Key Stage 1 SATs: what parents need to know

At the end of year 2 children are assessed against national age related expectations.  This is a teacher Judgement based on the child's day to day work in class.  Children also have to complete SATs test, which we call 'quizzes'.  These quizzes are used by teachers to inform their teacher judgement at the end of year 2.  

Here is what you need to know about what the tests involve.

In the summer term, children at the end of Key Stage 1 will sit SATs papers.  In 2017 SATs were overhauled in both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 to reflect the changes to the national curriculum, which was introduced from September 2014.

At the end of Year 2, children will take SATs in:

• Reading
• Maths

Key Stage 1 Reading

The new reading test for Year 2 pupils will involve two separate papers:

• Paper 1 consists of a selection of texts totalling 400 to 700 words, with questions interspersed
• Paper 2 comprises a reading booklet of a selection of passages totalling 800 to 1100 words. Children will write their answers in a separate booklet

Each paper is worth 50 per cent of the marks, and should take around 30 minutes, but children will not be strictly timed, as the tests are not intended to assess children’s ability to work at speed. The texts in the reading papers will cover a range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, and will get progressively more difficult towards the end of the test. Teachers will have the option to stop the test at any point that they feel is appropriate for a particular child.

There will be a variety of question types:

• Multiple choice
• Ranking/ordering, e.g. ‘Number the events below to show in which order they happened in the story’
• Matching, e.g. ‘Match the character to the job that they do in the story’
• Labelling, e.g. ‘Label the text to show the title’
• Find and copy, e.g. ‘Find and copy one word that shows what the weather was like in the story’
• Short answer, e.g. ‘What does the bear eat?’
• Open-ended answer, e.g. ‘Why did Lucy write the letter to her grandmother? Give two reasons

Key Stage 1 Maths

The new Key Stage 1 maths test will comprise two papers:

Paper 1: arithmetic, worth 25 marks and taking around 15 minutes.

Paper 2: mathematical fluency, problem-solving and reasoning, worth 35 marks and taking 35 minutes, with a break if necessary. There will be a variety of question types: multiple choice, matching, true/false, constrained (e.g. completing a chart or table; drawing a shape) and less constrained (e.g. where children have to show or explain their method).

Children will not be able to use any tools such as calculators or number lines.

When will the KS1 SATs take place?

The KS1 SATs will be administered in May.

Please click here for further information and access to a video. .