SATs stands for “Standard Assessment Tests” though it can also stand for “Statutory Assessment Tests”.

SATs take place in primary schools across England every year. Children take their SATs in Year 6 (at the end of Key Stage 2).

Key Stage 2 SATs Tests:
Key Stage 2 SATs (KS2 SATs) take place in May when children are in Year 6 of primary school (aged between 10-11 years old). Key Stage 2 SATs test children’s skills in Maths, English Reading and Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling. There are also teacher assessments in Writing and Science.

These national curriculum tests are formally timed, there’s a nation-wide exam timetable and the exams are sent off to be marked externally.

KS2 SATs are marked by external examiners. SATs tests are marked and a child’s exam mark (e.g. 25/36 or 42/60) is called their ‘raw score’. This raw score is then converted to a ‘scaled score’ using a scaled score conversion chart.

Raw Scores? Scaled Scores?
A child’s raw score (or raw marks) is simply the total number of marks that pupil has scored on a test. By using a conversion chart, the child’s raw scores are transformed into age standardised test scores or simply ‘scaled scores’.

Broadly speaking, scaled scores give a much easier indication of how a pupil is performing relative to the national sample of pupils of the same age group. The average score is always 100, hence a higher score is above average and a lower score is below average. For SATs, scaled scores range between 80 and 120.

If a child’s scaled score is:

• below 100, they have not reached the expected standard.
• between 100 and 109, they have reached the expected standard.
• 110 or over, they have exceeded the expected standard and are judged as working at greater depth.