By Sheila Mckenzie-
Headteachers’ unions are “deeply concerned” over emerging school leader reports that key stage 2 Sats papers have gone missing.
School leaders have raised concerns over “missing papers” since results were published yesterday, and have also suggested that papers were assigned to the wrong pupils.
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The alarm follows reports that academic standards in primary schools in the Uk dropped, due to the pandemic, setting primary school pupils back as they prepare to start secondary school in September. The stated drop is relative, and not significant enough to have a serious impact on the overall future of the exiting primary school pupils as they prepare for the step up to secondary school.
Fifty-nine per cent of pupils achieved the government’s “expected standard” in reading, writing and maths in this year’s key stage 2 SATs, down from 65 per cent in 2019 and the lowest since 2016.
Interim results published by the government revealed that the proportion of pupils reaching a scaled score of 100 or more fell in every other subject, except reading, where it rose by 1 percentage point from 73 to 74 per cent.
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In maths, the proportion of pupils who met the expected standard fell from 79 per cent in 2019 to 71 per cent this year. And the proportion reaching the standard in writing fell from 78 per cent to 69 per cent. Despite the drop in standards, the overall performance remained relatively high, making it probable that this set of pupils had simply not done as well as the previous set, and the pandemic may not have played as serious a role as has been concluded.
But with the pandemic a known factor to have affected the performance of a number of pupils, it has been an obvious source of blame for the decline in standards this year.
In grammar, punctuation and spelling, the proportion meeting the expected standard fell from 78 per cent to 72 per cent, whilst 79 per cent of pupils met the threshold in science, down from 83 per cent in 2019.
SATs key stage 2
The drop follows two years of disruption to education, and represents the results of the first formal tests sat by primary pupils in three years. The government said attainment was “not directly comparable” with 2016 and 2017 because of a change to writing tests.
It leaves the government even further away from its recent white paper and levelling up target for 90 per cent of children by 2030 leaving primary school with the expected standard in reading, writing and maths.
Schools minister Robin Walker said the drop in overall achievement in reading, writing and maths was “disappointing”, but “expected due to the impact of the pandemic”.
He said the rise in reading attainment, coming “despite the disruption of Covid”, was a “tribute to the hard work and dedication of our teachers, pupils and parents”.
“Attainment in maths and in writing, however, are disappointing, but not unexpected.”
Walker said the government would be working to “understand the detail beneath these figures”, and more statistics in September would include breakdowns by region, local authority area and pupil characteristics.
He also defended the move to hold SATs this year without adaptations, “so that we can have a consistent measure of attainment before and after the pandemic”.
No school-level key stage 2 data will be published in school league tables, but it will be shared with schools trusts and councils to “inform school improvement and support school leaders”.
“We will ensure clear messages are placed alongside any data shared to advise caution
James Bowen, director of policy at the NAHT, has said the union is “deeply concerned about the
He said the union had contacted the Standards and Testing Agency (STA) to find out more about “how widespread a problem” this was.
Mr Bowen said there are usually some issues with Sats papers, “but it would appear from reports that something very different is going on this year”.
He said the reports of missing papers were “another concern with how the infrastructure has been run this year” around Sats.
“It does raise some pretty serious questions about the administration of Sats this year, which seems to have been beset with problems,” he added.
Yesterday’s KS2 Sats results revealed a “disappointing” fall in attainment compared with pre-pandemic levels, with the biggest drop being seen in writing.
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