KS2 SATs 2027 — The Complete Parent Guide

Everything you need to know about SATs week, what your child will be tested on, how scores work, and how to prepare — written in plain English for parents.

When are SATs 2027?

The confirmed dates for KS2 SATs 2027 are Monday 10 May to Thursday 13 May 2027. These are statutory test days for all Year 6 pupils in state-funded primary schools in England. Friday 14 May is kept free as a catch-up day for any child who misses a paper through illness.

Mark these dates in your calendar now. SATs week is always the second full week of May, and schools receive their results on Tuesday 6 July 2027 — so there is no anxious wait through the summer holidays.

What will my child be tested on?

KS2 SATs cover three subjects: Maths, English Reading, and Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling (usually called GPS or SPaG). Writing is assessed separately by teachers throughout the year — there is no written exam paper for writing.

Your child will sit six papers across the four days.

Monday 10 May — Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling (GPS)

• Paper 1: Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling questions — approximately 45 minutes
• Paper 2: Spelling — around 20 words dictated by the teacher, worth 20 marks

The GPS paper is the one many parents find hardest to help with at home because it uses specific grammatical terminology — subordinate clauses, modal verbs, relative pronouns — that most of us were never explicitly taught. The good news is these terms are learnable with consistent practice.

Tuesday 11 May — English Reading

• One paper: 60 minutes, 50 marks
• Three reading passages of varying types — fiction, non-fiction, and sometimes poetry
• Questions test retrieval, vocabulary in context, inference, and understanding of authorial intent
• Questions progress from easier to harder through the paper

Reading is the paper where children most commonly underperform relative to their actual ability. The usual culprits are running out of time and not using evidence from the text in answers. Both are fixable with practice.

Wednesday 12 May — Maths Papers 1 and 2

• Paper 1: Arithmetic — 30 minutes, 40 marks (pure calculation speed)
• Paper 2: Reasoning — 40 minutes, 35 marks

Thursday 13 May — Maths Paper 3

• Paper 3: Reasoning — 40 minutes, 35 marks

The split between the arithmetic paper and the two reasoning papers is important. They test genuinely different skills. A child who is quick at sums but struggles with worded multi-step problems needs targeted reasoning practice, not more arithmetic drills. A child who understands maths but is slow at column methods needs to build speed specifically.

What do the scores mean?

SATs results are reported as scaled scores, not raw marks. This is one of the most confusing aspects of SATs for parents — here is a plain English explanation.

Your child's raw mark (the actual number of questions answered correctly) is converted to a scaled score using a conversion table. This table changes slightly each year to account for variations in paper difficulty — meaning a score of 103 this year and a score of 103 next year represent the same standard of attainment, even if the papers were slightly harder or easier.

• Scaled score of 100 or above = met the Expected Standard
• Scaled score of 110 or above = working at Greater Depth
• Scaled score below 100 = did not meet the Expected Standard

A score of 100 is not average — it is the minimum required to be considered on track for their age. The national average scaled score typically sits a little above that threshold, meaning most children who pass do so with a few marks to spare.

What SATs do NOT determine: which secondary school your child attends (that's decided by the school admissions process separately), and whether your child is academically capable — one week of tests in one year is not a complete picture.

What SATs DO influence: Year 7 set placement at secondary school, and whether your child receives additional support in Year 7.

When should preparation start?

Teachers consistently say little and often beats cramming — most primary schools begin weaving SATs-format practice into lessons from the autumn term onward, well before the spring revision push most parents picture.

The most effective preparation for KS2 SATs is not intensive revision in the weeks before May — it is consistent, daily practice throughout Year 5 and Year 6. Ten to fifteen minutes of focused practice four or five times a week builds the fluency and confidence children need far more effectively than an occasional two-hour session.

If your child is currently in Year 6, the time to start is now — not in January. Nine months of steady preparation produces meaningfully better outcomes than two months of panic revision.

If your child is in Year 5, starting now is the single best thing you can do. Year 5 content is directly tested in SATs. Children who build strong foundations in Year 5 find Year 6 significantly less stressful.

If your child is in Year 3 or Year 4, there is no need for SATs-specific preparation yet — but consistent Maths and English practice that follows the National Curriculum will compound over time into genuine SATs readiness.

