"Primary is what comes first": How end of key stage 2 exams impact disadvantaged children

England’s end of primary school tests (SATs) may not be working as well as they should for the children who need the most support at school and our research findings underpin a strong case for reform. 

This report examines how end of key stage 2 assessments are experienced by disadvantaged pupils and their schools. Drawing on a nationally representative poll of primary school senior leaders and qualitative interviews with teachers and senior leaders across England, we find that SATs in their current form are not fulfilling their core objectives well for disadvantaged pupils.  

The disadvantage gap in primary education is already stark: by the end of primary school, disadvantaged pupils are on average 10 months behind their peers, and this gap has been growing since the pandemic (EPI 2025). SATs should be helping to close this gap. Last year’s Curriculum and Assessment Review represented a significant opportunity to address longstanding concerns about the impact of end of key stage 2 exams on pupils, teachers, and schools. While the review did take some positive first steps in acknowledging the challenges in the primary curriculum, many in the sector felt it did not go far enough and that the case for more significant reform to primary accountability and assessment infrastructure remains pressing. Following the review, the secretary of state for education has maintained that primary school assessment plays an important role in “pushing standards up for every child” (DfE 2025).  

This paper identifies three areas where SATs may not be serving disadvantaged pupils well.

1. Perverse incentives and curriculum narrowing. The accountability framework appears to incentivise schools to narrow their curriculum and focus on tested subjects, particularly during preparation periods. The loss of wider curriculum time and enrichment falls disproportionately on disadvantaged pupils, who are often less likely to access these experiences outside school.
2. An accountability framework that does not reflect school context. Schools are judged against a single national benchmark without meaningful account taken for the communities schools serve and the cohorts they have each year. This can obscure genuine performance, particularly for schools serving more disadvantaged communities, and leave senior leaders facing scrutiny they feel bears little relationship to what their school has delivered.
3. Increased teacher pressure makes its way into the classroom. SATs-related accountability pressure contributes to teacher stress, affects pedagogy, and is a factor in decisions to leave the profession. These effects are felt most acutely in schools with the least capacity to absorb them, with consequences for the quality of teaching and pastoral support that disadvantaged pupils often depend on more than their peers. 

Our polling revealed the extent to which these views are held across the primary teaching workforce. Key findings include:

• 82 per cent of primary senior leaders polled felt that SATs disproportionately impact disadvantaged students, with 90 percent of respondents reporting pupils with SEND experience the greatest negative impact
• 93 per cent of those polled felt that preparation for SATs impact the breadth of curriculum in primary schools, with 77 per cent reporting more time being spent on tested subjects when preparing for SATs
• just 7 per cent of senior leaders believed that SATs should be kept as they are.  

This is not an argument against assessment or accountability for primary schools, nor a call to abolish SATs; we will be setting out our policy recommendations in a forthcoming paper. Instead, this paper is a problem diagnosis; an exploration of where the system in its current form may not be properly supporting disadvantaged pupils, and an exploration of why that might be the case and what the implications of these shortcomings are for disadvantaged pupils.