Mr Wright: Tips and advice for year 6 parents
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SATs 2016: Tips and advice for parents
The government has revamped the SATs framework for 2016 and beyond. Although
the tests will be more challenging than previous years, the following tips and
activities will help prepare your child for SATs week.
English – Reading comprehension test
Read outside the book
Children need to get used to reading non-fiction texts as well as narrative stories. Try
to encourage children to read texts associated with events or interests that are
meaningful to them; for example, if they like football, read through a match
programme or a newspaper report with them. If you’re planning a holiday this
summer, get your child to read up on your destination of choice.
Give them goals
A time limit and a reward can be really motivational, so why not set your child a
challenge to read one book a week? At the end of each week, encourage them to tell
you about the story and then give them a (small!) reward of their choice. Make sure
you never force them to read something they are not interested in; this will become
counter-productive, and put them off reading.
Reading together
Take turns to read out loud with your child, it will really improve their reading/
listening skills and their understanding of the text. When you are listening to your
child encourage them to read with expression and to do different voices for different
characters. You can also ask them comprehension questions (I have some useful
questions you can use) and look at KS2 SATs Reading tests for ideas on kinds of
questions to ask. In particular, the 2 and 3 mark questions.
Read between the lines
When asking your child questions about what they have been reading, think about
inference (reading between the lines) and deduction (reading beyond the lines). An
example of an inference question is: 'Pick out two phrases that tell us the bear is
angry with Goldilocks.' An example of a deduction question is: 'How do you think
Goldilocks might have felt as she ran away?' Encourage your child to consider
conflicting emotions that characters might be experiencing, for example: 'Maybe she
feels happy to have got away from the bears, but a bit guilty about all the trouble she
has caused. She might be worried that people will find out and she will get told off.'
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Download some past test papers (I’ve attached link below and have uploaded it to
the year 6 class page)
Practising a SATs paper will help your child enormously. You may want to go through
it with them, getting them to read the text aloud to you and then talking through the
questions, or you may want to let them do it unaided so that you can see what they
are capable of. If you do let them get on with it alone, make sure you go through
their answers with them. Just deal with one text at a time, and do it over a few days,
to avoid pressurising your child.
http://www.satstestsonline.co.uk/sto_past_papers.aspx
English - Spelling, punctuation and grammar
Punctuation and grammar
In the new grammar and punctuation test, children are likely to be tested on the
following:
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Use of full stops, capitals, commas, brackets, question marks, exclamation
marks, speech marks, apostrophes.
Understanding what nouns, pronouns, determiners, articles, prepositions,
contractions, conjunctions, adjectives, verbs and adverbs are and how to use
them.
Knowing how to add suffixes and prefixes to words.
In sentences, being able to make subjects and verbs agree, putting verbs in
the correct tense, inserting words with the correct plural and recognising a
subordinate clause.
Identifying co-ordinating and subordinating conjunctions in selections of
sentences.
Identifying the active and passive voice in sentences.
Identifying modal verbs in passages of writing.
Knowing the difference between direct and indirect speech.
If you are unsure about some of the grammatical vocabulary, look up the terms in
the summer learning pack that your child was given at the end of year 5.
Alternatively, ask me for a glossary of terms (I will create another version).
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Spelling
The following spelling sounds are covered in Years 5 and 6, and are likely to feature
in the spelling paper:
cious/tious
cial/tial
ant/ance/ancy
Words ending ent/ence/ency
able/ably
ible/ibly
ferred/ferral/ferance
Words
beginning
core-
Words
containing
ei/ie
ough
silent letters b, s, n, t, k
Homophones Ending ce/se plus other homophones
It's also important to deal with the spellings that your child is struggling with. One
way to do this is to encourage them to write a story/information text/passage of
writing for you and then look at the words they are struggling with. Encourage them
to learn these words and other similar words. Get them to make and decorate their
own flashcards, then test them by holding up the card, then putting it face down and
asking them to write the word from memory.
Later on in the year, I will be sending home a selection of year 6 words that I would
like the children to learn. Please add these words to your child’s learning pack, which
they received at the end of year 5.
English – Writing (teacher assessed)
Although there’s no formal summative testing for writing, it's still important to keep
your child's writing skills ticking over. Here are some ideas to try at home.
Build up the layers in a sentence
Help your child to write more creatively by giving them a practical challenge.
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Start with a boring sentence, such as: 'The girl had curly hair.'
