SATs paper revision guide for Year 2 and Year 6
Getting ready for KS1 or KS2 SATs? Our SATs revision guide has everything you need to help your child to do their very best. Boost their confidence today!
Revision guides are crucial for ensuring your child does the best that they can in their key stage 1 and key stage 2 SATs exams. But where do you start when it comes to helping your child with their SATs revision?
We understand that SATs can be a stressful time for both you and your children but there are a lot of SATs stress relief activities that can help. There’s also a lot of information to learn and understand before your child is ready for their SATs tests, and we want to ensure that you know how to prepare them.
What to revise for Year 2 and Year 6 SATs?
By the time your child has reached KS2, or even KS1, they’ve already learned so much and SATs exams have changed a lot since the National Curriculum came into place in 2014. Because of the change in curriculum, there are also a lot of misconceptions around SATs and what children need to revise.
SATs preparation is everything and you’ll need to know what your child has to revise. It’s also good to have an understanding of SATs results and what the marks will mean for your child moving forward from their SATs exams.
Children’s SATs exams are split into 6 different papers. The focus will be on English, maths and SPaG (spelling, punctuation and grammar), so you’ll need to prepare for those three key areas. In year 2 SATs papers will be focused more on English reading and writing and in year 6 SATs there will be more maths, so be sure to take a look at our quick guide to SATs to ensure your child is doing the best SATs preparation for their age group.
SATs revision guide: Maths and Reasoning
The revision your child needs to do for their maths SATs will of course be dependent on which year group they’re in.
Generally, children will need to develop their skills in reasoning for maths. They’ll need to apply logical and critical thinking to mathematical problems. That means applying mathematical problems to a range of contexts and situations to bridge the gap between their mathematical fluency and skill.
For year 2 maths SATs your child will be taking two maths papers. The first will be an arithmetic paper that takes approximately 15 minutes. The second paper will be focused more on mathematical fluency and takes around 35 minutes.
For year 6 maths SATs your child will be taking three papers, so this time a little more maths revision will be required. Again, they’ll start an arithmetic test that’ll cover long division and long multiplication questions, as well as addition, subtraction and fractions. The second and third papers will focus on mathematical reasoning and problem-solving.
So to break that down, for key stage 1 maths your child should be revising:
Arithmetic
General mathematical fluency.
For Key stage 2 maths your child should be revising:
Further arithmetic
Mathematical calculations
Addition
Subtraction
Fractions
Long division
Long multiplication.
Does your child need some extra help studying for their maths SATs? Our expert maths tutors will help them become fearless learners and develop confidence in their mathematics skills.
SATs revision guide: English reading
For key stage 1 SATs your child will be doing more reading papers than they will for their key stage 2 SATs.
In key stage 1, your child will need to revise for two English reading papers, each taking approximately 30 minutes to complete. The first paper will focus on texts approximately 400-700 words in length and the questions will be interspersed throughout. The second will have passages of approximately 800-1100 words and children will write their answers on a separate booklet.
In key stage 2, your child will only sit one English reading paper. This paper will test their comprehension skills based on three different genres of text.
For both tests, your child should be revising by testing their comprehension skills regularly. Using English reading worksheets they can improve their confidence in English reading.
SATs grammar, punctuation and spelling
Like with English reading SATs your child will do more grammar, punctuation and spelling papers in key stage 1 than in key stage 2.
In key stage 1, your child will need to revise for three SATs papers. The first will be a written task where children are provided with a prompt and stimulus, with a text type, audience and purpose to write for. The second paper will be questions based this time to test grammar, punctuation and vocabulary. The final paper will be a 20-word spelling test.
In key stage 2, your child will be taking two SATs papers in grammar, punctuation and spelling. The first paper will be a series of questions requiring short answers that test all of their grammar, punctuation and spelling skills and will take around 45 minutes. The second paper will focus mainly on spelling, with children required to correctly spell 20 missing words from a section of text.
