Commenting on the publication of Key Stage 2 SATs
results, Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association
of School and College Leaders, said:
“Congratulations to schools, teachers and pupils on this set of
Key Stage 2 results and the huge efforts that have gone into
addressing the disruptive impact of the pandemic on learning.
“It is hardly surprising the percentage of pupils meeting the
expected standard in reading, writing and maths is lower than it
was before the pandemic. It illustrates the very difficult
circumstances affecting schools and pupils over the past two
years, and it is to their immense credit that, within this
overall statistic, reading attainment has actually increased
despite the disruption of Covid.
“The fact that maths and writing are down is very likely to
reflect the huge importance of direct classroom teaching in these
subjects – which has, of course, been heavily disrupted.
“These statistics also show how far we will need to go to achieve
the government’s target of 90% of pupils meeting the expected
standard in reading, writing and maths by 2030. It is clear that
this will require substantial investment in schools and the
teaching workforce to enable them to deliver specialised support
to the children who need extra help. However, the government’s
plans contain no additional resources so it is hard to see how
this can possibly be achieved.
“It is also clear that the pandemic has affected schools to
widely varying extents and in this context we have urged the
government not to use these results to compare schools. It has
agreed not to publish performance league tables but it has
nevertheless insisted upon supplying school-level results to
Ofsted as part of the inspection process. We do not think it can
possibly be fair to judge schools on this basis as it is a
judgement that could be based more on the impact of the pandemic
than it is on the performance of the school.”
