England · KS2 SATs · Year 6, every May

Year 6 SATs maths:
the three papers, and
what actually helps

A straight guide to the KS2 maths SATs — what is in each paper, what the score means, where to download the real papers for nothing, and what a sensible year of revision looks like.

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The short answer

What are the Year 6 SATs in maths?

SATs is the everyday name for the national curriculum tests taken at the end of key stage 2, in the May of Year 6. Maths is three papers: Paper 1, arithmetic, then Papers 2 and 3, both reasoning. Together they are worth 110 marks, and they are marked externally, not by your child's school.

The tests are sat in one week in mid-May, Monday to Thursday, with maths on the last two days: Papers 1 and 2 on one day and Paper 3 the next. Results reach schools in early July and you should have them before the end of the summer term. The exact dates for each year are published by the Standards and Testing Agency on GOV.UK's primary assessment dates page, which is the only place worth checking.

There is no pass mark and no grade. Results come back as a scaled score from 80 to 120, where 100 means your child met the expected standard. Nothing about the tests decides which secondary school your child attends — that place is already offered by March.

This page covers the tests themselves. If you want the underlying content — every topic taught in Year 6 and where children get stuck — that is on our Year 6 maths curriculum page.

Paper by paper

What is in each maths SATs paper

The three papers ask for genuinely different things, which is why revising for one does not prepare a child for the others. Schools choose their own start time for each test, and a child who is absent may be able to sit a missed test up to 5 school days later if the school applies for a timetable variation and it is approved.

Paper 1: arithmetic

Thirty minutes, 40 marks, and no word problems. Calculations presented without context, in an answer booklet: the four operations, fractions, decimals, percentages of amounts, and order of operations.

  • Most questions are worth 1 mark; long multiplication and long division carry 2, with 1 mark for a correct formal written method containing no more than one arithmetic error
  • Calculators are not allowed — in any KS2 maths paper
  • Equipment: a pen or dark pencil and a ruler, and a rubber if wanted. Not allowed: calculators, tracing paper, squared paper, protractors or mirrors
  • It is a fluency test, so speed and accuracy both matter
What it looks like

7,235 − 1,948 =                          15% of 360 =

No context, no explanation asked for. Just the calculation, done reliably.

Where it usually goes wrong This is the paper most families revise, because it is the easiest to practise. It is also the smaller share of them — 40 marks out of 110.

Papers 2 and 3: reasoning

Forty minutes and 35 marks each, sat on consecutive days. These carry 70 of the 110 marks, and they are where the marks are usually lost.

  • Word problems, multi-step questions, and questions that ask a child to explain or to say why an answer cannot be right
  • Questions can come from anywhere in the key stage 2 curriculum, not only Year 6
  • Equipment: pencil and pen, a sharp pencil for drawing, a ruler, a protractor or angle measurer, and a mirror
  • Some questions carry 2 or 3 marks; on many of them a mark is available for the working, so partial credit is real
What it looks like

"Pens come in packs of 12 and pencils in packs of 20. Ravi buys at least one pack of each and ends up with the same number of pens as pencils. What is the smallest number of each he could have?"

60 of each: five packs of pens, three packs of pencils. Two ideas at once — common multiples, then noticing the question wants items, not packs.

Where it usually goes wrong Blank answer boxes on the longer questions. On many 2-mark questions a complete, correct method earns a mark even when the final answer is wrong, so an attempt is always worth more than an empty box — and children who have only practised arithmetic do not know that.

What the papers are allowed to test

Anything from the key stage 2 programme of study — Years 3 to 6, not just Year 6. A question about equivalent fractions or column subtraction is fair game.

  • Number and place value, the four operations, fractions, decimals and percentages
  • Ratio and proportion, and simple algebra
  • Measurement, including area, volume and unit conversion
  • Geometry: shape properties, angles, coordinates
  • Statistics: pie charts, line graphs and the mean
Why it matters

A child who is shaky on Year 4 times tables will feel that in every paper.

Which is why revision that starts with Year 6 topics often misses the actual problem.

Where it usually goes wrong "Revision" that means re-reading Year 6 work. If the gap is earlier, no amount of Year 6 practice closes it.

