Literacy news
More primary school pupils hit their Sats targets
21 Sep 2012
More primary school pupils than ever have reached national curriculum standards for English in England. The proportion attaining the expected level in this year's Sats tests for children aged around 11 has risen by three to four percentage points.
The data is not all directly comparable, as the way written English standards are measured has changed. Nonetheless, the Department for Education's figures show 85% of pupils reaching at least level four – the decreed level expected for their age – in English for their key stage 2 Sats tests, and 84% in maths. 80% of pupils attained both.
The overall English results are harder to compare as, in a change this year, the tests for written composition were assessed by a school's own teachers rather than external markers. Attainment for the reading element increased, with 87% of pupils reaching stage four, against 84% last year, with a bigger increase in those getting stage five, 48% against 43%. The historic pattern of girls outperforming boys for reading continued, with 90% of girls getting to stage four and only 84% of boys doing the same.
Some less exact comparisons can be drawn from the writing tests, as a sample of about 1,500 schools had their test marked externally. The sample – which the Department for Education warned was also not a precise equivalent to the previous marking system – showed 77% of pupils reaching level four, against an overall figure of 75% for 2011. It also showed that teachers appear to grade the written work more leniently: their assessments put 81% of pupils at level four or above.
A Department for Education spokesman said:
Some difference between test and teacher assessment results can be expected as the outcomes are measured in different ways. A teacher assessment is the teacher's judgment of a pupil's performance across the curriculum and the academic year, whereas the tests assess a sample of the curriculum for specific pupils on the day of the tests.
