National Curriculum Assessment
National Curriculum assessments are a series of educational assessments, colloquially known as Sats or SATs, used to assess the attainment of children attending maintained schools in England. They comprise a mixture of teacher-led and test-based assessment depending on the age of the pupils.
The tests were introduced for 7-year-olds for the academic year ending July 1991, and for 11-year-olds in the academic year ending July 1995.
Similar tests were introduced for 14-year-olds for the academic year ending July 1998 but were scrapped at the end of the academic year ending July 2009.
In 2012, L6 National Curriculum maths tests were introduced for the exceptionally more able. They were not mandatory, and teachers had to apply to give their pupils the test. There were L6 maths SATs in 2002, but were scrapped by the Labour party after being deemed 'too hard'. Many do say that the 2002 L6 SATs were harder than the 2012 SATs. The tests are 30mins long. There are 2: 'Test A' and 'Test B', but no 'Mental' maths tests, unlike the standard Level 3-5 tests.
The assessments are completed at the end of each Key Stage and record attainment in terms of National Curriculum attainment levels, numbered between 1 and 8. The expectations for each stage are set out as follows:
| Key Stage | School Year | Approximate Pupil Age |
Expected Level |
Highest Level Achievable by Test |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Key Stage 1 | Year 2 | 7 | 2 | 3 |
| Key Stage 2 | Year 6 | 11 | 4 | 5 |
| Key Stage 3 | Year 9 | 14 | 5 or 6 | 8 (Level 8 can only be achieved in Maths; level 7 is the highest for the other subjects) |
| Level | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Key Stage | Key Stage 1 | |||||||
| Key Stage 2 | ||||||||
| Key Stage 3 | ||||||||
Read more about National Curriculum Assessment: Terminology, Data, Criticisms
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