What are SAT exams in England? How they are marked, and why they are sometimes controversial

• Students need to sit six SAT exams in English and maths at the end of their primary school careers.
• The results can help determine whether your child needs extra support as they head off to secondary school.
• They can also be an important factor in determining school league tables.
• Some are critical of the tests, which they say cause a lot of pressure on schools - and lead to pupils missing out on other types of learning.

Often the first major exams of a student’s life, the SATs can have a big impact on both schools and a child’s educational journey going forwards.

The SATs - or Standard Assessment Tests - are a series of exams sat by all English primary school students. The results for the 2023/24 school year have just been released to schools, meaning there won’t be long to go until parents find out how their child has done.

But what exactly do these tests measure, and what impact could they have on your child’s future? And why do some teachers have concerns about them? Here’s everything you need to know:

How do SAT exams work?

The SATs are compulsory exams sat by students at the end of the National Curriculum’s Key Stage 2. This stage covers students in Years 3, 4, 5 and 6, from ages 7 to 11. This means that students usually take these tests towards the end of Year 6 each year. This year’s tests, for example, took place from 13 to 16 May.

The exams only cover a few key topics, and students will sit six total over the course of a couple of days. These topics are: English grammar, punctuation and spelling (two papers); English reading (one paper); and mathematics (three papers - one on basic arithmetic and two on reasoning). They will take the tests at school, no more than two per day.

Children aren’t expected to do any special revision for the SATs, as it supposed to measure their understanding of key concepts they have been taught at school. Teachers are expected to prepare their students for the tests, and the government says that “children shouldn’t be made to feel any unnecessary pressure” over them.

This means that there really isn’t anything special parents need to do to prepare, although they are advised to follow any recommendations from the their school about supporting their child’s education throughout the year - and ahead of the tests. Some children, such as those with special education needs or disabilities, might be able to get an exemption from sitting them, so if this is something you are concerned about for your child, you should approach your school.

After they are done, the exam papers are sent away to be marked externally.

What do the results mean for your child or their school?

The SAT results are used to both help identify children who might be in need of more help before they start secondary school, and to measure a primary school’s teaching performance.

Parents will find out how their children did in a special report card sent out by the school before the end of the summer term. Children will be given a scaled score between 80 and 120 for each of the key subjects covered based on how many marks they achieved, as well as their teacher’s assessment on how they are doing in two additional subjects - writing and science.

For these grades, a number over 100 means your child is working at - or above - the expected standard for reading, grammar and spelling, or maths for their age group. A number under 100 means they are not, and that they may need more support.

This is the final year before many young people head off to secondary school, so these results can help identify children who will need extra help at their new school. It may also be a contributing factor into what stream (sometimes called a set) they are sorted into for classes. So while it can have some impact on the support they get in their education going forward, there are no negative consequences for children if they don’t score over 100.

The test results are, however, fairly significant for schools. This is because the results - namely, the overall percentage of children who have met the expected standards in English reading, grammar, and maths - are widely used to calculate league tables, which rank schools based on their performance. While results are not the be all and end all of what determines a good school, these league tables do sometimes influence factors like whether other parents want to send their child there in the future.

Why are the tests controversial?

Some teachers are concerned that the standardised nature of the SAT tests don’t paint an accurate picture of what children can really do, and instead put a lot of pressure on schools to make sure children perform well. The National Education Union - one of the UK’s biggest for teachers - has even called for the “unnecessarily high stakes” standardised government tests in primary schools to end altogether.

Its general secretary, Daniel Kebede, laid out some of their biggest concerns after the 2023/24 school year results were announced last week. “SATs place intense pressure on school communities. This pressure results in narrower curriculums and in teaching ‘to the test’. SATs prevent a rounded and engaging curriculum, and hinder learning.” He added that this way of teaching squeezed out other enjoyable parts of school life, like reading whole books, art, and outdoor learning.

The tests were designed for accountability rather than to support good teaching and learning, he said, and they were not “a useful or accurate way” of assessing what children could do at the end of their primary education. “We need a new approach that prioritises children’s learning and provides meaningful information to school staff and to parents.”

A lot of work had already gone into developing an alternative, Mr Kebede continued, and the union was pushing for the new government to “seize the opportunity to bring our assessment system into the 21st century” by working with educators. “Together, we can improve primary assessment so that the way we evaluate schools doesn’t narrow the curriculum on offer.”

If you’d like to learn more about the primary school testing system, the government’s Standards and Testing Agency has put together a page with information resources for parents. You can find it online here.