How are KS1 SATs results used?

While these results are used to contribute to an individual school’s performance ranking, they are not always used by the schools themselves.

There’s a great deal of controversy surrounding KS1 SATs and they may be stopped in future. Schools think they it is inappropriate to test children too early.  We’d agree simply because when children are born in their year and how their home life has developed their maturity is very different at this age from child to child.  As just one example, first children or only children will have developed markedly differently from those with older brothers and sisters.  Those who are more advanced in their reading will look like they are light years ahead of their peers (but this may turn out to be a false position).

Where schools do use SATs they are often used to confirm an individual teacher’s assessment. Where a teacher’s assessment differs from the SATs results then this can sometimes cause interesting debate.

One example of this would be where you have a quiet child who seems be ticking along but doesn’t contribute much in class and the SATS reveal actually they are one of the best in the class and not in the middle ranking position that had previously been assumed.

Another might be the example of a child who is boisterous and perhaps a little disruptive who manages to settle down for the test and actually does remarkably well.

In both these case those children might be looked on in a slightly different light and perhaps moved up to top tables in year three where they can improve their performance more quickly.

If you have a child sitting the KS1 SATs test soon, then visit our KS1 Year 2 SATs Papers page for FREE papers to help with preparation.