SATs are an indicator of the progress your child has made at school so far. They are not a measure of whether your child is passing or failing; they simply show what level your child is currently working to.

Pupils sit their SATs at KS2 level in Year 6. Children will take exams in English reading comprehension, grammar, punctuation, spelling, mathematical reasoning, and arithmetic.

Once the KS2 SATs are complete, they will be sent away for external marking and children should receive their results towards the end of the summer term in July of Year 6. 

The assessments are a way of making sure every child has mastered the basics when they leave primary education. The results help teachers to identify where children may need extra help or support as they move into year 7 and begin their secondary education.

Your child’s individual results, for both tests and teacher assessment judgements, will not be published by either your child’s school or the Department for Education (DfE).

However, school-level results of pupils’ attainment and progress are published on the DfE’s school performance tables website.

The grammar, punctuation and spelling test consists of two parts: a grammar and punctuation paper requiring short answers, lasting 45 minutes, and an aural spelling test of 20 words, lasting around 15 minutes.

The grammar and punctuation test will include two sub-types of questions:

• Selected response, e.g. ‘Identify the adjectives in the sentence below’
• Constructed response, e.g. ‘Correct/complete/rewrite the sentence below,’ or, ‘The sentence below has an apostrophe missing. Explain why it needs an apostrophe.’