The format of the Maths SATs has remained unchanged since 2016.

Maths SATs are made up of 3 papers: Paper 1 (Arithmetic) and Papers 2 and 3 (Reasoning).

The total number of marks for all three papers is 110 marks. 40 marks are allocated to Paper 1, and Papers 2 and 3 have 35 marks each. This year 32 and 1/2 marks were drawn from Years 3 and 4 learning, 30 marks were from Year 5, and 47 and a half were from Year 6. In fact, 48 marks out of a total of 70 were number-based questions this year. That makes it a total of 88 marks altogether, across all three papers. It really does have the greatest weighting. Measurement, geometry, and statistics made up the 22 remaining marks in 2023.

This year’s QLA shows that most children, over 95%, attempted nearly all the questions across all three papers. This shows that children have developed good stamina. Children aren’t getting the questions wrong because they have run out of time, but rather because they are finding some of the maths a little challenging, or sometimes maybe they are struggling to find the most efficient method to solve the problem easily.

We believe children found Question 35 on Paper 1 hard because they were confronted with an unusual percentage.

They would probably be confident at finding 50%, 10% or even 25% of a number. But here they have a more difficult fraction; 38/100 (38 hundredths). They could find 38% of 100, multiply that answer by 7, and then find 38% of 50 and add it on. Or they could break down the percentage and find three 10%s, then 8% of 750, and recombine all the answers. 

On Paper 2, Question 25b was the most challenging.

It was a ‘show your method’ question worth 2 marks. Here the children needed to convert 2.4 kilograms into grams, then divide that by 500. Again, it shows that children need to be confident with their number skills, because essentially, it’s a number question.

On Paper 3, Question 22 was the most challenging. It involved generating and describing linear number sequences, and classifying geometric 2D shapes, in this case using vertices of the shapes. We assume that the children have focused on the sequences of numbers in this question. The 3, 4 and 5 are obvious, and then they think the next number will be 6. Notice that ‘hexagon’ and ‘heptagon’ are missing from the sequence, that the next number should be 8, for the shape ‘octagon.’ It is not obvious that this is a sequence with missing numbers.

Implications for teachers

Fractions, decimals, and percentages continue to be an area for practice and development, so really thinking about pupils’ conceptual understanding and reasoning of this area is key. 

For papers 2 and 3, there will be ‘show your method’ questions, and ‘explain how you know,’ questions. 

There are always some common questions that appear year after year. For example, calculating the cost of buying fruit or veg in different masses, and then finding the change form a five-pound or ten-pound note. 

Another example would be interpreting a pictogram where the symbol is greater than 1. Children really can prepare for the test by practicing a variety of past SATs questions and of course using some of the resources available from Hachette Learning.

Recommendations for 2024

• Teaching children explicit problem-solving strategies is key.
• As is giving them breadth and variety of problems and puzzles so that they are resilient at solving a variety of question types with success.
• It is important to remind children that although they might complete a question mentally, they can still make jottings or take notes throughout their calculation to help them solve it.
• Revisit learning from Years 3, 4 and 5.  
• Learning key vocabulary and facts that children need to apply in the SATs papers is essential. For example, to calculate the radius of a circle, they need to know the definition of radius. 
• Year 6 is not just about the SATs tests, but we hope that all this preparation this will support students with understanding some of the key Maths principles before they move on to secondary school.

The Achieve Series

The Achieve series is an excellent resource to support revision. Helpfully, there is a revision guide for children working towards the expected standard, and then also a separate revision guide for children working towards greater depth. We think this is helpful because as teachers will be aware, the scores for achieving expected standard and greater depth are of course different. Children working towards expected standard need to score just over half marks overall to achieve expected standard. Tailoring the planning of lessons for these two groups of pupils is important. 

The Achieve series also has question workbooks to complement the revision guides. This gives children exposure to SATs-style questions, which we believe is an important strategy to help students prepare for the upcoming SATs papers.

You could also use Hodder Optional Test Mathematics; these are sets of practice papers written in the style and format of SATs papers. They have been produced for Years 1 to 6, and for each year group there are three sets available. 

About Sarah-Anne Fernandes and Trevor Dixon (@SMASHMaths)

Sarah-Anne Fernandes is a leading UK Mathematics Educational Consultant who has had the privilege of working with several schools and school leaders across the country to help them improve maths curriculum teaching and results. She loves to teach and has first-hand experience of helping pupils pass 7+ and 11+ entrance exams with great success. Over the years, Sarah-Anne has been commissioned to be an author and Series Editor for a range of titles for leading Education publishers.

Trevor Dixon has over 35 years' teaching experience; working for nearly 30 years as a maths subject leader in three different primary schools. He is a former Advanced Skills Teacher, specialising in mathematics teaching and learning. He is an Associate of the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics. He also holds the Mathematics Association Diploma of Mathematical Education alongside his degree and teaching qualifications.

You can follow them on X here.