Are exams getting harder?

Concerns about the recent SATs, or Standard Assessment Tests, which reportedly had children all over the country in tears, even saw Schools minister Nick Gibb having to investigate. In light of this we wanted to look into the age old question, are SATs exams getting harder? 

Results for key stage 2 SATs came out earlier this month. A government summary tells us that children appear to be catching up post-pandemic, with more students reaching the expected standard compared to last year (2022). 

In particular, results showed higher scores in maths and writing compared to 2022, although when combined with reading it averages to the same number of pupils meeting the expected standard as last year (59%). 

Grammar, punctuation and spelling standards have remained at the same level as last year, and students meeting reading standards alone remained the same as before the pandemic (73%) having actually dropped from 2022 (75%). 

Finally, results show that fewer students met the expected standard overall than those sitting the Year 2 SATs in 2019, with a percentage of 59% compared to 65%, suggesting that we still have a way to go to catching up to pre-pandemic levels, or that exams are indeed getting harder. 

The most concern from parents and teachers came after the Year 6 SATS this year. The Standards and Testing Agency (STA) ruled that the content of this year’s Year 6 SATs was at the appropriate difficulty level based on the test framework. To account for test content changing each year the raw mark students need to meet or exceed the expected standard changes. This year’s raw mark was lower than last year, meaning that the test was considered more difficult, however the STA states that lowering the standard balances this out. 

Whilst lowering the standard may serve to reduce the number of students not reaching the expected standard, the negative impacts on students sitting the exams can’t be understated, with many’s confidence taking a huge knock this year. 

Aside from the grading, parents and teachers were frustrated with the wording of questions, with many questions deemed ambiguous, and containing idioms and references that not every child understood. Many adults have attempted to answer the questions in light of the concerns, including one journalist who found that ‘it wasn't always clear exactly what was being asked for, and I was far from certain I was always on the right lines.’

The Department for Education has stated that the tests are ‘designed to be hard’ however, TES magazine analysed the Year 6 reading and answer booklet and found that children were given 34 seconds to answer each of the 38 questions due to the length of the texts, but pupils were required to read 2106 words across three texts in the reading booklet - roughly a third more than last year's 1564 words. 

We spoke to one EB tutor Louise who has been teaching for 10 years. She said that ‘For a lot of those questions [students] had to read quite a sizeable chunk to deduce the answer. If their reading skills are not up to par, and for many it just isn’t, all their energy goes into decoding the words and the meaning of what they are reading gets lost.’ This dip in reading skills was reflected in the Year 2 SATs results. 

She agreed with others that ‘it’s the nuances and depth of language [students] struggle with. And you can only get that if you are exposed to a wide range of texts, and that, unfortunately, is something schools just can’t provide due to time restraint. This is why it is so important for children to read at home.’ 

‘Parents also need to understand, when they are reading with their children, the importance of unpicking the texts. There is a huge focus on comprehension, inference, prediction. Parents often measure children’s progress in reading in how quickly they move through the reading scheme and that is not the case at all.’’ 

‘It’s really important to be asking things like what do you think is happening, what happened before, what do you think will happen next, what are people saying/feeling, how do you think the story will end and so on.’ 

With it appearing that lower literacy levels are meaning exams do seem to be getting harder for the students taking them, the emphasis on extra curricular help has never been more pronounced.

Find our recommended reading lists on our previous blog here and help your student practice improving their literacy.

To speak to one of our team about how we can help your student prepare for the SATs, or any other exams, head to https://edubridge.org.uk/contact-us to speak to one of our Academic Advisors today!