As we noted in How have Primary schools responded to the end of KS1 SATs?, end of Key Stage 1 (KS1) assessments became non-statutory from the 2023/24 academic year onwards. The first cohort to take the statutory Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) had reached the end of KS1 and KS1 assessments were no longer needed to create Value Added measures for this and future cohorts at Key Stage 2.
Key Stage 1 outcomes
The results of the KS1 SATs from 2015/16 to 2022/23 (with no results gathered in 2019/20 and 2020/21 due to the Covid 19 pandemic) look like this, based on just over 600,000 pupils each year:
As can be seen, the percentages of pupils meeting the Expected Standard for Maths, Reading Science and Writing pre-pandemic were broadly similar, with means of 75% (R), 68% (W), 75% (M) and 83% (S). Post pandemic, the means were 68% (R), 59% (W), 69% (M) and 78% (S).
In 2023/24, schools which had previously administered the KS1 SATs were given the option of opting out of receiving the – now non-Statutory – KS1 papers which the Department for Education (DfE) published in 2023-24; just 7% of schools opted out of doing so.
Whilst it appears that around 50% of Primary Schools administered the assessments this year, the DfE did not collect this data and has no indication of the outcomes at national level. In Insight, we allow users to enter any assessment data in any format they choose. We maintained an option to record KS1 data in 2023/4 and just under half of the pupils in our schools have had data entered in their records. As a result, we do have an indication of the outcomes of the KS1 SATs in 2023/24.
Insight’s sample suggests that the outcomes for 2023/24 KS1 SATs were as follows: Reading 71%, Writing 62%, Maths 71% and Science 82%, based on results from roughly 75,000 pupil records (60,000 for Science).
Insight also has estimates for Reading, Writing and Maths in 2019/20 (from 15,000 pupil records) and 2020/21 (from 21,000 pupil records), based on data entered by Insight schools (Year 2 returned to school along with Year 6 in Summer 2020 when other years in Primary were still in lockdown).
The graph of all this data looks like this:
Years marked with an asterisk (*) are Insight estimates
It is interesting to note that the data which schools were recording in the years in which no data was submitted to the DfE is remarkably consistent with the data for those years in which data was being collected centrally. It is also of interest to note that the official ‘post-pandemic’ data – which is notably lower than the pre-pandemic data – is consistent with the data Insight was collecting in 2020 and 2021.
The future of optional KS1 SATS
The Department for Education – via the Standards and Testing Agency (STA) – is continuing to develop and supply guidance and materials for the optional end of KS1 tests. We noted in our previous blog that ‘In the first year the KS1 assessment framework became non-statutory, schools were split right down the middle as to whether to use the materials or not’ – in the first year KS1 became non-statutory, only half of all primary schools continued using the materials which the STA developed, printed and distributed.
The DfE announced last month that ‘From the academic year 2024 to 2025, STA will no longer print and distribute standard versions of the optional KS1 test papers to schools in England. All schools will be able to access and download standard versions of the optional KS1 test papers from the Primary Assessment Gateway (PAG) from Thursday 1 May.’
This transfers the cost of printing the optional KS1 tests from the DfE to schools.
Here at Insight Inform, we will be monitoring the effect of these changes and we look forward to reporting our findings later in the academic year.
Are you interested in exploring the current state of data in schools and finding out what works and what doesn’t? Join us at one of our 2024-25 Data in School Conferences
“I thought it was brilliant! I got home and did a SWOT analysis of assessment in our school to help focus where we are and where we need to go next. I just wish all the leaders in my Trust could’ve been there.” (attendee of DISCO Solihull, 23 Nov 2023)
Leave a Reply