One of my daughters did Key Stage 1 SATs ‘quizzes’ last week, and she found it tiring and emotional. Some of her friends were in tears over how they did, and this is without the pressures of having your results used to appraise the whole school. Judging by the outcry over the Reading paper, the Key Stage 2 SATs week was especially tough for pupils, parents and teachers alike this year. But this concern over SATs goes much deeper than one difficult paper; many parents and teachers have simply had enough of what they see as a damaging system.
The headlines surrounding the Reading paper note how it left some children ‘distraught’ and ‘broken’. As one head commented, ‘Tears flowed from our most capable readers and stress levels rose among all others’. The main reasons for these responses appear to be the length of the texts, their (lack of) applicability to children’s lives, and the types of question asked. Notably, children had to read three texts totalling 2,106 words, plus another 1,337 words in the questions, as well as scanning the texts to find answers. This contrasts with last year’s paper where the texts were 1,564 words long.
However, while this test captured the headlines, the reasons why it has caused such distress are far more complex than this one paper.
