At Stedham Primary School, we believe strongly that children, especially at primary school should be put under as little pressure and stress as possible when it comes to formal assessments. We believe that the best assessments of children are those that can inform future planning rather than simply an assessment of where the child has got to in their learning. We trust our teachers and value their teacher assessments highly in order to plot progress for children as they travel through the school.
Key Stage 1
By the end of Key Stage 1, during the summer term, children in Year 2 will be assessed by class teachers in the following areas:
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English: reading, writing, and speaking and listening;
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Mathematics;
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Science
These are all teacher assessments, optional tests are available and we may choose to use this with some children.
All children in Year 1 must take the phonics screening check, which is designed to confirm whether children have learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard. It will identify the children who need extra help to improve their decoding skills. Children in Year 2 must retake the check if they did not meet the required standard in Year 1. However, it is possible to withdraw children from the check if the Headteacher feels it is appropriate to do so.
Key Stage 2
All schools are required to administer the following level tests in Year 6 (commonly referred to as SATs). Again, we like to make this experience as pressure free as possible and make sure that all children are comfortable with what to expect on the day. The SATs tests are sually held in May of each year and the children are tested on the following areas:
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English reading
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English grammar, punctuation and spelling
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Mathematics
The SATs have to be marked externally, and the results of the tests will be made available to parents once they have been released to the school, this is usually in July.
Pupils are also ‘teacher assessed’ in English writing, based on classwork completed throughout the year. The school is also moderated by West Sussex once every four years to assess if our moderation process is rigorous. Our last moderation was in June 2023 and all of our in-school assessments were either agreed with by the external moderator or, in some case, some of the children even moved up a level! This shows clearly that we have a robust and rigorous approach to assessing where children are in their learning and what they must do next to continue their journey.
In Year 4, children also complete a multiplication check online. This supports the school in understanding the progress the children have made to date in learning their times tables up to 12x12.
A DfE parents guide to the Key Stage 1 and 2 tests can be found here.
To see an overview of our Key Stage 2 SATs results, visit our Performance Data & Results page.
