The Department for Education has published provisional attainment statistics for key stage 2 national curriculum assessments in England. This shows that the gap between disadvantaged pupils’ key stage 2 SATs results and all other pupils has fallen to 3.12, from 3.21 in 2023. However, it is still a wider gap than the 2.91 gap index pre-pandemic in 2018-19. Key findings include:
- In individual subjects, attainment increased in reading, writing and science compared to 2023. Attainment remained the same in maths and grammar, punctuation and spelling.
- In reading, 74% of pupils met the expected standard, up from 73% in 2023.
- In maths, 73% of pupils met the expected standard, unchanged since 2023.
- In writing, 72% of pupils met the expected standard, up from 71% in 2023.
- In grammar, punctuation and spelling, 72% of pupils met the expected standard, unchanged since 2023.
- In science, 81% of pupils met the expected standard, up from 80% in 2023.
- Attainment in all of reading, writing and maths (combined) increased compared to 2023.
- In all of reading, writing and maths (combined), 61% of pupils met the expected standard, up from 60% in 2023.
- Girls continue to outperform boys at the expected standard in all subjects except maths, where boys outperformed girls by 1 percentage point.
- The disadvantage gap index is down from 3.21 in 2023 to 3.12 in 2024. More detail is provided in the pupil characteristics section.
dsga.org.uk 