I have been watching results in other areas as I try and pass the time to our results day. A common theme seems to be that the Maths paper was harder this year.

Any teachers out there know why this would be the case? Could it be that the SATS are more rigorous so the tests are ramping up to match the more challenging KS2 curriculum?

I attended our primary school SATS meeting and the head said that the SATS Maths papers have more worded sums/problems. He said that the new papers require greater verbal reasoning skills. Could that make it harder for children that haven't fully developed their transferrable skills from written word to numerical form?

Why was English deemed to be harder last year? Do the exam makers swing the pendulum too far back and forth after looking at the previous years results?

I await your opinions with great interest

Different areas have different tests.
The 11+ Is not standardised across the country.
However, you have got a point about the curriculum, it has been far more challenging since the 2014 curriculum changes.

In Kent the pass mark for maths fell from about 50% in 2016 to 40% in 2017. To be able to pass an exam after getting just 10 questions correct out of 25 is quite remarkable. So maybe the paper is tougher, causing more children to struggle over harder questions. My daughter who has always been strong in maths said there were five hard questions and she got five wrong.