especially in tricky areas of maths or spelling.
- Focus on the gaps in knowledge and provide practice in these areas.
- Use online games to make the revision activities more exciting and engaging.
- Read books together and discuss the texts. Draw attention to new words and look them up to find out the meanings. This will help writing development too.
- Unpick mistakes and help your child to realise that mistakes are the first attempt in the learning.
- Use revision cards or posters for topics e.g spellings, uses of punctuation marks, rules for arithmetic or methods, vocabulary definitions.
- Some parents report that using SATS activity books from a variety of publishers help to focus activity time at home.
- Over the weekends in the run up to SATS, try to avoid too many revision activities. Keep things relaxed.
- School will tell the children that SATS are important but they are not something to stress about and worry about. They are not the be-all and end-all.