This week’s Sats maths paper was branded “deliberately tricky” by concerned primary leaders and experts, with one warning that the assessment could be a “failure on a national level”.
Year 6 children sat their first maths test on Wednesday, during the first set of key stage 2 exams held after current supplier Capita lost out to Pearson to run the exams from next year.
Andrew Rigby, national director of education at the UK’s largest primary multi-academy trust REAch2, noticed that “a significant minority of these pupils still experienced high levels of stress and anxiety in taking the test”.
“The design of the tests continues to place questions that are particularly challenging and complex at an early stage in some of the papers”, said Mr Rigby, who oversaw Sats being taken across the trust’s 62 schools this week.
Sats shouldn’t be ‘more difficult than they need to be’
He added: “We shouldn’t be trying to catch anyone out with these tests or make them more difficult than they need to be to get the job done.
“We are doing our bit, but structurally there are changes that could be made that reduce the stress and anxiety without compromising on rigour.”
One primary-only MAT CEO, who wished to remain anonymous, warned that some pupils were left “upset” by the paper.
They said: “Paper 2 had a lot more multi-part questions, and questions that seemed to be phrased in a way that made them deliberately tricky.
“It’s the first time that we have had a child really upset in our schools because they found it so tricky, which is horrible to see.”
“The Reasoning Paper 2 was difficult and worded awkwardly,” said Toby Hancock, a Year 6 Teacher in an inner-city school that predominantly teaches pupils with English as an additional language.
His concerns were echoed by Sarah Hunter, executive headteacher at The Pioneer Academy, who observed that “the general feeling regarding the maths paper overall is that it was harder than last year”.
It comes after Tes revealed that a third of Year 6 teachers reported that pupil wellbeing is more of a worry than it was last year.
Tiffnie Harris, primary specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, has heard similar worries from union members.
She said: “The feedback we’ve received suggests that maths papers have been particularly hard this year.
“When a paper is excessively difficult it adds to stress and anxiety - of pupils and staff - and means children may do less well than their potential because their confidence is in tatters.”
This is not the first time Sats papers have been criticised for their difficulty level - the 2018 maths papers were also accused of being “tricky” and the hardest papers of that Sats week.
These comments were echoed on social media platform X, where the director of the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics, Mark McCourt, dubbed the paper a “failure at a national level”.
“Today’s KS2 maths reasoning paper is a failure at a national level, one which will serve only to put pupils off maths,” he wrote earlier this week.
“An opportunity to show pupils what mathematics is and can be has been utterly wasted,” Mr Mcourt said in a thread on the social media platform, which has received 1.3k likes.
The first exam is formed of two papers - Paper 1 Arithmetic and Paper 2 Reasoning. Pupils sat their third paper, also on reasoning, on Thursday.
Difficulty of reasoning paper ‘won’t affect grades’
However, Michael Tidd, headteacher of East Preston Junior School, is more wary about concerns over the tests before the grades have been released.
“I’m fairly stoical about variations in difficulty of tests because the thresholds will be adjusted in light of that,” he said.
“The question really is only whether they are a good indicator of those who have stronger and weaker mathematical skill - and it’s hard to know that until the results arrive.”
Ms Harris also reminded teachers that the difficulty of this year’s maths reasoning paper should not impact grades.
“It won’t affect grades, because [the Standards and Testing Agency (STA)] will adjust it in standard maintenance,” she said.
According to 2023 Sats results, the proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in maths was 73 per cent.
However, Ms Harris said ASCL will be looking into questions around the structure of the assessment.
“Papers have to be well designed - it is an absolutely basic requirement,” she said, adding that “we’ll look at these papers carefully and take further feedback”.
A mixed bag for reading
Last year, leaders warned that the reading paper left even the most able pupils “broken” and in tears, this year the paper received a more mixed reception.
Nicky Dunford, CEO of the Link Academy Trust, which has 19 rural primary schools across Devon, said that this year’s reading paper was “much more interesting and fairer, with more retrieval”.
The reading paper requires pupils to read a booklet that contains three extracts and then answer questions that test them on their comprehension.
However, there were still concerns from some teachers about the difficulty of the test.
“The consensus was that last year’s paper was an outlier,” said Mr Hancock, but he added that ”children felt overwhelmed and seemed down” after completing this year’s reading paper.
He said that “lots of them didn’t finish - including the ones who usually do”.
A review of last year’s controversial reading paper found that lower-attaining pupils were likely to have found the test more difficult than previous tests since 2016.
Uncertain future for KS2 Sats
Marking will begin this weekend ready for results to be released in July.
In 2023, Capita delayed the marking of Year 6 Sats papers by a week due to “technical issues”. The firm apologised for the delay at the time but said the new schedule “could not be altered”.
A subsequent Ofqual report on the delay said it would seek assurances from the STA that there would not be a repeat in 2024.
At KS2, parents are told pupils’ test results and scaled scores, and whether or not the pupil is meeting the expected standard. In addition to this, schools share how their results compare with the national average.
However, the future for KS2 Sats remains uncertain after KS1 Sats became optional - although Tes revealed that most schools are still running them.
Sarah Hannafin, head of policy at the NAHT school leaders’ union, said: “Year after year, we are repeatedly picking up on concerns about the content of Sats papers.
“The current primary statutory assessment system does not meet the needs of pupils, parents or schools.”
Ms Hannafin’s comments were echoed by campaign group More Than A Score, who renewed their calls for a review of the assessments after this year’s “10- and 11-year-olds have been put under unnecessary stress by a Sats paper seemingly designed to catch them out”.
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