KS2 SATs 2024: English paper analysis

There’s always plenty to discuss when it comes to the Reading and GPS SATs papers, and this year hasn’t disappointed. With the embargo lifted, long-time SATs Springboard contributor, Sophie Bartlett, shares her thoughts and analysis of the 2024 KS2 English SATs papers. Sit tight because it's all here and, as always, it’s a good one.

Let’s jump in.

2024 KS2 Reading SATs analysis

Hands up if you’ve made it this far into life without ever having heard of a tenrec…Just me? Well, now Year 6 teachers all over the land can not only tell you what the different species look like, but we can also accurately describe exactly how a tenrec might ‘stridulate’. Just in case anyone ever needs that for a pub quiz!

Reading paper predictions vs reality

Madagascan mammals aside, let’s firstly see how our predictions for this year’s test held up.

“The majority of the questions in the reading papers have always been retrieval (2b) and inference (2d) – this was still the case in 2023 and so it seems sensible to expect it to be the same in 2024 as well.”

Please note that data from the 2016 tests has now been removed from all data tables. Not only were the tables beginning to get a bit busy from all the numbers (!) but, as the first paper under the new curriculum, data from the 2016 paper provided too many anomalies across the board, proving to be unhelpful when analysing data trends.

As expected, 2b and 2d (retrieval and inference) make up the biggest proportion of questions in this year’s paper - 82% in fact! We’ve seen an increase in retrieval questions from last year, with inference staying at a similar level as before. 2a questions (vocabulary) have dropped considerably, back to similar levels as 2019 and 2022.

There were no questions from 2e, 2f or 2g, but the most amount of marks allocated to a 2h question to date (the final 3-marker in the paper)!

Reading paper word count 2024

This year’s word count proved to be very similar to last year’s paper (as well as 2019 and 2017).

This seemed to surprise some people - quite a few teachers online were discussing how wordy they felt it was. Perhaps this could be to do with the complexity of the vocabulary used (more on that later) as opposed to the actual amount of words?

Still. No. Poetry.

Another prediction:

“I’ve said it before (about three times), and I’ll say it again: a poetry extract hasn’t appeared since 2018, so it may be sensible to assume that a poem might be included in the 2024 reading paper. Surely this must be the year!”

Still no poetry! At this point, I give up. I think I’ve been predicting a poem since 2022! This is the first time we’ve seen this layout, though: non-fiction (a non-chronological report) followed by two fiction (both narratives). I personally felt (and I don’t think I’m alone in this) that the first text, and its accompanying questions, was more challenging than the second.

This certainly threw the children a little as, historically, the papers have opened with the seemingly least complex text. In my experience, the children’s confidence - especially the confidence of those who struggle to read - was knocked from the get-go.

I genuinely think that if the first two extracts were swapped, the children’s attitude towards the paper - and perhaps even the outcomes of the test - would have been very different.

Reading questions analysis

And what a hodgepodge of questions they were!

Did you know that the term "hodgepodge" emerged from the Middle English phrase "hochepot," which meant a stew made of various ingredients? I didn’t until about 5 minutes ago when I Googled it, because despite knowing the meaning, I was intrigued to learn of its origin.

Seriously though…what 10-year-old has ever heard of the word hodgepodge? And yes, I know, it wasn’t required to answer any of the questions, but let me have my moment of rage at the inclusion of such an obscure and downright silly (in my opinion!) word in a text already full of lots of other complex vocabulary.

Question 9

The first question I personally found confusing (in the sense that I had to read it a few times and even then I wasn’t confident I had the answers correct) was Q9.

'What issues are streaked tenrecs facing?

Streaked tenrecs are unique to the rainforest in Madagascar and cannot be found anywhere else in the world. In recent years much of this landscape has been destroyed. As a result of deforestation, where humans cut down the rainforest for wood, tenrecs are in decline.

Streaked tenrecs play an important role in their habitat as they hunt smaller creatures and are prey for larger animals like birds and snakes. Without tenrecs, the whole food-chain could be disrupted, causing serious problems for wildlife in Madagascar.'

