When to use past SATs papers in year 6
SATS specialist Sophie Bartlett delves into when to use past SATs papers throughout the school year to optimise your year 6 planning, timetabling, and revision.
Using past SATs papers, as both summative and formative assessment, has long been a key part of long-term planning and timetabling in year 6. In theory, it’s useful to be able to measure children’s progress and identify gaps in learning: in practice, it is a far-from-ideal method to achieve these things.
In the maths SATs papers, nearly half (40-50%) of the questions are taken from the year 6 curriculum. You won’t have taught all of the year 6 curriculum until May (and maybe not even by then - who actually manages to teach the entirety of the year 6 curriculum, AND plug all the necessary gaps from years 3-5, by May?!), so you’re testing children on content you haven’t even taught them yet. I’d often end up writing up numbers on the board of those questions that the children wouldn’t be able to answer yet to avoid them being too demoralised! It also ends up being incredibly time-consuming having to mark and complete QLA on six papers (three maths, two GPS, one reading) multiple times a year.
Planning when to use past SATs papers
Historically, when planning when to use sets of SATs papers across the year, I’d plan for 3-4 formal assessments across the year (I could give or take the start-of-year one, but some schools like to use it as a baseline), whilst saving additional sets of papers for ‘fun revision’ in the weeks running up to SATs:
September (start of the year) - baseline assessment, measure future progress from this point
Mid-December (end of Autumn Term 2) - measure progress after a term of teaching, inform planning from January onwards, identify intervention groups
Mid-February (end of Spring Term 1) - measure progress, inform planning for Spring term 2, identify intervention groups
Late March (end of Spring Term 2) - measure progress, inform planning for run-up to SATs
April/May (run-up to SATs) - there are usually about four weeks after the Easter hols until SATs week, and it can be useful to do a bit more focused test prep here breaking the papers into chunks or individual questions; completing them in pairs; getting the children to mark papers you’ve completed with intentional mistakes; turning them into games/competitions, etc.
Even this amount could be seen as unnecessary (and I bet some schools might feel inclined to put another test in there at the end of Autumn 1). There’s an argument for only asking the children to ‘formally’ sit two sets of papers across the year: end of Autumn 2 (to gauge where children are and to inform planning for Spring Term) and end of Spring 2 (to plan for possible interventions and last-minute revision after the Easter holidays). I mean, let’s face it - there’s an argument for not asking the children to formally sit any sets of papers at all prior to the ‘real thing’! However, I think exposure to at least one set, in test conditions, can’t hurt - if only to mentally prepare the children for the logistics of SATs week itself.
SATs papers by year
If I were going to keep all the tests of the same year together (e.g. children sit all 2018 papers at once), I’d be tempted to finish with the most recent set (so using the 2025 papers in March 2026 as the last ‘formal’ set of papers before SATs), then work backwards, depending on how many times you’d like to assess them throughout the year (so if you’d only test them twice prior to March, use the 2024 and 2023 papers). Any extra ones you don’t use can be used for last-minute revision in the weeks prior to SATs.
SATs papers by difficulty
There is no reason to use the same year’s papers at the same time. Another approach could be to start with the ‘easiest’ and finish with the ‘most difficult’. If we were to consider that a lower pass mark might mean a harder paper (especially as the pass marks (scaled scores) are decided after the tests are marked), and vice versa, this is what the papers ordered in difficulty might look like (from most difficult to least difficult). Obviously take this with a pinch of salt - it’s not the most robust metric to use.
← Lowest pass mark | Highest pass mark → | ||||||
Maths | 2024 | 2023 | 2017 | 2019= | 2022= | 2025= | 2018 |
Reading | 2023 | 2017 | 2024 | 2018= | 2019= | 2025= | 2022 |
GPS | 2022= | 2024= | 2025= | 2017= | 2019= | 2023= | 2018 |
(Worth noting that I haven’t taken any of the 2016 papers into consideration here. As the first set of papers under the new curriculum, any data they produced provided too many anomalies across the board, which proved to be unhelpful when analysing data trends. Ofqual also found the 2016 reading paper to be ‘unduly hard’. We already have seven past papers to work with - 2017-2025, omitting Covid years - which is plenty without the 2016 ones!)
By taking into account pass marks and the national proportion of children achieving EXS, we can get a better (though still not entirely reliable!) sense of which papers are the ‘most’ and ‘least’ difficult.
Maths
The 2024 maths papers are generally considered the most difficult, with the lowest pass mark (49%). It’s also on the lower end of the number of students achieving EXS nationally, at 73% (range has been 71-79%).
The 2018 and 2019 papers are generally considered the least difficult, with the highest pass marks (55% and 53% respectively), and both being on the high end of national EXS (at 76% and 79% respectively).
Reading
The 2023 reading paper is generally considered the most difficult, with the lowest pass mark (48%), the highest word count across extracts and questions (~3200 words), and being on the lower end of % of national EXS at 73% (range has been 72-75%). Schools Week wrote that an ‘Ofqual report found the 2023 reading test was harder than those set in recent years.’
The 2022 reading paper is generally considered the least difficult, with the highest pass mark (58%), the lowest word count (~2500), and the highest % of national EXS at 75%.
GPS
The 2022 and 2024 GPS papers are generally considered the most difficult, with the lowest pass marks (50% - although 2024’s GDS boundary was 2 marks lower than 2022’s) and the lowest % of national EXS at 72%.
The 2018 paper is generally considered least difficult, with the highest pass mark (54%) and the highest % of national EXS at 78%.
Related content
SATs papers: A better approach
To avoid testing children on content they haven’t learnt (and labour-intensive marking, QLA and gap-plugging), SATs Springboard does this for you.
There are 12 diagnostic assessments, each containing 20 questions, designed to be used approximately every two weeks from the start of the school year. The content gradually progresses to align with the SATs and to reflect how much of the maths curriculum you have taught at each stage.
The first assessment primarily features year 3 and 4 content, with a few year 5 questions, and 1 or 2 year 6 questions. Subsequent assessments gradually increase the proportion of year 6 questions, and decrease the amount of Lower KS2 content. By the final (12th) diagnostic, the content distribution closely mirrors that of the SATs: in maths, 7-12% year 3, 18-26% year 4, 18-32% year 5, and 37-47% year 6. This approach ensures that pupils are rarely tested on material they haven’t yet been taught, which is crucial for building their confidence - a key factor in a child’s academic success.
Topic areas are also weighted similarly to the SATs, with a strong emphasis in the maths diagnostics on calculations and FDP (fractions, decimals, and percentages), and in the GPS diagnostics on word classes and punctuation.
You can try the first maths diagnostic yourself.
While past SATs papers can provide valuable insights into pupil progress and curriculum coverage, their traditional use often leads to unnecessary pressure on students and teachers alike, testing children on untaught content and generating a heavy marking and analysis workload. There is also an ongoing debate about how often these papers should be used throughout the year. Some schools choose to assess at multiple points, while others find value in limiting formal testing to just once or twice before the real thing, focusing instead on building familiarity with test conditions and boosting pupil confidence through low-stakes exposure.
By rethinking how and when we use SATs papers and integrating more targeted progressive assessments like those provided by SATs Springboard, we can preserve the benefits of summative and formative testing without the associated downsides. This approach not only supports smarter planning and more effective intervention but also helps to ensure children are assessed on content they have actually been taught. Ultimately, it is about working more efficiently, reducing unnecessary stress and giving children the best possible chance of success in their final year of primary school.
You can trial SATs Springboard for free with no obligation to purchase.
94% of teachers who use it, never want to go back to doing year any other way.