The seven years before count, not just the final nine months

There is no doubt that every year in primary education has its own specific challenges.

Reception: arguably the most important year in a child’s education. Year 1: often the first year of more formal learning, and the year of the phonics check. Year 3: the first year of key stage 2 and the anecdotally dreaded “data drop” between phases.

And then there’s year 6. There’s a reason for the adage “once you’re in year 6, you’re not coming out”.

I truly believe that until you’ve experienced the unique pressures of teaching this year group, you won’t understand – and may possibly roll your eyes – at colleagues expressing the difficulties of teaching the final year of key stage 2.

It comes with its joys too. The children are old enough to be more independent (hello to a 45-minute independent writing session while I get on with marking!), while young enough to still find their teacher funny.

There’s something very special about teaching this age group. It feels like the final year of true childhood innocence before they reach “big school”.

However, I will die on the hill that the ability range and knowledge gaps in year 6 are the widest of any other academic year (even possibly in secondary school, where the classes are often set by ability).

Core subjects

This is obviously most clear, and the hardest to address, in the core subjects.

In English, you’re pitching lessons to some children who are unable to decode independently through to those who have a reading age far beyond their chronological one.

In maths, you’re teaching seven-digit place value to some who still don’t know their number bonds to 10 alongside those who could divide by a two-digit number in their sleep.

And sometimes you’re doing all this without a TA in the room. And sometimes you’re doing this with a mixed class – so an even wider ability range. And sometimes (often) you’re doing this with a SATs data target hanging over your head.

It wasn’t long ago that year 6 teachers often had a performance-related pay target based on SATs results.

While this is seemingly less common now (thank goodness), the pressure of SATs data seems only to hang over the shoulders of the year 6 teacher. Apply an iota of thought to this, and you’ll realise it’s mad.

The key stage 2 SATs assess children on seven years’ worth of prior education. Seven years. Yet somehow, the data produced at the end of those seven years can feel like it belongs almost entirely to the teacher who happens to teach them for the final one.

Outside the gates

And that’s before we even acknowledge everything that happens outside the school gates.

Research commissioned by the DfE into attainment at key stage 4 found that about 84 per cent of the variation in outcomes occurred at pupil level, with only about 16 per cent occurring between schools.

That doesn’t mean that schools only have a 16 per cent impact on a child’s attainment. It also looked at key stage 4 not key stage2. But it does put into perspective the idea that a set of results can ever be a simple reflection of the effectiveness of one school, let alone one teacher.

Children don’t arrive in year 6 as blank slates on the first day of September.

They arrive with six years of schooling behind them, alongside differences in prior attainment, attendance, family circumstances, SEND, mobility, home learning environments and countless other factors that their year 6 teacher did not create and cannot magically undo in the 29 teaching weeks they have with them before SATs.

Huge impact

Of course year 6 teachers have an impact. A huge one.

We can identify gaps, adapt teaching, intervene, encourage, cajole and occasionally perform what feels like educational witchcraft in the months between September and May.

But we cannot retrospectively reteach six years of education to 30-plus children, each with a completely different nine to 10 years behind them.

And yet, when those SATs results arrive in July, whose classroom door do we tend to leave them at?

Schools often say “it’s a team effort”, and I truly believe this. But actions speak louder than words.

Rather than cramming “booster” and intervention groups into year 6, any issues and clear learning gaps should be identified and addressed much further down the school.

If the curriculum and assessment in a school has truly been thoughtfully considered, there is absolutely no good reason for year 6 children to have their timetables altered during the spring term for extra maths and English lessons.

What message is a school sending by doing this?

SATs are a snapshot of where a child is at the end of seven years of primary education.

They are not, and should never be treated as, a verdict on the teacher who happened to be standing at the front of the classroom in year 6.