The mark scheme says:

“Award 1 mark for reference to any of the following, up to a maximum of 2 marks:

• deforestation / the destruction of streaked tenrecs’ habitat

• streaked tenrec numbers being in decline

• streaked tenrecs having less food (to hunt)

Also accept reference to streaked tenrecs being prey for larger animals Do not accept reference only to streaked tenrecs being unique to the rainforest / Madagascar.”

I feel like this one is a little mean because, in my mind, point 1 and 2 above are part of the same answer, so I wouldn’t even consider splitting them into two (the tenrecs are in decline because of deforestation).

The second half of the paragraph is also presented as a positive ('important role'), so it would take a lot of inference to work out point 3 would be an acceptable answer for a question about something negative ('issues'). This point (and the ‘also accept’ point) are also acceptable answers for the following question. It seems odd to include them as answers to two consecutive questions.

“There was a lot of reading between the lines you had to do!” said one of my Year 6s after this test. I agree!

Here’s another example, in the second extract.

Question 19

“Help me up,” I said.

So he cupped his hand for my foot and on the count of three he heaved me upwards. I moved onto the rope till I lay flat across it. Slowly, I eased myself into a crouching position. Now I was a lot taller than Ned. The thought made me giggle. Or maybe it was just my nerves.

“I’ve got a bird’s-eye view of the top of your head,” I said.

“Now step back and watch.”

“Shouldn’t I stay here? Just in case you fall?”

“You’re a pea-brain, Ned. Course I won’t fall.”

My mind went quiet. I stood up slowly, counted to five and focused straight ahead. The entire world has shrunk right down on this one length of rope. Nothing else existed. Under my feet the rope swayed slightly. It was part of me now. It had grown out of my heels and toes. We were the same thing, this rope and me. It made me feel wonderfully light.”

This was a little tricksy one, I feel! Louie says, ‘“I’ve got a bird’s-eye view of the top of your head,”’ before she ‘focused straight ahead’, meaning she looked down before she looked up. Another example of meanings disguised in different words or phrases! Heavy on the inference here.

Question 38

Some more challenging vocabulary in Q38, heavily reliant on the context (you couldn’t answer it without the text!).

'Perhaps I had made him confident–too confident, too careless, too trusting of the human in his midst. I did not venture any further; I was not out of my mind. I did not seek physical contact, or even another glimpse of that beautiful sinewy body, springing from rock to rock. It was his trust I wanted, and I think he gave it to me.'

Question 26 and 39: 3-mark questions

There were two 3-mark questions throughout, one in extract 2, the other in extract 3.

The first asked for three separate answers for three separate marks, whereas the second opted for the more ‘traditional’ 3-mark style question structure that we’ve seen many times before, where two points, and at least one with evidence, must be given for the full 3 marks.

Questions 13, 26 and 27: look at the whole text

Whilst most of the questions instructed the children to look in specific places for the answer (a certain page or paragraph), this test included three questions requiring the children to ‘Look at the whole text’, one from the first extract, and two from the second. There weren’t any questions like this last year and only one each in the two papers prior to that (2022 and 2019).

These types of questions are obviously more challenging as the children can’t rely on reading a small chunk of the extract at a time, but instead must prove they understand the text as a whole. They haven’t had to demonstrate this skill as frequently before.

A similar question type did appear in 2022, but it was in the last (and typically most difficult) extract, where the children were asked to ‘Think about the whole text’ when answering. The only other time a similar question has cropped up was in the second extract of the 2019 test. Another reflection of how challenging this paper was!

2024 KS2 Spelling and Grammar SATs analysis

GPS paper 1 predictions vs reality

Paper 1 makes up 50 of the 70 marks allocated for the overall GPS score.

What did we predict for grammar this year?

“The majority of questions in the grammar test have consistently been based on punctuation (G5) and grammatical terms and word classes (G1). So much so that, in every year since 2017, children could have passed the 2023 Grammar paper by answering questions related solely to these two content domains.

