You've Got This: Preparing for May's Year 6 SATs
SATs are on their way, like it or not. And, as a dyed-in-the-wool year 6 teacher its always been my position that if the children have to do them, they should be supported in preparing for them. Now, my approach has always been as far from hot-housing as can be possible, and has been focused on nurturing children so that that week in May isn't a stressful affair. And, as a leader, I've always wanted that calm to be extended to year 6 teachers too.
And, I've always tried to help other year 6 teachers in the run-up to SATs too. I've written down some of my top bits of advice for TES and Third Space Learning, and you can re-visit those here:
Dear Year 6 Teacher: Your Final KS2 SATs Preparation Tips
Five things to do instead of Sats revision
The pre-Sats checklist: an eight-point guide to ensure you're ready
SATs Week: You’ve Got This! 5-step Game Plan
I've also created some resources:
The maths reasoning papers can be tricky for some children, whereas the arithmetic paper is a little more straightforward, and an easier way to gain a few marks. One frequent barrier are all the questions which require children to calculate with fractions. In this resource I've broken down all the possible addition with fraction scenarios, given worked examples, and a set of questions (and mark schemes) for each objective. It also involves lots of practice of conversion to mixed number and of simplifying fractions too.
If you've taught the use of bar modelling to your year 6 children, this way of breaking word problems down can help children to access those multi-step problems that can often prove to be just a little bit too much!
On the reading test, the three-mark questions can be difficult if children haven't experienced them before. This resource gives that opportunity and will help children towards feeling confident with those long-answer questions. Read more here: https://www.aidansevers.com/post/what-impressions-do-you-get-answering-3-mark-reading-sats-questions
I've also created some mixed question SATs practice texts and questions (and mark schemes) which are based on recent SATs papers. You can read more about how to use them here: https://www.aidansevers.com/post/getting-ready-for-the-ks2-reading-test
And then there's test technique, which can often be a barrier to children who know all the answers but struggle with the way that the tests are presented. These PowerPoints are a great way to help the children to remember some key points in a lighthearted way:
Zero-cost samples of all the above resources are also available here: https://www.aidansevers.com/the-sats-collection
