KS2 SATs revision tips and techniques

Year 5/6 teacher, Sophie Bartlett shares her insights and revision tips for the final weeks before the KS2 SATs.

KS2 SATs revision

After the Easter holidays, there are four school weeks until SATS (or, more specifically, 19 school days thanks to the bank holiday on Monday 6th May). As a Year 6 teacher, you may be wondering how to structure these last few weeks before the tests.

Some schools may already have a set plan in place, but for those of you with more autonomy over the timetable, here are some ideas that might help!

For the past five years, I have taught in a mixed Year 5/6 class, so revision has been a little harder as half the class wouldn’t be doing the SATs until the following year. In a way, though, this has always made our revision fairly relaxed – it means we stick to our usual timetable of foundation subjects in the afternoon, rather than suddenly teaching maths and English all day. We also continue teaching the maths and English curriculum for as long as possible, leaving revision of that content as late as possible.

A balanced timetable

Last minute cramming is not only ineffective but is more likely to put unnecessary stress on the children (and let’s face it, no matter how good a teacher you are, sitting through maths and English all day every day for a few weeks in a row is just not enjoyable for anyone!).

I had kept my revision timetables from previous years which have been really interesting to peruse. I’ve updated them each year, but my approach has been largely similar each time. For reference, here is my exact revision timetable for the two weeks preceding SATs week last year.

KS2 SATs 24 revision tips

A lot of this is down to personal preference, but I find it useful for the children to complete a set of SATs papers just before Easter to see how they get on. There is usually little that can be done by that point (if they haven’t learnt it by now, a handful more lessons won’t make much difference!), but question-level analysis (QLA) of these papers can inform your plans for those aforementioned last handful of lessons:

  • Group learning gaps: which concepts or topics need re-teaching to the whole cohort?

  • Individual learning gaps: which concepts or topics need re-teaching to individual children?

SATs Grammar paper

After analysing the most recent grammar papers completed by the children, identify the weakest five or six areas to re-teach in English (group learning gaps); personal experience has taught me it’s often the same topics each year, such as the subjunctive and active/passive voice. Then look at the children achieving a scaled score of between 98 – 101 and identify which areas they need re-teaching during whatever time you have available for interventions (individual learning gaps).

Finally, with the writing assessment deadline not too long after SATs, it’s good to keep some sort of writing on the go – even if that’s a one-off ‘free write’ session!

SATs maths paper

Repeat this with the maths papers: QLA for identifying group learning gaps (to be addressed in the final maths lessons) and individual learning gaps based on those achieving a scaled score of 98 - 101 (to be addressed during intervention time).


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SATs reading paper

QLA for reading papers is futile. Identifying that there is a general weakness in a certain question type, e.g. retrieval, is unhelpful for two reasons:

  • you’ll almost always find that the weakest content domains are 2a (vocabulary) and 2d (inference), perhaps partially because they are the most heavily weighted.

  • teaching towards a question type is ineffective: just because a child can complete inference questions on a text about bees, does not mean they can complete inference questions on a text about tennis.

However, looking through the reading papers may be useful to see general areas of weakness when it comes to answering SATs-style questions. Children may need coaching on how to answer ‘Find and copy one word’ questions, 3-mark questions or even something as simple as missing out tick-box questions where there is a 1 in 4 chance of getting it right even if they don’t understand it (cheeky but a technique nonetheless!). CGP do mini reading tests with only a few SATs-style questions which are great for short-burst practice.

Last-minute KS2 SATs revision techniques

“Paper in pairs”

This is fairly self-explanatory – the children complete a practice SATs paper in pairs! Sometimes I let them choose their pairs and sometimes I choose (I have tried both mixed-ability and same-ability pairs – there are pros and cons to both, so do whatever works for your class). Ask them to write in a different colour pen each so you can make sure there has been equal contribution. Encourage the children to teach each other if their partner isn’t sure of an answer.

“Mark my paper”

This is my favourite SATs revision technique. Take a practice SATs paper and complete it yourself, but make deliberate mistakes that match the common misconceptions in your class (there are incorrectly completed versions of SATs papers online for you to use, but I find it much more useful to complete it yourself to mirror the errors your own class make).

Here are some errors that seem to make an appearance every year:

  • Arithmetic paper: not copying answers from working box into answer box; ambiguous number formation (e.g. a 7 that looks like a 1); invisible decimal points; misreading the operation

  • Reading paper: writing more than one word for a ‘Find and copy one word’ question

  • Grammar paper: omitting a capital letter or full stop for questions that ask children to ‘punctuate correctly’

  • General errors: ticking the wrong amount of boxes for a ‘Tick one/two box/es’ question; missing out a question (or entire page of questions!)

Ask the children to then be the teachers and mark your paper – if the answer is wrong, they should write the correct answer (this is more fun and efficient when done with a partner). Once they’ve finished marking, they should tally up the final score: the closest to the real score wins! (Just make sure you’ve worked out your score yourself beforehand!)

Learning by Questions (LbQ)

LbQ has always been extremely useful in addressing both group and individual learning gaps, particularly for maths in the run-up to SATs. The whole class can be set an LbQ task that addresses one of the group learning gaps identified in your QLA.

If you’re lucky enough to have a TA, they can monitor the children working through this task whilst you take individual or small groups of children aside for additional teaching. If you’re on your own, you can use the ‘Teach’ function on LbQ to work through specific questions from the task on the board. In a mixed-age class, LbQ is particularly handy – the Year 5s can work independently (or with a TA) on LbQ whilst you revise with the Year 6s.

If you have any intervention time available, LbQ can also be used to address individual learning gaps. You could have a small group of children working on the same objective (again, the ‘Teach’ function would prove very useful here) or even a few children working on different objectives at the same time whilst you support each one in turn. If you have any additional adults able to take children out of lessons, LbQ is also great for this (no planning, resourcing or marking necessary!).

Treat yourself to a free, no-obligation SATs Springboard trial.


Having four weeks after Easter and before SATs leaves quite a long time for revision – that’s 19 maths lessons and 19 English lessons to make the most of before testing week! As previously mentioned, it would be best to continue teaching the curriculum for as long as you feel comfortable before starting revision.

Any Year 6 teacher knows it’s almost impossible to fit the required curriculum in before May. Accept that some areas may not be covered and just teach the topics that are most likely to appear.