Free, from the source

Where to get real SATs papers without paying

The last three years of KS2 test papers and mark schemes are published free by the Standards and Testing Agency on GOV.UK, re-usable under the Open Government Licence (a little third-party material inside the papers is excepted). You can download them, print them and mark them at home at no cost: national curriculum assessments: past test materials.

Two things worth knowing. Older years drop off that collection as new ones are added, which is why other sites host archives of them. And a paper is only useful with its mark scheme, which is published alongside it and tells you exactly which methods earn marks.

Be careful with "predicted" papers sold as SATs practice. Nobody outside the STA knows what is in next year's test, and a predicted paper is a guess with a price on it. Real past papers are the actual tests, and they cost nothing.

Using them properly matters more than doing lots of them. In our experience one paper, marked together with fifteen minutes spent on the questions that went wrong, does more than three papers marked and filed.

The score

What a SATs score actually means

Schools report a scaled score, not a mark and not a percentage. Here is how to read it.

What you are toldWhat it means
A scaled score of 100 or moreYour child met the expected standard in that test. 100 is the standard, not the average of the class.
A scaled score below 100Your child did not meet the expected standard in that test and may need more support. It is not a fail grade; there is no such thing at KS2.
No scaled score reportedBelow a minimum raw mark no scaled score is issued at all; the report says the child has not demonstrated sufficient understanding.
The range80 to 120. 120 is the ceiling, however well a child does.
The raw marks neededDifferent every year, because one year's papers are never quite as hard as another's. Scaling exists precisely so that 100 carries the same meaning whichever year a child sits it.
"Greater depth"A teacher assessment judgement for writing. It is not a maths test outcome, so a scaled score is never reported as greater depth.

Scaled score definitions from the Standards and Testing Agency. The conversion table for each year is published on GOV.UK after the tests, so a practice-paper mark cannot be converted into next year's scaled score.

Do they matter?

How much do SATs results actually matter?

Less than most Year 6 children believe, and in our experience the accurate answer settles them better than reassurance does.

Your child's secondary school place has already been offered — councils send secondary offers on 1 March, weeks before the tests. SATs cannot change it.

GOV.UK gives the purpose as measuring attainment against the standards in the national curriculum and helping teachers and parents see where a pupil may need extra support; the results are also used to report publicly on school performance and to produce national statistics. Your child's individual result is not published anywhere.

Secondary schools can see the results and use them to plan support. Some consider them when grouping pupils for maths, though schools often run their own assessments in the first term too, so the September picture is rarely built on SATs alone. The National Education Union goes further, saying results are not routinely used by secondaries because they do their own on-entry assessment — it is a union campaigning against the tests and it publishes no evidence for the claim, so treat it as one view rather than a finding.

What does matter is what sits underneath the score. A child who reaches Year 7 without secure fractions, ratio and times tables will feel it in every maths lesson for years. That is worth working on. A number on a certificate in July is not.

The year

A sensible SATs revision plan, term by term

The DfE publishes the tests and the past papers but no revision guidance, so almost everything you find online is a company's opinion, including this. Ours is based on what actually changes a child's marks in the classes we teach.

“

Nothing in April fixes a gap from Year 4. Everything in April is calmer if that gap was found in October.

Why the autumn term matters most
i
🔍

Autumn: find the gaps

Not revision yet. Work out which earlier topics are shaky — usually times tables, fractions or place value — and fix those. This is the term with room to do it.

ii
✏️

Spring: build fluency

Short, frequent arithmetic practice, and start reasoning questions properly: read it, decide what is being asked, show the method. Twenty focused minutes a few times a week beats a long Sunday session.

iii
📄

After Easter: whole papers

Now full past papers, timed, marked together with the mark scheme. The point is not the score. It is the four or five questions that went wrong and why.

iv
🌤️

SATs week: leave it alone

Sleep, breakfast, and the protractor in the bag. Cramming in the last two days rarely helps, and a tired child usually does worse.

At home

Seven things that help before SATs

None of these need you to remember how to do long division.

How we help

How ClassArc prepares a child for SATs maths

Weekly one-to-one classes, taught to the England national curriculum, with the same teacher throughout.

