KS2 SATs 2024: The Results!

Is it just me, or did the PAG page seem to run fairly smoothly this year?! It can’t be… in previous years, there have always been a lot of posts on social media about the page buffering for ages or just giving up altogether.

I don’t know about you, but we managed to get hold of our results without much fuss this year! However, is it bad to admit that part of me was a little miffed? It’s quite cathartic to have a good old moan about something innocuous to relieve the tension a little.

Those of you keen beans that logged in early will have been met with the exciting announcement that ‘The event will begin at: 07:30 [insert live countdown]’. As if we needed anything else to build the suspense!

Once everyone managed to log in, cue head-teachers and teachers across the land squinting at the screen, scribbling on a Post-it note and frantically jabbing numbers into a calculator to work out the school’s data (wouldn’t it make sense to just have those numbers calculated for you, displayed clear as day, as soon as you enter the Gateway?!)

The raw scores required to reach expected standard (EXS – a scaled score of 100) and ‘greater depth’ (GDS – generally accepted to be a scaled score of 110) can be seen below.

KS2 SATs raw scores

*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 usual, there have been no drastic changes to the average scaled scores in each subject – in fact, since 2022, there have been no changes at all.

How many children achieved the expected standard this year?

The percentage of children achieving EXS in reading has historically hovered in the low-mid 70s. Reading was the only subject not to drop following COVID. This year, it has risen by 1% from 73% in 2023 to 74% in 2024; you could say that this makes it the nation’s ‘best’ subject (the highest proportion of ‘passes’).

It is also the only subject to see a similar proportion of pupils meeting EXS as before COVID – all other subjects have yet to match the level of ‘passes’ seen pre-2020.

Writing: This has also increased by 1% from 71% in 2023 to 72% this year.

Maths: Maths has stayed the same this year with 73%.

Reading, writing, maths (combined): After the post-COVID drop, 2024’s RWM data maintains the steady increase from 2022 with 61% this year, up 1% from last year.

Grammar, punctuation and spelling: Still the lowest it’s ever been at 72% this year (the same as 2022 and 2023).

There is missing data for writing in 2017 as changes made within the 2017/18 writing TA frameworks mean that judgements in 2018 are not directly comparable to those made using the previous interim frameworks in 2016 and 2017.

Maths

This year, the children needed a score of 54/110 to achieve EXS (which means answering 49% of the paper correctly): this is a decrease of 2 marks from last year. For a scaled score of 110 (commonly accepted to be the standard required for GDS), the children needed to score 93/110, or 85% of the paper: this is a decrease of 1 mark from last year.

What does this mean for next year?

Since 2017, the Greater Depth boundary has always been between 85-87%. However, for the first time this year, the ‘pass mark’ has dropped below 50%: an EXS score of 54/110 is the lowest we’ve ever seen. Historically, the EXS boundary has been between 51-55%, but this changes the range to anywhere between 49-55% required to achieve a score of 100 – perhaps worth noting for next year.

Expected Standard and Greater Depth Boundaries

In February, we made some basic predictions about this year’s maths papers:

Like previous years, it is still the case that in every set of maths papers so far, over half the content has come from the curricula of Years 3-5… Theoretically, based on the pass marks of almost all the previous papers, children should be able to meet the expected standards by almost exclusively knowing content from Years 3-5.

WERE WE CORRECT?

This still stands true – with a pass mark of 49%, it was theoretically possible to achieve EXS by just (correctly) answering questions from the Years 3-5 curricula, or by just (correctly) answering questions from the Calculations and FDP content domains!

It’s worth noting that although there are nine content domains in the KS2 mathematics test framework, they are not all weighted equally. Each content domain has a varying amount of substrands, ranging from 3 in both geometry – position and direction and statistics, to 12 substrands in fractions, decimals and percentages (where F1 is ‘recognise, find, write, name and count fractions’, up to F12 which is ‘solve problems with percentages).

Each substrand is then split across various year groups to create different objectives; for example, the aforementioned substrand F1 is divided into four objectives: three in Year 3 (e.g. 3F1a: count up and down in tenths) and one in Year 4 (4F1: count up and down in hundredths).

Calculations and FDP, the two weightiest content domains in terms of mark allocation, each have 39 objectives and 40 objectives respectively. This goes some way to explaining the distribution of marks across the content domains (i.e. the most marks are allocated to these domains because they contain the most content. However, this doesn’t always follow as measurement, a domain containing 44 objectives, has been allocated under 10% of the total marks for the last four years!)

