My child may need more time for their SATs test than other children. Is this possible?

Learning difficulties are much more widely diagnosed these days. Historically for instance those with Dyslexia would have to have it pretty badly to be diagnosed and even then they may not have been given more time. These days there’s a greater understanding of the types of difficulty children can have and tests which can give a good guide to how much they are affected. So for instance one child with a small level of learning difficulty may get a little more time and another may get more time and a scribe because their difficulty is greater.

Individual schools and councils have their own policies about what allowances are given for learning difficulties and they will have assessed children in advance. As this is something which is often decided on a school by school basis we’d recommend you raise it with your school if you have a query prior to the SATs test day.

The SATs tests don’t need to be hard or scary though if plenty of preparation is done for them. Visit our Preparation Guides and Books page to find the best available resources to help with this.