Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has been made of the potential merits of suspending SATs in May 2022 for Year 6 pupils due to continuing high absence rates and ongoing disruption in schools due to the outbreak of covid-19.

We are continuing to plan for a full programme of primary assessments to take place in summer 2022. The assessments will be crucial in helping parents, schools and the department gauge the impact of education lost and will enable us to better understand the effectiveness of education recovery initiatives.

The results from the 2022 assessments will not be published in Key Stage 2 performance tables. We will ensure that any data shared with Ofsted, regional schools’ commissioners and others is caveated with clear messages about the uneven impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on pupils and schools, and to advise caution when drawing conclusions from the data.