Throughout the education system, students will often be given a range of different tests to sit. These can range from little quizzes in the lower years to full on exams when students become older. Younger years are often given smaller tests, which are lower stakes. For example, I can never forget the spelling tests I had to sit at the end of every week in Year 1! However, in Year 2, students are known to have to sit a set of SATs which can be seen as relatively high stakes. There is often confusion in regard to how important these SATs exams are. After all, they are not as well-known as the SATs students take in Year 6!
If you want to discover how important the Year 2 SATs are and how they will impact your child in the future, check out the rest of this article!
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Why are Year 2 SATs seen as important?
SATs can be seen as important because seeing how each child is progressing through school can help teachers identify which students need extra support. This means that children who are struggling will be given the extra help they need in order to be successful in school.
You can check out this article from Twinkl to find out about this and discover more about what each child is assessed on.
The types of skills the students are assessed on are especially chosen, as maths and English are the core subjects, which are imperative to all stages of education.
SATs are also important to schools. This is because they can be used as indicators to show how well the teachers are performing as a whole. Therefore, Year 2 SATs are seen as important for measuring both schools and students’ attainment.
Are Year 2 SATs important for students?
Even though Year 2 SATs may not be seen as important as Year 6 SATs, as they don’t affect secondary school subject sets, they are still useful. This is because, as already mentioned, SATs are primarily used to identify each child’s academic strengths and weaknesses.
If a child’s weakness in academics is identified earlier on, it is more likely that they will receive the right help and support to improve. Identifying their weaknesses earlier also means that they have more time available in order to work on improving.
Year 2 SATs are based on the national curriculum, meaning that all students are tested on the same things. Therefore, identifying students’ strengths and weaknesses across the class and different schools can be quite simple.
This allows teachers to identify which students in their classroom need the most support. As a result, Year 2 SATs are important to students because they can help them in the long run, making sure that no student falls behind in their education.
You can find out more information about this and the SATs in general if you check out a ‘Parent’s Guide to Year 2 SATs’ on this page from Twinkl.
Are Year 2 SATs important for schools?
The SATs taken by students in Year 2 aren’t seen as important as the SATs taken in Year 6. After all, the SATs taken by students in Year 2 are internally marked, whereas the SATs taken in Year 6 are externally marked.
SATs taken by students in Year 6 are often used to measure a school’s progress. This can affect future parent’s choices about where they send their kids to school.
However, Year 2 SATs are also quite important for measuring the attainment of a primary school. This is because the scores students get in Year 2 can be compared against the scores the same students get in Year 6, four years later.
This allows the government to see how much the students have progressed since Year 2, to see how much English and maths each child has learnt in four years.
These results can then be used to inform the School Development Plan. This allows leaders to investigate how the school can be improved, by identifying the different strengths and weaknesses of the school.
You can find out more about how SATs are used by schools if you check out this article from Third Space Learning.
Are Year 2 or Year 6 SATs more important?
Year 2 SATs and Year 6 SATs can both be seen as important on some level. Year 6 SATs are important when the results are used in conjunction with the results from Year 2 SATs, as they can be used to discover how far each child has progressed in their time at primary school.
Both set of SATs are also used to measure each child’s strengths and weaknesses to discover what areas of school they need to be supported in. This allows students to get the support they need.
However, Year 6 SATs can be seen as slightly more important because the results each student gets has another set of consequences. This is because how well a child does in their Year 6 SATs can potentially determine what sets they will be put in when they start secondary school.
Not only could each child’s SAT results influence what set they will be in for high school subjects, their results could also generate each child’s target for each subject at secondary school.
If you want to find out more about how Year 6 SATs can affect your child after secondary school, check out this article from the Year Six website.
However, a child’s SATs grades may not completely determine how they are grouped in secondary school, as they may be given other assessments in secondary school to sit.
Therefore, Year 6 SATs are important, however they are not the be all and end all. They also do not determine whether a child will get into a certain secondary school or not.
However, there are certain tests that will determine this for independent schools! You can find out more about this if you check out this article from Think Student.
In summary, Year 2 and Year 6 SATs are important when the results a child gets from each set is compared together, as this can be used to measure their progress throughout primary school.
What are Year 2 SATs used for?
In case you already don’t know, SATs stand for ‘Standard Assessment Tests’. They are taken by students in Year 2 and in Year 6. However, the SATs taken in Year 6 are obviously a little harder than the ones taken in Year 2.
Generally, SATs are used to assess how well the child taking them is doing at school. Year 2 SATs assess a child’s maths and English skills. The maths tests focus on reasoning and arithmetic. In contrast, the English exams test the child on reading, grammar, punctuation and spelling.
You can discover the best tips and ways to help your child prepare for these sections if you check out this article from BBC Bitesize. Year 2 SATs can then be used to determine what level each child is at in their abilities to use maths and English successfully.
If you want to find out more about the purpose of SATs in general, check out this article from Think Student.
What happens if a student gets a low score on their Year 2 SATs?
If a child does get a low score on their Year 2 SATs, they do not need to worry! After all, the SATs taken at the end of Year 2 are not going to really impact any child’s future. They are not very important in this aspect.
If a student does happen to get a low score on their SATs, the teachers of the child will analyse what sections the child may have struggled with the most. As a result, the child will be able to receive the correct support and help in order to get better at their weaknesses.
In fact, parents are unlikely to even be given their child’s SAT scores at the end of Year 2! This is because how the child performs in their Year 2 SATs offers more valuable information to the school, rather than the parent.
However, parents will probably be told whether their child is reaching their targets or not. If the parents do happen to be told what their child’s score is, it can be useful to know how the SATs are actually graded!
For Year 2 SATs, the lowest score possible is 85, whereas 115 is the highest. You can discover more information about this and learn more about the SATs in general if you check out this article from Third Space Learning.
To sum up, there is no point stressing over Year 2 SATs, as getting a low score is not the end of the world! However, if you do want to give your child some tips and resources on how to prepare for Year 2 SATs, check out this article from The School Run.
Are Year 2 SATs as important as they used to be?
As already mentioned in this article, one of the main reasons that Year 2 SATs are seen as important is because they can be compared with student’s results from Year 6 SATs to measure each child’s progress. However, as of 2023, Year 2 SATs will not actually be compulsory anymore.
This is because a new assessment has been established called the ‘Reception Baseline Assessment’, which will be taken by students at the end of reception. The results that each child gets in this assessment will be compared to the SATs they take at the end of Year 6.
Therefore, Year 2 SATs will become optional. The ‘Reception Baseline Assessment’ became compulsory in 2021 and was announced to replace the compulsory end of key stage 1 assessment (Year 2 SATs) in 2017.
If you are unsure what the meaning of key stage is and want to find out how the UK education is split up into these key stages, check out this article from Think Student.
You can find out more about this change if you check out this document from the government website. Consequently, the Year 2 SATs are not as important as they used to be, as they have now become optional. However, Year 6 SATs are still important for measuring each student’s progress.
However, it must be noted that Year 6 students in private schools may not have to take SATs. You can find out more about this if you check out this article from Think Student.