The topics most commonly tested — Maths

The topics that appear in almost every SATs paper and where children most commonly drop marks:

• Fractions — particularly adding and subtracting fractions with different denominators, and converting between fractions, decimals and percentages
• Ratio and proportion — consistently underperformed
• Area, perimeter and volume — especially for compound shapes
• Algebra basics — many Year 5 and 6 children have not fully internalised this
• Multi-step worded problems — the most important skill for the reasoning papers; children who cannot identify what a question is asking lose marks even when they know the maths

One specific tip: teach your child to underline the key words in every question and to check whether the question asks for one thing or two. "How much change does she receive?" requires calculating the total cost AND subtracting from the amount paid — many children stop at the total.

The topics most commonly tested — English Reading

• Retrieval questions (finding information directly in the text) — generally the easiest marks and should not be lost
• Inference questions (reading between the lines) — the most commonly dropped marks; children need to be taught to justify their answers with evidence from the text
• Vocabulary in context — what a word suggests about a character or situation, not just what it means in a dictionary

The PEE framework (Point, Evidence, Explanation) is the single most useful structure for reading comprehension answers. A child who consistently applies it — state what you think, quote from the text, explain how the quote shows what you said — will not lose marks for unsupported answers.

The topics most commonly tested — GPS

The specific grammatical terms most commonly tested:

• Subordinate clauses and subordinating conjunctions
• Modal verbs (might, could, should, would, must)
• Relative clauses and relative pronouns (who, which, that, where, when)
• Passive and active voice
• Formal and informal language
• Apostrophes — both for possession and contraction

The spelling list is drawn from the statutory Year 5 and Year 6 word list published by the Department for Education. These are learnable, specific words. Knowing them is simply a matter of regular exposure. Download the full statutory word list from GOV.UK.

How to support your child at home

1. Keep sessions short and consistent. Ten minutes of focused practice five days a week is dramatically more effective than a one-hour session once a week. The brain consolidates learning through repeated short exposures, not single long ones.

2. Talk about maths in real life. Fractions at the supermarket, percentages in a sale, measuring ingredients when cooking. Children who encounter maths in real contexts understand it more deeply than children who only see it on worksheets.

3. Read together — or separately, but regularly. Reading widely builds vocabulary, comprehension and inference skills that no amount of GPS practice can substitute. Children who read for pleasure consistently outperform those who don't on the reading paper.

4. Do not do more past papers than practice. Past papers are useful for familiarisation with the format and timing — but drilling the same papers repeatedly teaches children to recognise questions, not to understand concepts. Practice the underlying skills, then use past papers to build timing confidence.

5. Stay calm yourself. Children absorb parental anxiety about SATs. The best thing most parents can do is maintain a relaxed, consistent attitude — this is just a test, it does not define your child, they will be fine.

What doesn't help: starting intensive revision in April when the test is in May; telling your child SATs are very important (adds pressure, removes confidence); comparing your child to siblings or classmates; making extra revision a punishment for wrong answers.

Practical preparation tools

GOV.UK past papers — the Standards and Testing Agency publishes official past papers and practice materials for KS2. These are free and directly represent what will appear in the test.

BBC Bitesize KS2 — free, well-structured revision content covering all SATs subjects. Good for introducing topics in an accessible way.

For daily personalised practice that adapts to what your child finds difficult — following exactly the topics their school is teaching week by week — Scholaria is built specifically for UK primary school children in Years 3 to 6. It gives parents a topic-by-topic accuracy breakdown after every session and a plain English weekly update on what to focus on next. There's a free tier with no card required, or a 3-month full-access trial if you want everything unlocked from day one.

The most important thing to remember

SATs are a snapshot. One week of tests in one year group does not determine your child's potential, their secondary school experience, or their future. What matters is that they approach May 2027 having built genuine skills — not that they score a particular number.

Children who practise consistently, who understand the format of the papers, and who arrive at SATs week having slept well and eaten breakfast almost always do better than their anxious counterparts who crammed for six weeks.

Start now. Keep it steady. Stay calm. That is the complete SATs preparation strategy.

Scholaria helps Year 3-6 children prepare for SATs with personalised daily practice — following exactly what their school is teaching this week. See how it works at scholaria.co.uk — a free tier is available with no card required.

SATs 2027 dates confirmed by the Standards and Testing Agency. For the official timetable, visit GOV.UK primary assessments.