We start with what is missing

The first classes look for the earlier gap causing the current problem. Fixing Year 4 place value in October is worth more than ten practice papers in April.

Both halves of the test

Arithmetic fluency and reasoning are practised differently, in the same weekly class, because 70 of the 110 marks are in the reasoning papers.

Explaining out loud, every week

The papers ask children to justify answers and spot faulty ones. In a one-to-one class that happens every few minutes, which is also the fastest way to catch a misunderstanding before it sets.

Real papers, marked properly

We use the published KS2 papers with the mark scheme open beside them, so a child learns where the working earns credit and not only whether the answer was right.

No score promises

We will not tell you a number your child will get. After the free first class we will tell you what we found and whether weekly classes are the right answer.

It does not stop in May

The same teacher carries on into Year 7 and Key Stage 3, so the work done for SATs is not thrown away the week after the tests.

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Next

Where to go from here

Three useful next steps for a Year 6 parent.

Year 6 maths curriculum

Every topic taught in Year 6, what is new this year, and the places children most often come unstuck.

Read the curriculum guide

Year 7 maths

What happens after the tests: the first year of secondary maths, sets, and CATs.

After the SATs

Key Stage 2 maths, Years 3 to 6

The whole key stage in one place, including the multiplication tables check in Year 4.

The KS2 overview

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See UK pricing

SATs questions

When are the Year 6 SATs?
In one week in mid-May of Year 6, Monday to Thursday. Maths takes the last two days: Paper 1 (arithmetic) and Paper 2 (reasoning) on one day, Paper 3 (reasoning) the next. Results reach schools in early July. The Standards and Testing Agency publishes the exact dates for each year on GOV.UK.
How many maths SATs papers are there, and how long are they?
Three. Paper 1 is arithmetic: 30 minutes, 40 marks. Papers 2 and 3 are reasoning: 40 minutes and 35 marks each. That is 110 marks in total, 70 of them in the two reasoning papers.
Can children use a calculator in the KS2 maths SATs?
No. Calculators are not allowed in any of the three maths papers. For the arithmetic paper a child needs only a pencil or pen and a ruler; for the reasoning papers they also need a sharp pencil for drawing, a protractor or angle measurer, and a mirror.
What is a good SATs score in maths?
Scores are reported on a scale from 80 to 120, and 100 means your child met the expected standard. There is no pass mark and no grade. A score below 100 means more support may be needed, not that your child failed — and a child who does not reach the minimum raw mark is not given a scaled score at all.
Where can I get free SATs maths papers?
From GOV.UK. The Standards and Testing Agency publishes the past three years of papers and mark schemes free under the Open Government Licence, in the 'national curriculum assessments: past test materials' collection. You do not need to buy them, and you should be wary of 'predicted' papers, which are guesses.
Do SATs results affect which secondary school my child goes to?
No. Councils send secondary school offers on 1 March, before the tests are sat. The secondary school can see the results afterwards and uses them to plan support, and some schools consider them when grouping pupils for maths — though schools often run their own assessments during the first term too.
How should my child revise for SATs maths?
Find and fix earlier gaps in the autumn, build arithmetic fluency and reasoning technique through the spring, then use whole past papers after Easter — timed, and marked together against the mark scheme. Short frequent sessions work better than long ones, and the questions that went wrong are worth more attention than the score.
My child is anxious about SATs. What helps?
We find an accurate explanation settles children better than reassurance: the tests check what has been learned and help their next school support them, and they do not decide which secondary school they go to. Keep the routine normal in test week, and raise regular tears or refusal with the class teacher before booking any tutoring.
Is it too late to start tutoring before May?
That depends entirely on what the gap is, and we would rather look before answering. Book the free class, let a teacher spend 55 minutes with your child, and we will tell you what we found — including if the answer is that school plus a specific fix at home will do it.
Do you guarantee a particular SATs score?
No, and nobody honestly can. Marks depend on the child, the paper and the day. What we can describe is what we will work on and why, and you can see the class before you pay for anything.
Are SATs changing?
Not for the current school year. Following the Curriculum and Assessment Review published in November 2025, the government has said that future assessment arrangements are under review while confirming the tests continue unchanged for now. We will update this page when anything is confirmed.
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