The May 2013 SATs exams have changed: read on for a summary and dates of this year’s Year 6 SATs exams.

Changes to English SATs May 2013

1.  There is no writing paper: writing will be assessed by your child’s class teacher and will take into account their written work throughout Year 6.  The class teacher will also assess speaking and listening

2.  As well as the English Reading paper (13th May), there is a new Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation paper (14th May).  This paper requires short answers (in many cases the multiple choice format is used) and covers areas such as parts of speech (nouns, prepositions etc), punctuation (full stops, brackets and so on) as well as spelling.  You can download a sample paper here.  In addition to this, there will be a 20-question spelling test, and you may download a sample paper here.

3.  In the main, levels 3-5 will be assessed, however if your child is working above a level 5 in maths or English (quite possible if they have passed grammar school entrance exams), they will probably take the level 6 papers.  You can download samples of the level 6 English papers here.

Maths SATs 2013

There will be a mental maths paper (15th May), a calculator paper and a non-calculator paper (both 16th May).  The government are proposing to remove the calculator paper from Year 6 SATs in future years.  Our Director of Teaching and Learning, Christine McLaughlin, was invited onto the BBC breakfast sofa to discuss this on national TV.  You can read more about our views on using calculators in maths here.

SATs preparation is important in order to give your child confidence to tackle these important tests.  Your child’s results will be passed on to their new secondary school and very often used to set them according to ability.  If you need extra help, please do not hesitate to contact Paul Syrett or Christine McLaughlin on 0161 748 3912 to book a FREE assessment.