Headteachers’ leaders have urged ministers to review national tests after a government teacher survey showed that most respondents did not think key stage 2 Sats provided useful data to help students starting secondary school.
In the latest survey, teachers were asked to what extent they agreed or disagreed that KS2 Sats results “provide information that is useful to them when identifying the support that new Year 7 pupils will need”.
The majority of secondary school teachers responding to the question said that they did not agree.
The DfE findings, published this week, show that 28 per cent disagreed with a statement saying the results were useful; a further 25 per cent strongly disagreed.
Less than a quarter of teachers agreed that the results provided useful data - with 21 per cent agreeing and just 3 per cent strongly agreeing. The respondents were teachers of KS3 year groups.
Doubts over phonics screening check
The survey findings also cast some doubt on the usefulness of the statutory phonics screening check and multiplication tables checks carried out in primary schools.
The phonics screening check is carried out on pupils at the end of Year 1, while the multiplication tables check is statutory for all Year 4 pupils in state schools.
The survey findings show that 39 per cent of primary teachers disagree that the phonics screening check is useful to them when identifying the support needed by the pupils they teach; this figure comprised 18 per cent of respondents saying they disagree and 21 per cent saying they strongly disagreed.
A slightly smaller proportion of respondents (37 per cent) agreed that the phonics screening check provided useful data; 29 per cent of teachers agreed and 8 per cent strongly agreed.
And four in 10 teachers did not agree that the multiplication tables check provided information that was “useful to them when identifying the support that the pupils they teach need”.
Responses show that 21 per cent disagreed and a further 19 per cent strongly disagreed. Just over a third of teachers agreed that the check provided useful information, with 27 per cent agreeing and a further 7 per cent strongly agreeing.
Purpose of tests ‘muddled’
Responding to the findings, Tiffnie Harris, primary specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “These findings reflect the fact that the purpose of these tests is muddled.
“In fact, phonics and multiplication tables are taught throughout the curriculum and it is during this day-to-day teaching that schools will generally identify and target support where it is needed. They don’t need a statutory test to do that.”
Ms Harris also said that “key stage 2 tests, in particular, need to be looked at again as they’re not working well as either a measure of school performance or a way of supporting children”.
She added that reforms could include greater use of technology to provide pupils with adaptive assessments, where the difficulty of questions is tailored around the pupil’s responses: “This would be a much more useful way of identifying where support is needed as children move on to secondary education.”
In its submission to the government’s ongoing curriculum and assessment review, the NAHT school leaders’ union said that the multiplication tables check, the phonics screening check and key stage 2 grammar, punctuation and spelling tests were all “unnecessary and should be scrapped”.
The review is due to produce a final report in the autumn of this year.
The DfE’s School and College Voice survey was carried out in December 2024.
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