At the age of 10 and 11, children should be enjoying a wide and stimulating curriculum. They should be preparing to take their next steps towards secondary school. Instead, year 6 pupils spend months cramming for Key Stage 2 SATs, a week of tests in English and maths taken under exam conditions.
Teachers have very little time to deliver interesting, varied lessons, as they have to ‘teach to the test’, which means largely focusing on English and maths. Pupils and parents also feel the stress that comes with fear of the stigma of failure – children believe that SATs represent a judgement of their abilities. Worse, more than a third of children taking SATs in the last few years had to be told they had failed just as they were about to start secondary school.
What purpose do these tests serve, anyway? Absolutely none, other than to judge schools against each other. Children become data points and their education is sacrificed to a system obsessed with league tables. It may have been designed to measure schools’ progress, but it’s not working out that way. With such a narrow curriculum, SATs can’t paint a true picture of all that a school has to offer.
According to research from YouGov, the majority of parents disagree with the government’s policy of using SATs and other formal tests to judge primary schools.
In the interests of our children’s wellbeing, mental health, and their broader education, join our campaign and demand that this over-testing regime is changed urgently.
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Want to see for yourself the type of questions year 6 pupils will face? Then have a go at our maths and English papers. The questions have been taken from the 2018 Key Stage 2 SATs tests. Find out how you cope under the same pressurised exam conditions as our 10- or 11-year-olds.
Each test takes 10 minutes. Once you’ve read the instructions, click the timer and begin...
You must not use a calculator to answer any questions in this test.
Type your answer in the box for each question.
Marks
In this test each question is worth 1 mark each. The total number of marks available is 25. You have 6 seconds for each question.
To begin the test, click on the timer to start your first 6 second countdown.
You must not use a calculator to answer any questions in this test.
Type your answer in the box for each question. If the answer is a fraction, it can be typed using the / key
e.g. 1/2 = ½
Marks
In this test, long division and long multiplication questions are worth 2 marks each. You will be awarded 2 marks for a correct answer. All other questions are worth 1 mark each. The total number of marks available is 14.
To begin the test, click on the timer to start your 10 minute countdown.
You will be awarded one mark for each correct question. The total number of marks available is 10.
To begin the test, click on the timer to start your 10 minute countdown.
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