Year 6 SATs 2016

SATs Tests for Year 6 pupils will take place between Monday 9th May and Friday 13th May 2016

In the summer term of 2016, children in Year 2 and Year 6 will be the first to take the new SATs papers. These tests in English and maths will reflect the new national curriculum, and are intended to be more rigorous. There will also be a completely new marking scheme to replace the existing 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.

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.’ 

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.’ 

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.

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. (Monday 6 to Friday 17 June is the science sampling test period in which your child might sit the tests.) 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

The Year 6 KS2 SATs will be administered in the week commencing 9 May 2016. 

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.

Yes - The Government produced sample papers with mark schemes in June 2015. You can have a look at them by clicking here.