So for key stage 1 English your child’s revision should focus on:
Grammar
Punctuation
Writing
Vocabulary
Spelling
And for key stage 2 English your child’s revision should focus on:
Spelling
Punctuation
Grammar
Of course, your child should always be studying and improving their spelling, punctuation, writing, vocabulary and grammar throughout their school journey. If your child needs a helping hand with their English, our English tutors are here to help them practice.
SATs revision practice questions
Revision questions are a great way to help your child practice for their SATs exams. Reading the information passively won’t help it sink in, practice makes perfect after all! However, coming up with the questions yourself and knowing they’ll actually help can be tricky.
Below you’ll find papers from previous SATs exams for both KS1 and KS2 SATs, which will make for the perfect revision questions for your child.
How do I prepare my child for SATs KS1?
Your child’s first experience with SATs tests doesn’t have to be stressful. With the SATs revision worksheets and resources, you can help boost your child’s confidence when going into their first SATs exams, and ensure they get the best marks they can.
KS1 SATs revision worksheets
One of the best resources for your child when they’re studying for their SATs is revision worksheets. We’ve put together a list of the official Department of Education papers used in 2019 KS1 Sats, which you can download and print directly from the government website.
For KS1 mathematics papers:
You’ll also find documents explaining how to administer and mark the tests.
For KS1 English papers:
Don’t forget to see the full government website page to see how to administer and mark the tests.
How can I help my child with year 6 SATs revision – KS2?
Preparing for year 6 SATs can be particularly stressful for your child as it’s the last set of SATs tests that they’ll do before they reach secondary school. However, as with any exam with the right amount of preparation and SATs revision your child will go into their key stage 2 SATs exams feeling confident and ready to do their best.
KS2 SATs revision papers and worksheets
Just as with KS1, the best way to help your child do their best in their KS2 SATs exams is to practice. So we’ve put together a list of 2019 SATs from the official Department of Education, which can be found on the government website.
For KS2 mathematics papers:
Be sure to see the full page for advice on how to administer and mark the tests.
For KS2 English papers:
If you want to know how to properly administer and mark the tests, see the full government page for 2019 KS2 English papers.
Fun SATs revision tips
We all know that the best way for children to learn is to make learning fun. SATs preparation can be stressful, so let your children have a moment to relax with some fun ways to revise for SATs.
SATs spelling revision games
By turning SATs revision into a game, you can help the knowledge your child needs to do their best sink in a bit more easily, instead of doing practice tests all the time.
For English comprehension, you could try the book character roleplay game. Get your child to roleplay as their favourite character from a book they like, and prompt them to remember key facts about the character by asking them questions – you can join in on the fun by roleplaying as another character from the same book, or just a character you made up.
For spelling, try a game of spelling flash cards. Use this to create flashcards of words your child struggles the most with. You can try reading out the word and getting your child to spell that word, or they can read the word and try to pronounce it correctly.
For maths you could try a card game, just simply using a deck of playing cards. Easy card games generally are a great way for children to work on their mental maths.
Try this for addition – players turn up two, three or four cards per round and the person with the highest sum of cards wins the round. The same works for subtraction, the player with the lowest number wins.
For multiplication, players turn over two cards and again the person with the highest sum wins. You can turn it into a long multiplication game by adding more cards per turn. Like addition and subtraction, this game can also be adapted for division.
SATs revision books
There are a lot of revision books out there that can help your child practice and become more confident before their SATs exams. Here are some of our favourites.
For key stage 1:
For key stage 2:
We also enjoy these SATs revision question cards:
Apps for SATs revision
There are so many apps for everything these days, and sometimes looking for the right one can be a little overwhelming. We’ve put together a list of our favourite apps and web-based games that your child can use to prepare for their SATs.
KS1 & KS2 SATs revision online
There are plenty of online resources that will help your child revise for their first SATs exams, and many of them are free too!
BBC Bitesize has a lot of fun ways to learn for both KS1 and KS2 SATs exams.
The School Run also has a lot of worksheets and other online resources to help your child prepare for your SATs.
We have plenty of free SATs resources to help your child revise for their SATs.
You could also give your child a head start on preparing for their SATs with our expert tutors. We’ll ensure that they’re fearless learners, ready to do their best in their SATs exams.
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