National Curriculum Tests

(asked on 19th April 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of the number of children that will complete their curriculum studies prior to the next round of Key Stage 2 SATs examinations.


Answered by
Robin Walker Portrait
Robin Walker
This question was answered on 25th April 2022

The final decision about entering individual pupils for the end of Key Stage 2 (KS2) assessments is for the pupil’s headteacher, as outlined in the department’s assessment and reporting arrangements guidance. If a pupil is working at the overall standard of a given test or assessment and is moving on to Key Stage 3 (KS3) in the following academic year, they should be entered for that particular test or assessment. This includes where they may not have covered all aspects of the curriculum in as much detail as would have been the case without the disruption over the last two years due to the pandemic.

If the headteacher decides that a pupil is working below the overall standard and should not be entered for the end of KS2 assessments, schools will still need to undertake an appropriate form of assessment using either the pre-key stage standard (for pupils engaged in subject specific study) or the engagement model (for pupils not engaged in subject specific study).

A key purpose of assessments this academic year is to gain an understanding of the impact of the pandemic, precisely because almost all children will have missed some time in education over the last two years. Headteachers will be best placed to judge if the absence of a pupil has been so significant that the pupil is not working at the overall standard as a result.

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