Hi tostaky:
First off RELAX. Your child doesn't need to prepare for Y2 SATs which are teacher assessed (and includes wide impression of all work in addition to tests) - in 3 areas - science, maths and english (reading & writing).
Now these 'exams' are really about the government (who funds education in the state sector with taxpayers money) ensuring that taxpayers are getting what they are paying for (in other words that teachers are doing their job).
The school will most likely start to assess your child against current National Curriculum levels this year: (for more information on assessment & progress through NC Levels see MN info here: www.mumsnet.com/learning/assessment/introduction.
So as a parent at parent/ teacher meetings you can request information on how your child is performing on any standardised tests and how they feel they are performing generally. Some schools will discuss Maths/ Reading & Literacy (sometimes just called Writing) in terms of NC Levels and other schools will talk more vaguely about working below expected level/ at expected level and above expected level.
My advice to you is that being informed about what your child is expected to cover (and therefore in theory to know) each year is helpful:
Campaign for Real Education has some parent friendly curriculum descriptions for what 'in an ideal world' should be covered in each year of primary school. I would advise that this is most likely at a higher standard than most schools operate at - but it is useful to understand what is possible: www.cre.org.uk/primary_contents.html
From September 2014 the new national curriculum will be adopted - and this will apply to your DC and information on what this will cover by subject is here: www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum - just scroll down and you can look at individual subject areas like science, maths, English, history, etc...
I know that a number of parents are discussing SATs (especially KS2 SATs taken formally in May of Y6) here on MN - but I really think that you should be less worried as a parent about an individual exam/ assignment and more concerned that your child is covering the full spectrum of the curriculum and clearly mastering appropriate skills at the right time. Even if your school is being vague or overly positive, as a parent you should be able to get a sense of how your child is performing and you should use parent/ teacher meetings to ask for that information.
In my opinion Y1 is about securing reading skills - so moving from struggling to sound out words to securely being able to read one/ two syllable words and make plausible guesses at longer/ more complicated words. In maths it is about securing ability to add/ subtract numbers to at least 10 - but many can master to 20. I think some schools then make a huge jump to 100 - so it may be easier to work with a smaller target next - say 50 - after that 100 seems pretty easy. One of the key mistakes we made was not appreciating that number bonds were important beyond just all the ways to make 10. So work on bonds for 5 - 9, as 4 and under are pretty obvious - but this will make addition/ subtraction work when you start to carry or borrow tens so much easier.
I have to say as a parent I really think schools and teachers need to be less frightened about giving parents bad news. I was endlessly being told DD1 was doing fine and a lovely girl but what I knew was she couldn't add or subtract for toffee in KS1. It really took getting a NC L1 in maths in KS1 SATs to spur me into action because I believed in the school and was endlessly being assured that things would pick up next year. So my personal view is that if multiplication tables are meant to be memorised by some point in Y4 and it's now Y5 or Y6 and your DC is struggling - that's a problem. It is late in the day, but there are all sorts of resources out there (many of which are free) that can help give practice and support learning/ memorisation of these crucial number facts that clearly underpin all more advanced maths: e.g. www.greatmathsteachingideas.com/2014/01/05/youve-never-seen-the-gcse-maths-curriculum-like-this-before/ - if you scroll down to the second image - he shows that what underpins the entire GCSE curriculum in maths in sound mutliplication/ division skills - and what underpins all of that is multiplication table knowledge. That's why learning your times tables to 12 is so important - it makes everything else so much easier.
HTH