Education minister Nick Gibb has admitted that last year’s highly controversial Sats did not go as “smoothly” as he would have hoped.

Last summer’s tests for Year 6 pupils were the first under the tougher curriculum, and were hit by leaked test papers, complaints from schools about inadequate time to prepare, concerns they were too hard and a boycott by some parents.

Asked what went wrong, Mr Gibb told today’s Education Select Committee hearing on primary assessment that it was “a challenging year”.

However, he said schools had had a long lead-in time ahead of the changes, with the review of the curriculum starting in early 2011, test materials available in June 2015, and frameworks ready in September 2015.

He added that, in retrospect, it might have been better if the Department for Education had highlighted those publications more.

“I think things were in place,” he said. “There were issues. For example, we had the breach of security over the grammar and punctuation test, and we had multiple messages that were coming out of the STA [Standards and Testing Agency] that were designed to be helpful for the system, but which I think served to overload the system with multiple communications, and I think that was part of the issue which led to the impression that last year’s Sats were not under control.”

A ‘reliable’ baseline

Mr Gibb told the committee that he was “open-minded” on whether the baseline measure for four-year-olds should be formally tested, or assessed using teachers’ classroom observations, and the government would consult on this “very shortly”.

He said: “The key factor is whether it is reliable. That’s the most important thing.”

Earlier, Claire Burton, chief executive of the Standards and Testing Agency, said it was possible to create something that does not look like a test, but is reliable. She said a baseline assessment would allow schools to get credit for their work through all of a child’s time at primary school.

Michelle Meadows, executive director for strategy risk and research at Ofqual, agreed that a baseline test could be reliable, but added that “what you assess reliably might be relatively narrow”.

Time tables to be checked

Mr Gibb confirmed that a multiplication tables check would be introduced in 2018-19, in line with a manifesto proposal.

Teacher assessments ‘need looking at’

Sally Collier, chief regulator at Ofqual, told MPs that the use of teacher assessments for Sats writing tests was an area that needed to be looked at.

She said teachers had unconscious bias because they knew what the tests would be used for, but added that using comparative judgement carried other risks.

However, Mr Gibb said teacher assessment was the right approach “for a whole raft of reasons”, and that the government consultation would look at how assessments are conducted and moderated.

Ms Collier said more training for teachers on assessment would be “helpful”, but added that there was a question about how it was delivered, and how frequently.

Reading test defended

Ms Burton defended last year’s controversial reading test, which provoked an outcry from teachers who said it was too hard for their pupils.

She told MPs the test “broadly” performed as the STA expected it to, but she “completely accepted the feedback that some children really struggled, particularly with the first and second questions which got quite difficult, quite quickly”.

She said there was more Ofqual could do around the child’s experience of the test.

Ms Meadows said the test went through a “very robust” process before it was taken, and it seemed to be well targeted at the pupils who would take it, but was harder than in previous years.

She said it was important to see how the test bedded down in future years.

She also revealed that Ofqual is conducting research into the validity of the reading and maths tests at key stage 2, and would “pull in SEN expertise”.

This year’s Sats

MPs sought assurance that this year’s Sats would be delivered more successfully than in 2016.

Ms Burton said some of last year’s problems were due to delivering changes “over a number of fronts”, although she took responsibility for some STA failings.

She said: “This year I think we have a far greater degree of stability. I think teachers know what to expect. There’s very little change, and we have improved some of our guidance with teacher unions.

“Broadly, I expect it to go far more smoothly this year. I certainly haven’t had any indications in our monitoring that there are any issues emerging. But this is always a very volatile area, and that is almost inevitable.”

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