What is Key Stage 2?

Key Stage 2 (KS2) unsurprisingly is the educational stage after Key Stage 1 and is part of the National Curriculum. It is the legal term for the four years of schooling in maintained primary schools in England and Wales and begins at age 7 in Year 3 and ends when pupils complete Year 6, usually at the age of 11.

What is on the Key Stage 2 curriculum?

Just like at KS1 the 3 core subjects are English, Maths and Science. Foundation Subjects taught at KS2 are Design Technology, History, Geography, Art & Design, Music, PE, Computing and Foreign Languages.  All maintained schools are also required to teach Religious Education though it is not part of the National Curriculum and parents have the right to withdraw children from these lessons.

What are the overseas equivalents of Key Stage 2?

We bring teachers from mainly these places into the country to take up teaching jobs in the UK.  The names given to comparable education stages/classes in these places are

What happens on completion of Key Stage 2?

In the month of May in Year 6, pupils take the KS2 Standard Assesstment Tests (SATs) which cover

• English punctuation, spelling and grammar
• English reading
• Maths – 3 papers taken over 2 days

The tests are taken separately but last a total of 4 hours.

How are Key Stage 2 results used?

Unlike KS1 the tests are marked externally and schools are usually notified of results towards the end of July.  Each student is given a raw score that is then scaled against a score of 100.  Those who achieve a scaled score of higher than 100 have exceeded the expected standard and those who get lower, have yet to achieve the expected standard. Additionally, the teacher writes their own assessment for each pupil in the subjects of maths, science, reading and writing.

In secondary school, Year 7 teachers will be given the SATs scores for their incoming pupils. Some schools will use these scores to set streams in some subjects, while others may prefer to use their own internal tests and/or a combination of these two with  Year 7 CATs (Cognitive Ability Tests). But whichever test results are used, the comparison is always with expected levels.

You can find further detail about Key Stage 2 here and you can click here for our blog about Key Stage 1.

To see the huge variety of Key Stage 2 teaching jobs and support jobs we’ve got click here. UK based Teachers and Teaching Assistants can pre-register with us here and overseas teachers and support staff here.