Year 6 SATS Guidance

SATS 2024 - 25 guidance

Across the year, there are several key dates when we will be carrying out statutory testing in school. It is extremely important that your children attend well across the year, but even more so during these periods of statutory testing.

Year 6 SATs 2024-25

SATs Tests for Year 6 pupils will take place between Monday 11th May - Thursday 14th May (dates taken from gov website).

Information below regarding papers is unconfirmed. However, this is based on the order from the 2023 SATs.

Monday 11th May 2025	English grammar, punctuation and spelling papers 1 and 2
Tuesday 12th May 2025	English reading
Wednesday 13th May 2025	Mathematics papers 1 and 2
Thursday 14th May 2025	Mathematics paper 3

As with the KS1 tests, writing will be teacher assessed against the Interim Assessment Framework for KS2.

In the summer term of 2021, children in Year 2 and Year 6 took new SATs papers. These tests in English and Maths are designed to reflect the new national curriculum, and are intended to be more rigorous. These also have new marking schemes to replace the old national curriculum levels.

At the end of Year 6, children will sit tests in:

Reading
Maths
Spelling, punctuation and grammar

These tests will be both set and marked externally, and the results will be used to measure your child's progress and the school's performance. Your child’s marks will be used in conjunction with teacher assessment to give a broader picture of their attainment.

Key Stage 2 Reading

The reading test will provisionally be a single paper with questions based on one 800-word text and two passages of 300 words. Your child will have one hour, including reading time, to complete the test.

There will be a selection of question types, including:

Ranking/ordering, e.g. ‘Number the events below to show the order in which they happen in the story’
Labelling, e.g. ‘Label the text to show the title of the story’
Find and copy, e.g. ‘Find and copy one word that suggests what the weather is like in the story’
Short constructed response, e.g. ‘What does the bear eat?’
Open-ended response, e.g. ‘Look at the sentence that begins Once upon a time. How does the writer increase the tension throughout this paragraph? Explain fully, referring to the text in your answer.’

Key Stage 2 grammar, punctuation and spelling test

The grammar, punctuation and spelling test will consist of two parts: a grammar and punctuation paper requiring short answers, lasting 45 minutes, and an aural spelling test of 20 words, lasting around 15 minutes.

The grammar and punctuation test will include two sub-types of questions:

Selected response, e.g. ‘Identify the adjectives in the sentence below’
Constructed response, e.g. ‘Correct/complete/rewrite the sentence below,’ or, ‘The sentence below has an apostrophe missing. Explain why it needs an apostrophe.’

Key Stage 2 maths

Children will sit three papers in maths:

Paper 1: arithmetic, 30 minutes (written)
Papers 2 and 3: mathematical fluency, solving problems and reasoning, 40 minutes per paper

Paper 1 will consist of fixed response questions, where children have to give the correct answer to calculations, including long multiplication and division. Papers 2 and 3 will involve a number of question types, including:

Multiple choice
True or false
Constrained questions, e.g. giving the answer to a calculation, drawing a shape or completing a table or chart
Less constrained questions, where children will have to explain their approach for solving a problem.

Key Stage 2 science

Not all children in Year 6 will take science SATs. However, a number of schools will be required to take part in science sampling: a test administered to a selected sample of children thought to be representative of the population as a whole. For those who are selected, there will be three papers:

Biology: 25 minutes, 22 marks
Chemistry: 25 minutes, 22 marks
Physics: 25 minutes, 22 marks

How will Key Stage 2 SATs be marked?

The old system of national curriculum levels is now no longer used, after the department of education abolished it in Summer 2015. Instead, children will be given standardised scores. You will be given your child’s score, alongside the average for their school, the local area and nationally. There will also be a ‘performance descriptor’ of the expected standard for Key Stage 2 pupils. The Department for Education is aiming for 85 per cent of children to reach or exceed that standard.