Teachers ‘just as effective’ as Sats tests at predicting success

SATS are no better than teachers at predicting pupils’ GCSE and A-level results, a study has found.

Researchers from King’s College London said their findings called into question the benefits of standardised exams.

The study, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, found teacher assessments at age seven, 11 and 14 were just as effective as using Sats results to predict pupils’ subsequent exam success.

Dr Kaili Rimfeld, one of the report’s lead authors, said: “We have shown for the first time that teacher assessments predict GCSE and A-level results just as well as earlier exam scores. The fact that exam scores correlate so highly with the teacher assessments raises questions about the value of the testing culture that characterises compulsory education in the UK.”

Currently, children take Sats at the end of their final year of primary school, while the tests for seven-yearolds are being phased out in favour of “baseline assessments” for children aged four to five at the end of reception. The researchers linked data from more than 5,000 twins in the Twins Early Development Study with teacher assessments and exam scores in the National Pupil Database.

The research is published as thousands of Year 6 children start their Sats today.

Last month Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, announced that if elected, he would scrap Sats because primary schoolchildren are “unique” and should not have to go through “extreme pressure testing”.

Mr Corbyn said that children should be “encouraged to be creative” and allowed to “let their imagination roam” rather than be subjected to the “unnecessary pressure of national exams”.

Ministers said that axing Sats would cause “enormous damage” to education and undo decades of improvement in children’s numeracy and literacy.

Earlier this week, Roger Taylor, the chairman of exams regulator Ofqual, said Sats in primary school were necessary to show that taxpayer money was being well spent and the education system was fit for purpose.