Your child’s teacher is responsible for judging the standards your child is working at in English reading, English writing, mathematics, and science, by the end of KS1. To help inform those judgements, pupils sit national curriculum assessments in English and mathematics, commonly called SATs. They may also sit an optional test in English grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

The tests are a tool for teachers to help them measure your child’s performance and identify their needs as they move into KS2. They also allow teachers to see how your child is performing against national expected standards.

The tests can be taken any time during May, and they are not strictly timed. Pupils do not even know they are taking them as teachers incorporate them into everyday classroom activities.

Teachers will use the results from these tests, along with the work your child has done throughout the year, to help them reach their own judgements about how your child is progressing at the end of key stage 1.

These teacher assessment judgements will be reported to you by the end of the summer term through our end of year reports.

Ministers stated in the response to the 2017 consultation on primary assessment that they intended to make the end of KS1 assessments non-statutory once the reception baseline assessment (RBA) was fully established. On 20 July 2022, the Department announced that KS1 assessments would become non-statutory from the 2023/24 academic year.

For more information, download the 'Information for parents' guide, by clicking on the image below.