Reading

Let’s see how our predictions for this year’s test held up:

Up until 2022, we had a steadily increasing pass mark, so last year [2023] was a bit of a shock. What it has taught us is that we can’t possibly predict what may happen this year!

The reading scores are on the increase again… not quite to the lofty levels of 2022 (the highest pass mark we’ve seen before of 29/50!), but still a large increase of 3 marks from last year. The greater depth boundary has also increased to 80%, the second highest it’s ever been. Considering how difficult lots of us found the paper, this is a little disheartening, but I suppose we can’t expect the pass mark to stay less than 50% like it was last year!

In 2022, for a reading paper with one of the fewest words, we had the highest pass mark so far. Last year, to our delight, the pass mark finally dropped. Not quite to the lowly depths of 2016 (21/50!), but it is the second lowest mark it has ever been (and yet the highest word count!).

This year showed another high word count (3000+ words), but with a pass mark that sits in the middle of those we’ve had previously.

The greater depth boundary sits at 80%, the same as 2018 – not the highest it’s ever been (2019 and 2022), but not the lowest either (last year’s 76%).

Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling

The SPaG assessment consists of a 50-mark question paper and a 20-mark spelling-only test. This structure gives a bit more leeway to strong spellers (which allows for weaknesses in the grammar test). For example, scoring full marks on the 2022 spelling test meant you only needed 15/50 on the grammar test to still reach the expected standard. Weaker spellers could make up the marks in the grammar test.

To achieve the expected standard in the spelling, punctuation and grammar papers (GPS), the pass mark has previously been, like maths, just over 50% (between 50-54%).

We’re slightly lower than last year for the ‘pass mark’ – back at 50%, which is the same as 2022. However, the greater depth boundary is the lowest it’s ever been at 76%.

With a pass mark this year of 50%, children could have passed the 2024 Grammar paper by answering questions related solely to content domains G1 and G5 – this has been the case every year since 2017.

As with the maths test content above, it’s worth noting that although there are seven content domains in the KS2 English GPS test framework, they are not all weighted equally. G5 has the most content within it (15 topics, ranging from G5.1: capital letters to G5.14: bullet points) whereas G2, G6 and G7 contain the least (four topics each).

This goes some way to explaining the distribution of marks across the content domains (i.e. the most marks are allocated to domains G1 and G5 because they contain the most content).

The SPaG assessment consists of a 50-mark question paper and a 20-mark spelling-only test. This structure gives a bit more leeway to strong spellers, which allows for weaknesses in the grammar test – scoring full marks on this year’s spelling test meant you would only need 16/50 on the grammar test to still reach the expected standard overall.

What now?

If you have any 98s, 99s, 108s or 109s, I would definitely get checking those papers to see if you can pick up any extra marks. It could take only one extra mark to tip the scale into a ‘pass’ – for small school particularly, this potential one mark could mean a difference in data of 7% (based on a cohort of 15 children)!

We know from experience that there can be marking discrepancies, so it’s worth poring over some of those ‘boundary’ papers.

After reporting to parents and governors, your data may be used as a basis for forming some of your SDP priorities for next year. However, let’s remember…

• These tests are only a snapshot: they are under four hours’ work which are supposed to represent seven years of education (and that’s not forgetting the COVID gap!). They only assess a fraction of the National Curriculum.

• Year 6 teachers should not take any blame, or feel any guilt, if the results are lower than expected – these children have had six years of schooling prior to Year 6, potentially with 6+ different teachers, and only eight months in Year 6 before the tests.

• Year 6 teachers equally should not take all the glory if the results are amazing! These children have had six years of schooling prior to Year 6, potentially with 6+ different teachers, and only eight months in Year 6 before the tests!

• Every school approaches the tests differently: some schools put focus on SATs from the very beginning of Year 6; some have more of a relaxed approach. Many different factors come into play when it comes to producing these results – including children’s confidence and wellbeing on the actual day.

• There is so much more to the children, and your school, then these numbers. Look at the children in your care and consider how many other ways they have progressed that the government doesn't measure. Have they secured a speaking part in your play? Have they won a sports match? Do they stay in their seat for the whole lesson now? Each of these could be a ‘win’ for specific children you have in mind.

SATs Springboard: A bespoke revision roadmap for your Year 6s!

It's back, more powerful and personalised than ever before.

SATs Springboard delivers accelerated pupil progress and enables greater support of individual children, "massively" reducing workload for teachers and anxiety for pupils.

92% of teachers surveyed said that pupils completed SATs prep with less anxiety.

98% of teachers said pupils made greater academic progress.

Grab your free SATs Springboard trial and hit the ground running in September.