Helping to prepare for SATs at home!

[OneShotFinch]

My son will be taking year 6 SATs in May. He is doing okay, but lacks confidence, so I just want him to be prepared and not get bogged down when the time comes!

I'm just wondering if anyone can recommend online websites or books that contain up to date worksheets/practice papers that I can print out and he can do some extra revision at home.

I've looked at the schoolrun.com and it seems the kind of thing I'm looking for, but I'm a bit dubious about subscribing and parting with cash, before seeing the subscribers only content

Can anyone recommend? Or anything similar?

Happy to look at books too, but not sure what's up to date etc...

Thanks!

I don't think you should do 'SATs practice' at home as such.

He will probably do loads of practice papers at school.

However, improving core maths skills will help when he is at secondary. And improving core maths skills will have the happy result of improving maths SATs scores too. So if you can get him to bring home papers done at school you can see where the weak areas are and help with them.

Similarly 'exam technique', such as learning not to panic, how to miss out questions and come back to them, is another useful life (well school) skill. Initially DD would panic, thinking she had to answer all the maths questions. So I explained that the last 6 were really for the 'top table' children so she shouldn't expect to answer them. Then we went through a paper she had done at school, and we saw what she could or couldn't do, where she had lost marks by mis reading the question. She learned over y6 not to panic, to miss out tricky questions on first pass and come back to them etc.

She was the first year of new style SATs. The one where there was loads of press about kids coming out crying after the reading paper because Q2 was harder than Q3. DD wasn't fazed at all because they hadn't done so much practicing that that was what she assumed would happen. So she missed out bits of Q2 she couldn't do, did Q3 and then went back to it.

SATs do matter for the child, as formal secondary targets and expectations are set from them, so you don't want you child to underperform, but neither do you want them to 'overperform'. Your main job is to help them keep SATs in perspective, encourage them to do their best, and if they are struggling help them so they are more prepared for secondary, not so they get a magic number for their SATs.

(I'm not overly convinced by the SPaG paper though, especially the G bit. Time spent trying to get high marks on that is a bit of a waste imo.)

Thanks for your reply- lots of fantastic advice!

I'm pretty knowledgable on how SATs work and how the scores are used as I'm a School Governor. I'm not worried about what score he gets, I just want him to get a score that is, as you say, true to his abilities.

I'm just mainly looking for resources. I just want some decent worksheets that are written in the style that the questions may be presented in a SATs paper, to help him feel familiar.

I know he's doing all this at school too, but he's really keen to do extra at home, and I want to support his desire to learn!

A good nights sleep and a healthy breakfast is the best preparation

These resources are great- packed with questions and reasonably priced. Available also from whsmiths. www.schofieldandsims.co.uk/products-by-age/

Thanks!

I second the recommendation, especially this series. It covers all the ks2 maths in 9 books. My ds has all, but you can pick the ones targeting weak point.

www.schofieldandsims.co.uk/search/?searchtext=understanding+maths&searchsubmit=Search

Work on his resilience, self-esteem, relaxation, and keep home as a calm haven for him from the "SATs mania" at school.
Ensuring he can write clearly and legibly will help throughout his school career.
Leave assessment prep to school and give the child some respite. A sports club or music lessons will be far more beneficial for the majority of children.

Hi! Retired teacher here.

My recommendation is as follows...

Step 1: Download all the free past SATs papers (especially the sample 2016, 2016 and 2017 ones) from here... SATs Papers. Do take their efforts with a pinch of salt though as they may have already taken these papers in school!

Step 2: Buy some practice papers (there are lots of shops out there that sell them). The CGP papers are good, as are the Exam Ninja ones but they can be a little harder. I don't like the new Letts ones because they're a little simple.

Don't pressure them, support them. Be constructive, be helpful and hopefully they'll do themselves (and you) proud!

DCs school gives out example short practice papers as homework now. By now Y6 should be doing lots of this practice in class. I wouldn't overstress on the content, but instill confidence in your child regarding exam technique. For example, read the question carefully, one mark means one sentence, 2 marks mean 2 sentences in the written paper etc. Exam technique will be so important in the coming years and help their confidence that this a better focus on time if you want to help at home than just endless grammar and maths. Also, make them able and confident to cope with a question style they have not practised. It's all about resilience, and I feel for all the 10 and 11 year olds.

I’ve used this before with my class www.compare4kids.co.uk/maths.php
Might be helpful!

Download all the free past SATs papers (especially the sample 2016, 2016 and 2017 ones) from here... SATs Papers. Do take their efforts with a pinch of salt though as they may have already taken these papers in school!

However, those tests are the only ones the teacher will have at their disposal from the 'new' curriculum to practise with at school, so that's not a great idea imo. It's hard for a Y6 teacher when a child announced at the start of a test that they've already done it at home, or even worse when a child doesn't say that they have, gets an inflated score and then perhaps doesn't get the help they needed. Doesn't help a teacher trying to identify gaps at this stage.

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