Today (Friday 18th March), school leaders’ union NAHT
publishes the results of a survey of its members on SATs in 2022.
The survey received more than 2,000 responses from school leaders
in England.
- Only 8% agreed that the results would provide meaningful data
about their school’s performance.
- Only 10% of respondents agreed that 2022 SATs data would be a
reliable indicator of children’s attainment or progress.
- Only 1% felt that KS1 SATs should go ahead as planned this
year, and only 3% felt KS2 SATs should go ahead as planned.
- Only 11% of survey respondents trust that Ofsted will not
draw conclusions based on SATs data alone and that they will not
draw comparisons with performance data from previous years.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT,
said: “Primary schools have experienced severe disruption due to
Covid this year – just as much as in 2020 and 2021. And that
disruption has not been felt evenly – some schools have been
harder hit by staff and pupil absences than others, meaning
children have had very different experiences of teaching and
learning.
“For that reason, the results of SATs this year really can’t be
compared, either with previous years or with other schools. There
is a real danger that the data from these tests could paint a
very misleading picture of an individual school’s performance and
lead to incorrect conclusions being drawn.
“Teachers don’t need SATs results to tell them about a pupil’s
progress. They are already constantly assessing that, and are
more aware than ever of what each child needs to help them
recover any lost learning from the pandemic. SATs are not
something teachers find valuable for assessment and are simply a
distraction during a time when there is still significant
disruption in schools.
“The week schools will need to spend putting children through
these tests could be far better spent focusing on teaching and
learning. That is particularly true this year given the time
pupils have already missed from school due to Covid.
“SATs are really used to assess schools more than pupils – but
the data from this year’s tests will be largely useless when it
comes to judging a school’s performance. If the government is
determined that SATs must go ahead, the data should only be used
at a national or local level, and not to draw conclusions about
the performance of individual schools.
“Although the government has told us that SATs data will be
treated with caution by inspectors, local authorities and
Regional Schools Commissioners, our members tell us that
they simply do not trust that this will really be the case. The
government needs to do a lot more to convince schools that SATs
should go ahead as planned and to rebuild the trust of the
profession.”
