Schools should not be judged by SATs results alone, union says

According to Russell Hobby, general secretary of the school leaders’ union NAHT, “the methods to hold schools to account aren’t as fair as they should be”.

Today, 4 July, the results of the Key Stage 2 SATs tests are published and Russell Hobby has outlined the limitations of SATs data.

He said: "SATs data only gives parents part of the picture when judging a pupil’s success or a school’s effectiveness. League tables are the least helpful way of knowing if a school is the right place for your child.

“At the moment, parents and schools know that these results have to be taken with a pinch of salt. This can’t be right. Just looking at data misses the majority of the real work that schools do to help young people achieve their full potential.”

Hobby continued: “Schools do need to be held to account but inspectors should look at more than just data. That way, when parents are reading Ofsted reports they can have more confidence that the report properly reflects how good the school actually is.”

James Bowen, director of NAHT Edge, also commented: “Too much significance is still being attached to data in judging school effectiveness.

“We need to remember that these results simply reflect how a small proportion of a school's pupils performed in a one-off 45-minute test. They are at best a tiny snapshot of a very specific area of a child's development.”