It seems likely that this pattern will repeat in 2024, so get practising your commas and verbs (alongside all the other punctuation and word classes, of course).”

This year, the proportion of content domains covered in the paper has been very similar to previous years and almost exactly the same as last year. G1 (grammatical terms or word classes) and G5 (punctuation) remain the most commonly used content domains, comprising over half of the test questions.

If the pass mark is below 56% (it would be a surprise if it wasn’t, considering the highest it’s ever been is 54%), then it would remain true that children could have passed this paper by answering questions related solely to G1 and G5.

GPS paper 1 analysis

One of the final questions required the children to write two contractions, something we’d expect all children to be able to do at this age. However, whilst “won’t” is obviously a commonly used contraction, “nobody’s” seemed a bit rogue! This is the latter end of the paper though, and I think it’s right to throw a few questions in there to challenge the more able children.

Lookalike alert!

Contracted Forms

In the LbQ SATs Springboard Diagnostics, we had a very similar question on Contracted Forms and it was answered by 8000 pupils. The contraction required was ‘will not’ and 59% of children answered correctly. 13% of pupils omitted the apostrophe: wont. Finally 4% of pupils entered willn’t as the contraction.

There were also a huge amount of questions this year asking children “What is the grammatical term…?” or “What is the word class…?” - eight questions like this, in fact! (Two examples below).

Lookalike alert!

Subordinate Clauses

A similar question on the LbQ SATs Springboard asked children to identify the type of clause used in the first section of this sentence ‘As she had come second in both races, Chloe would be running in the final sprint.’ 4000 pupils answered this question with 49% getting it correct. 11% thought it was the main clause.

There weren’t any questions like this last year, and only three the year before that. It certainly seems that they want the children to be confident with their grammatical terminology.

GPS paper 2 analysis

The spelling tests contain 20 words – these are split fairly evenly between the Year 3/4 spelling rules and the Year 5/6 spelling rules, although there has always been a few more from Lower Key Stage 2.

SATs spelling test analysis

An italic word means it appears under more than one content domain.

A blue word is one of the first three of the test – generally considered slightly easier to spell.

A red word is one of the final three of the test – generally considered slightly harder to spell.

Spelling test predictions vs reality

But Sophie, where did you get your crystal ball? I hear you ask. (Now if I really had one, I’d have been encouraging you all to scrub up on your Madagascan wildlife knowledge, wouldn’t I?)

In my spelling analysis, I identified the most commonly used content domains in SATs spelling tests, which we can now update with 2024 data. The most commonly used content domain so far is S38: adding suffixes beginning with vowel letters to words of more than one syllable (a Year 3/4 spelling rule). This is followed by S60: words with ‘silent’ letters (a Year 5/6 spelling rule).

The least used (only once each across all six tests so far) content domain is S49: words with the /ʃ/ sound spelt ch (a Year 3/4 spelling rule), closely followed by S42: the suffix -ation (Year 3/4); and S53: endings which sound like /ʃəs/ spelt –cious or –tious (Year 5/6), each used twice.

Reading and GPS pass score

The “pass mark” (a scaled score of 100) for reading last year (48%) was the lowest we’d seen in a long time, especially after a steady increase from 52 - 58% over the previous four papers. It will be interesting to see where it goes this year.

The score required to achieve EXS in the GPS paper has always been 51-54% - I can’t see any reason why it would be much different this year. However, you never know - we’ve been surprised before!

We’re expecting to see something in the 70s for the national percentage of pupils meeting EXS for both reading and GPS.

We'll find out in just over six weeks. I’m sure there’ll be plenty to distract you until then (writing moderation, SRE, plays, residentials, transition… all the fun that Year 6 brings!). And please remember, these are KS2 tests, not Year 6 ones. Whatever happens - good or bad - it is not all down to the Year 6 teacher!

Join us again on Tuesday 9th July, when the test results and raw score to scaled score conversion tables will be released.

You can check out my breakdown of the 2024 maths SATs papers here.

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