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Important update from TheSchoolRun

For the past 13 years, TheSchoolRun has been run by a small team of mums working from home, dedicated to providing quality educational resources to primary school parents. Unfortunately, rising supplier costs and falling revenue have made it impossible for us to continue operating, and we’ve had to make the difficult decision to close. The good news: We’ve arranged for another educational provider to take over many of our resources. These will be hosted on a new portal, where the content will be updated and expanded to support your child’s learning.

What this means for subscribers:

  • Your subscription is still active, and for now, you can keep using the website as normal — just log in with your usual details to access all our articles and resources*.
  • In a few months, all resources will move to the new portal. You’ll continue to have access there until your subscription ends. We’ll send you full details nearer the time.
  • As a thank you for your support, we’ll also be sending you 16 primary school eBooks (worth £108.84) to download and keep.

A few changes to be aware of:

  • The Learning Journey weekly email has ended, but your child’s plan will still be updated on your dashboard each Monday. Just log in to see the recommended worksheets.
  • The 11+ weekly emails have now ended. We sent you all the remaining emails in the series at the end of March — please check your inbox (and spam folder) if you haven’t seen them. You can also follow the full programme here: 11+ Learning Journey.

If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected]. Thank you for being part of our journey it’s been a privilege to support your family’s learning.

*If you need to reset your password, it will still work as usual. Please check your spam folder if the reset email doesn’t appear in your inbox.

8 common questions about SATs answered

Children putting their hands up in class
Get ready for SATs with our guide to everything you need to know about the Year 2 and Year 6 assessments.

Despite all the information you’ll receive from your child's teacher, SATs can still seem baffling. Here are the answers to your key questions.

1. What are SATs for?

SATs help teachers – and you – learn more about your child's strengths and weaknesses. Teachers can compare how well each child is doing with their peers, both in their school and across the country. They can also measure how much each child improves from one Key Stage to another and are used to predict the likelihood of children achieving specific results in their GCSEs. 
 
In addition, headteachers, local authorities and the Department for Education use the results to help identify schools that are struggling and, if a school is doing really well, it can share what it's doing right with other schools.

Our parents' guide to what SATs results are used for covers this topic in more detail.

2. Does my child have to take SATs?

In England, the tests are optional for all seven year olds and compulsory for all 11 year olds. SATs in Key Stage 3 were abolished in 2008. 

The baseline assessment for Reception pupils has been introduced and KS2 SATs (in Year 6) will not be affected.

3. What do the tests involve?

Children are tested on what they have been learning at school.

At Key Stage 1 (Year 2), if your school decides to administer the KS1 SATs, your child will take official SATs in reading and maths. They will also be assessed by their teacher (known as the teacher assessment) on speaking and listening, writing and science.

At Key Stage 2 (Year 6), SATs are compulsory and cover English reading, English grammar, punctuation and spelling, and maths. Other subjects, including writing, speaking and listening and science, are teacher assessed.

Teacher assessment can help to judge children's performance in a subject over a longer period of time. The results of teacher assessment are equally important, as a teacher may feel your child is doing better in a subject as a whole than in the parts of it covered by a test.

4. How will my child be helped to prepare?

Teachers use past papers as practice papers so children can practise the kind of questions they may need to answer in a test environment. This will help your child feel more comfortable with exams. They will also do lots of practice of the skills they need to do well in the test, such as spelling and times tables.

5. So why do SATs seem so stressful?

Some children do become stressed over the tests but they don’t involve a pass or fail, they just reflect how well the child has understood what they're learning at school. The more relaxed you are, the better your child will be able to tackle the test. So don’t make a big thing of it at home. 

6. What level should my child achieve in their SATs?

Children are expected to reach the national standard in both Year 2 and Year 6. This is a particular score that reflects where the Department for Education thinks children should be by that stage of their education.

The national standard score for KS1 SATs and KS2 SATs is 100. In 2017, 61 per cent of children reached it in all subjects.

For more details of SATs results in KS1 and KS2 read our parents' guide.

7. When will I know the results?

Towards the end of the summer term you will be given a report telling you your child's raw score (the actual number of marks they got in their SATs), their scaled score (a conversion score that allows results to be compared year on year) and whether or not they have achieved the national standard. Teacher assessments will also be used to build up a picture of your child’s learning and achievements.

Individual schools communicate SATs results to parents in different ways, so it is possible that (particularly at KS1) you won't get your child's actual SATs scores unless you ask for them.

8. What does all the SATs jargon mean?

Here are some common phrases your child’s teacher might use decoded:
 
  • SATs: Short for Standard Assessment Tests
  • National curriculum tests: The real name for SATs, but many people still refer to them as SATs
  • Raw score: the number of marks your child gets on the tests
  • Scaled score: a converted score that allows overall SATs results to be compared from one year to the next
  • National standard: the level that children are expected to reach (set at 100 for both KS1 and KS2 SATs)
  • Age-standardised test scores: refers to the system used to inform parents how their child did compared with other children born in the same month