Ask them to think of a couple of adjectives to describe the curls.
Could they use a powerful verb and adverb to show how the curls are moving?
Could they compare the curls to something else, to create a simile?
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A much-improved sentence would be: 'The girl had shiny, springy curls that bounced
wildly like a jack-in-the-box.'
Structuring texts
Encourage your child to write both fiction and non-fiction texts. It can help to look
through stories and non-fiction texts they have read and discuss the way they are
structured. Help your child to plan a text and then give them a set time limit (say, 45
minutes) to write their text unaided. It is always best to start from something they
are interested in, so encourage them to write a different version of a story they love,
or write their own information text on something they have found interesting.
Handwriting
To gain age related expectation, your child is required to write clearly and neatly to
by the end of year 6. For the 2015/2016 academic year, the government have put a
greater emphasis on handwriting and spelling.
REMEMBER: Remind your child that good handwriting means their work it easier to
read, but also gives the person marking their writing a better general impression of
the writing. If the writing can’t be read it cannot be assessed.
Maths – Reasoning and arithmetic
From December/January, it would be extremely useful to your child if you went
over/discussed some of the SATs questions with them each week, in the lead up to
the actual test.
You can also download past year 6 SATs papers (same link as above) and work
through some of the questions with your child to help them familiarise with exam
technique. The key is that your child understanding what the question is actually
asking. By looking through the kinds of questions they will be asked and discussing
the objectives of the question, as the practise will boost your child's confidence and
help to prepare them for the challenges of the examination.
New 2015/2016 sample tests can be found on the link below:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum-assessments2016-sample-materials#key-stage-2
This has also been uploaded to the year 6 class page.
When looking at your any of your child's incorrect answers in the papers, see if they
can work out where they went wrong and what they need to do to correct their
answer. For example, if they have misunderstood a two-step problem that requires
multiplication and subtraction, where did they go wrong? If they got the
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multiplication incorrect, they may need to brush up on their times tables. If they
weren't sure which operations to use, they may need to practise a range of onestep problems before moving onto two-step problems.
Little and often is the best way to approach SATs revision; two or three questions a
day with your child would ensure that they are not overloaded.
Practising with past papers is a great way to familiarise your child with the
experience of taking a test, including sticking to the time limits. There is only one set
of official practice papers currently available for the new-style SATs, which are
available to download. I will upload the link, for the new sample test papers, to the
year 6 class page soon.
Practising with old past papers can also help your child get used to exam formats.
If you want to practice some of the papers at home or prepare your child for SATs
week, here are some test tips:
Paper 1: arithmetic 30 minutes The arithmetic paper consists of around 36
questions that are all number sentences involving the four operations (addition,
subtraction, multiplication and division). Numbers used may be decimals with up to
two places, or whole numbers with up to five digits. Children will be required to
calculate with percentages and decimals.
Work as quickly and as carefully as you can.
If you cannot complete one of the questions circle it and go to the next one. You can
come back to it later. If you finish before the end, go back and check your work.
In the new arithmetic test, long division and long multiplication questions are worth
2 marks each. You will be awarded 2 marks for a correct answer. You may get 1 mark
for showing a formal method. All other questions are worth 1 mark each.
For questions expressed as common fractions, you should give your answers as
common fractions. All other answers should be given as either whole or decimal
numbers.
If you want to change your answer, put a line through the response you don’t want
the marker to read. Remember to check your work carefully.
Paper 2: Reasoning 40 minutes The reasoning papers each consist of around 20
questions, each of which present a problem or puzzle that requires your child to
apply their mathematical knowledge in a variety of contexts.
Work as quickly and as carefully as you can.
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If you cannot complete one of the questions, circle it and go to the next one. You can
come back to it later. If you want to change your answer, put a line through the
response you don’t want the marker to read.
If you want to change a drawing, you should either put a line through the response
you don’t want the marker to read, or use a rubber.
Remember to check your work carefully.
Paper 3: Reasoning 40 minutes As above
The tips for this paper are the same as those for paper 2.
Other useful links:
Maths
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/subjects/z826n39
English – Reading, speaking and listening and writing
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/subjects/zv48q6f
English – Grammar, punctuation and spelling
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/english/spelling_grammar/
Multiplication tables
http://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/game/ma13tabl-game-tables-grid-find
I hope you find these tips useful for your child.
Mr Wright.