SATs are over! Let summer begin…but beware!

SATs are over. For Year 6 children at least, the pressure is off – for now. But their education journey is entering a critical stage, at the end of which will be public exams leading to their first qualifications at the age of sixteen.

Over the years, Keystage 2 SATs have taken on an importance leading to much stress for the children taking them and their teachers.

SATs are really about holding the schools to account for the progress their pupils make and the standards they reach. They do not affect the choice of school, unlike the old 11+, so why do the children taking them get so stressed?

Keystage 2 SATs are the first formal tests primary children will have encountered. Yes, SATs are being brought back into Keystage 1 (the end of the infant years), but their assessments are delivered more informally. For 11 year olds, they will enter an exam room, be seated in rows and will have their assessments taken under exam conditions. I am sure we all remember that feeling! For most of us, even if very bright, it will have been stressful.

Then there has been the preparation: months of past papers and schools days full of teaching to the test. For those not quite up to the grade many will have been withdrawn from class for SATs boosters. These may improve their final marks, but the disadvantage is that they are likely to take place during more enjoyable aspects of the curriculum.

Some children may even have had booster lessons before and after school. All will have had increasing amounts of homework.

Now SATs are over, children and teachers alike will have little left in the tank and, quite likely, not much appetite for the staples of maths, reading and writing. It is a very uneven learning journey.

Children should not take their eye off the ball. Their path through school still has a long way to go.

Most high schools will test their new Year 7 intake sometime after starting. Secondary education marks the beginning of a new and very important phase with GCSEs and other real qualifications at the end of it.

I hope our primary school leavers enjoy the summer. Relax and recharge. You have earned it.

David Kaye is the Centre Director for Kip McGrath Education Centres Sheffield North in Ecclesfield and is a former headteacher with 25 years’ experience in South and West Yorkshire.