SATS

The first time you hear the word SATs mentioned will likely be when your child enters Year Two, which is the end of Key Stage One. 

SATs are a series of assessments in Mathematics and English, carried out in two stages during your child’s primary education.  Key Stage One SATs consist of formal assessments in maths and reading that take around 3 hours in total to complete, plus informal assessments in science that take place throughout the year.  However, SATs are just one aspect of the KS1 assessment process. Your child's teacher will be taking all their work in Years One and Two into consideration in order to build a full, accurate picture of how well your child is doing. The full, teacher-assessment report about your child's progress in Maths, English Reading, English Writing and Science should be sent to you by the end of the summer term.

As soon as the word ‘test’ pops up, it can set off the parental panic button! Try to think of Key Stage One SATs as evaluations rather than tests - they are not designed to be passed or failed, and they gauge what level your child has reached rather than whether or not they meet the standards set in the test. It’s another way to highlight where your child is doing well, and where they might need extra help.

Whether SATs are the best method for assessing learning and teaching has been a question for some time, but for the moment the tests remain.  They are due to be phased out by 2023.

The key to making SATs less stressful for your child is not to panic yourself, as this will put your child under enormous stress and this makes is very difficult for a child to learn.  Our children are well prepared for SATs throughout their time at Brook Infant School due to our approach of learning through love and laughter.  This is because by learning through our active and hands on approach, the children’s learning deepens and they are more fully prepared for challenges.

There are lots of commercially published materials and a number of good websites to support learning in general, but remember our children work very hard at school and any extra work they are given should be in moderation.

We have uploaded the 2019 SATs papers to our website so that you can see what the children are asked to do.  However, please be assured that we do everything we can to prepare the children.