Year 6 SATs 2024
In the summer term of 2024, 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.
Key Stage 2 Reading
The English reading test will have a greater focus on fictional texts. There is also a greater emphasis on the comprehension elements of the new curriculum. The test consists of a reading booklet and a separate answer booklet.
Pupils will have a total of 1 hour to read the 3 texts in the reading booklet and complete the questions at their own pace. There will be a mixture of genres of text. The least-demanding text will come first with the following texts increasing in level of difficulty.
Pupils can approach the test as they choose: eg working through one text and answering the questions before moving on to the next. The questions are worth a total of 50 marks.
Key Stage 2 grammar, punctuation and spelling test
The new grammar, punctuation and spelling test has a greater focus on knowing and applying grammatical terminology with the full range of punctuation tested.
The new national curriculum sets out clearly which technical terms in grammar are to be learnt by pupils and these are explicitly included in the test and detailed in the new test framework. It also defines precise spelling patterns and methodologies to be taught, and these are the basis of spellings in the test. There will be no contextual items in the test.
As in previous years, there are two papers, Paper 1: questions and Paper 2: spelling.
Paper 1: questions consists of a single test paper. Pupils will have 45 minutes to complete the test, answering the questions in the test paper. The questions are worth 50 marks in total.
Paper 2: Spelling consists of an answer booklet for pupils to complete and a test transcript to be read by the test administrator. Pupils will have approximately 15 minutes to complete the test, but it is not strictly timed, by writing the 20 missing words in the answer booklet. The questions are worth 20 marks in total.
Key Stage 2 Writing
There is not a test for English writing. Writing will be assessed through teacher assessment.
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: arithmetic replaces the mental mathematics test. The arithmetic test assesses basic mathematical calculations. The test consists of a single test paper. The paper consists of 36 questions which are worth a total of 40 marks.
The questions will cover straightforward addition and subtraction and more complex calculations with fractions worth 1 mark each, and long divisions and long multiplications worth 2 marks each. Gridded paper provided in answer spaces for questions on the arithmetic paper and some questions on Paper 2
Papers 2 and 3 each consist of a single test paper. Each paper will have questions worth a total of 35 marks.
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.
When will KS2 SATs take place in 2024?
The Year 6 KS2 SATs will be administered in the week commencing 13th May 2024.
Teacher Assessment (TA)
Following the removal of teacher assessment levels, teacher assessment frameworks have been provided to support teachers in making robust and accurate judgements for pupils at the end of KS2.
TA provides a rounded judgement that:
•is based on knowledge of how the pupil has performed over time and in a variety of contexts
•takes into account strengths and weaknesses of the pupil’s performance
To report pupils have met the expected standard, teachers will need to have evidence that a pupil demonstrates consistent attainment of all the statements within the standard.
What information is given to parents?
Children will be given scaled scores. For the KS2 tests a scaled score of 100 will always represent the ‘expected standard’.
A pupil’s scaled score will be based on their raw score. The raw score is the total number of marks a pupil receives in a test. The pupil’s raw score will be translated into a scaled score using a conversion table.