Year 2 SATs No Longer Compulsory: Schools Can Now Choose Whether to Administer Tests

A significant change to primary assessment took effect in 2026: Key Stage 1 (Year 2) SATs are no longer statutory. Schools now have the choice to administer these tests or not, and they are no longer required to submit results to the Department for Education.

The tests themselves—covering Reading, Grammar and Punctuation, Spelling, and Mathematics—can still be given informally during May if schools decide to use them for internal moderation or teacher assessment. However, this is entirely optional. In practice, this reduces standardized testing pressure on younger pupils and gives schools greater autonomy over how to assess six- and seven-year-olds.

What's changed for families

• KS1 SATs (Year 2) are optional, not mandatory—your child's school decides whether to administer them.
• Schools no longer report results to government; tests serve only internal school purposes if given at all.
• Year 6 (Key Stage 2) SATs remain mandatory and take place in May 2026. Results were delayed to 16 July 2026 due to marking platform issues, but GCSE and A-Level results were unaffected.
• If your school chooses to give KS1 SATs, the format and content remain unchanged: informal classroom conditions, two maths papers, and reading/grammar/spelling assessments.

If you're a newcomer family with a child in Year 2, ask your school whether it intends to administer SATs. If not, your child will not be formally tested at this age—classroom observations and teacher assessment will form the basis of tracking progress instead.

Sources

• Adnan Khan Tutoring — Primary Year 2 and Year 6 SATs 2026 Guide
• Third Space Learning — Guide to SATs 2026 for School Leaders