Headteachers’ leaders have welcomed confirmation that schools will not have to run key stage 1 Sats after next year.
While these Sats returned this year for the first time since the Covid pandemic began, it was expected that from 2023, the baseline assessment that was rolled out in September 2021 would be taking the place of the assessments.
A message to schools yesterday from the Standards and Testing Agency (STA) has said that from the 2023-24 academic year, the KS1 Sats will not be statutory.
James Bowen, director of policy at the NAHT school leaders’ union, said: “We welcome confirmation from the Department for Education that KS1 assessments will become non-statutory from the 2023-24 academic year onwards.”
He said this followed the union’s work “lobbying for the removal of KS1 statutory assessments”.
The STA email to schools says: ”When the department responded to the 2017 primary assessment consultation, it stated that end-of-KS1 assessments would become non-statutory once the first cohort to take the statutory RBA (reception baseline assessment) had reached the end of KS1.
“This was so that end of KS1 assessments could continue to be used as the starting point for primary progress measures in the meantime.
“The anticipated timelines have changed due to the pandemic and the resultant one-year delay in making RBA statutory.
“As the cohort about to enter Year 2 in autumn 2022 did not undertake a statutory RBA, statutory end-of-KS1 assessments will take place in 2022-23.
“Ministers remain committed to making end of KS1 assessments non-statutory once the RBA is fully established, and end-of-KS1 assessments will become non-statutory from the 2023-24 academic year onwards.”
KS2 science sampling tests stopped
There have also been changes to assessments in key stage 2 confirmed by the STA.
In its message to schools, the STA said that ministers have decided that from next year, there will be no further science sampling tests at KS2, which are not sat by all pupils.
In 2022-23, schools will still submit teacher assessment data for science at key stages 1 and 2.
The STA said that it will run a full programme of primary assessments in the 2022-23 academic year.
This includes the reception baseline assessment (RBA), phonics screening check, multiplication tables check and the statutory tests and teacher assessments at the end of key stage 1 and the end of key stage 2.
Earlier this month, a study from the FFT Education Datalab revealed that the proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in writing at key stage 1 had dropped significantly compared to pre-pandemic levels.
The figure fell from 70 per cent in 2019 to 59 per cent in 2022.
Year 2 pupils taking the key stage 1 assessments this year have potentially faced Covid disruption in all three years of their formal education.
