SATS - reading pass rate down

[Ditto]

Having worked in the exams industry for over a decade in the past, one thing remains true. Exam results, whether up, down or the same are easy fodder to fill a few column inches - or the online equivalent.

 

Today's news is SATS reading expected level passes have dropped.

 

 

• 73% in reading, down from 75% in 2022
  
• 73% in maths, up from 71% in 2022
  
• 71% in writing, up from 69% in 2022
  
• 72% in grammar, punctuation and spelling, the same as 2022
  
• 80% in science, up from 79% in 2022
  

 

The GOV target of 90% across the board by 2030 is looking highly unlikely.

 

Full BBC report at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-66041645

 

The sentence with a parent/child photo of "Recruitment manager Victoria Williams says she was "devastated" that her daughter Georgina had been upset about the reading paper" because it was allegedly a tougher paper than normal. Whilst we don't want primary pupils getting overly stressed, the school and parents really need to do some work on resilience support and lowering the intensity around exams and results. I guess that's perhaps true for a lot of school measurements. I'm all for needing to assess and aiming to achieve the best for each child, but 'devastation' is surely hyperbole?!

[AlistairB1983]

The sentence with a parent/child photo of "Recruitment manager Victoria Williams says she was "devastated" that her daughter Georgina had been upset about the reading paper" because it was allegedly a tougher paper than normal. Whilst we don't want primary pupils getting overly stressed, the school and parents really need to do some work on resilience support and lowering the intensity around exams and results. I guess that's perhaps true for a lot of school measurements. I'm all for needing to assess and aiming to achieve the best for each child, but 'devastation' is surely hyperbole?!

Agreed. It's a hard enough balance to get right every year for Year 11s between 'these are the most important things in your life ever' and 'it's not the end of the world if things go wrong', but that comes with the job.

 

But that shouldn't be a balance that's required for a set of exams which are used almost exclusively by the education system itself to help monitor progress for both Primary and Secondary schools and have virtually no impact on the individual student's education/life in general going forwards. As far as the students are concerned, these exams do not matter. And they shouldn't feel the pressure the schools/parents are unduly placing on them because of their own desires.