Help Your Child Prepare for KS2 SATs: A 2027 Six-Month Plan

The KS2 SATs test week for 2027 runs from Monday 10 May to Thursday 13 May 2027, confirmed by the Department for Education's primary assessments future-dates guidance. That leaves roughly six months from the start of Year 6's spring term run-in — realistically, from November 2026 — to build the reading stamina, grammar knowledge and maths fluency your child needs, without the panic of a last-minute cram. This guide gives you a concrete, month-by-month plan for that six-month window: what to focus on each month, how many mock papers to sit and when, how to handle half-term and Easter without losing momentum, and what to do once test week itself arrives. If you want the full breakdown of test format, scoring and what results mean for secondary school, see our complete KS2 SATs parent guide — this page is the timeline that guide doesn't cover.

When Are the KS2 SATs in 2027?

According to gov.uk's primary assessments future dates guidance, the statutory key stage 2 tests are timetabled for the week commencing Monday 10 May 2027, running through to Thursday 13 May 2027. Following the same sequence the Standards and Testing Agency (STA) has used every year since the current format was introduced, the four days break down as: Monday 10 May, English grammar, punctuation and spelling (two papers — a 20-minute spelling test and a 45-minute grammar and punctuation paper); Tuesday 11 May, English reading (one 60-minute paper, 50 marks); Wednesday 12 May, Maths Paper 1 arithmetic (30 minutes) and Maths Paper 2 reasoning (40 minutes); Thursday 13 May, Maths Paper 3 reasoning (40 minutes). Writing and science are not sat as formal tests at all — both are assessed by your child's own teacher across the year and reported separately. Schools usually receive results in early July (results were released to schools on 7 July in 2026), with parents told the outcome before the end of the summer term — so expect a similar early-July 2027 date, though the STA has not yet published the exact 2027 results date at the time of writing.

What Do the KS2 SATs Actually Test — And How Are They Scored?

Three subjects are formally tested: English reading, English grammar, punctuation and spelling (usually shortened to GPS or SPaG), and maths across three papers. Results are reported as a scaled score between 80 and 120 for each of reading, GPS and maths. A scaled score of 100 or more means your child has met the "expected standard" for the end of Year 6; a scaled score of 110 or above is generally treated as the "higher standard," achieved by roughly the top 10-15% of pupils nationally. To put those thresholds in raw-mark terms: in 2025, a raw score of 28 out of 50 in the reading paper was enough to reach the expected standard (scaled score 100), while 40 out of 50 was needed to reach the higher standard (scaled score 110) — both marks moved slightly from 2024, which is normal, since raw-to-scaled conversion is recalculated every year to keep the test equally difficult across cohorts.

Nationally, according to Department for Education statistics reported by Tes, 75% of pupils met the expected standard in reading in 2026, 75% in maths, and 73% in writing (teacher assessed) — with 63% of pupils meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined. That combined figure has crept up from 62% in 2025 and 60% in 2024, but it remains two percentage points below the pre-pandemic 2018-19 combined figure of 65%, which is worth knowing simply so you have realistic context: a "combined" pass is genuinely demanding, since your child needs to clear the threshold in all three areas at once, not just on average.

The Six-Month KS2 SATs Preparation Timeline at a Glance

The plan below assumes a start in November 2026, roughly six months before test week. If you are starting later — say, after Christmas — compress the November-December column into the first two to three weeks rather than skipping it altogether; the diagnostic step matters more than the calendar date.

November-December 2026: Building Foundations Without Burnout

The first two months of a six-month plan should not feel like exam preparation at all — they should feel like normal, low-pressure practice woven into the week. Start with one diagnostic paper in each of reading, GPS and maths (the STA publishes past papers going back to 2016 free of charge, which is the best source of authentic material). Sit each under rough time conditions, mark it together, and simply note which of the three areas is weakest — that becomes your December focus. For most children, arithmetic fluency is the quickest early win: the arithmetic paper is 30 minutes for 36 questions, and children who have not fully automatised times tables to 12x12 lose disproportionate time recalculating rather than answering. Aim for 10-15 minutes of times-table practice, three to four times a week, through December. In parallel, build GPS terminology — fronted adverbials, subordinating conjunctions, relative clauses — through short, specific drills rather than long grammar worksheets; 15 minutes twice a week is enough at this stage. Reading in November and December should mean volume, not test practice: 20 minutes of varied reading most days, across fiction and non-fiction, does more for reading-paper performance in May than early exam-style comprehension drilling.

January-February 2027: Closing Gaps With Targeted Practice

By January, your child has covered most of the Year 6 maths and English curriculum in school, which makes this the right window for the first full past paper under genuinely timed conditions — all three subjects, spread across a week rather than crammed into one weekend. Use a 2016-2019 paper set specifically, since these tend to be less familiar to children who have already seen more recent papers in class. Mark it properly against the official mark scheme, not just a tick count, and identify question types rather than whole subjects as the target: for reading, that might mean inference questions specifically rather than "reading" broadly; for maths reasoning, it might mean two-step word problems or fraction-of-an-amount questions. February half-term (typically the third week of the month) is a natural pause point — use three or four short sessions across the week rather than a intensive holiday timetable, and sit a second diagnostic paper in the single weakest subject identified in November to check whether the gap has actually closed. This is also the point at which many families consider a term or two of one-to-one SATs tuition if a particular paper is consistently lagging, since a tutor can target the specific question types a generic revision guide cannot.

March 2027: Full Past Papers Under Timed Conditions

March is the intensity month. With roughly ten weeks left before test week, this is when full past papers under strict timed conditions — the exact durations used in the real test, sat in one sitting, ideally at the same time of day the real tests will run — become the main activity, aiming for at least four complete sittings across the month using STA-released papers from 2016 to 2024. Treat each one as a rehearsal for exam-day logistics as much as content: a quiet room, no interruptions, a visible clock, and the same pencil-and-eraser setup your child will use in school. After each paper, spend more time on the error review than on the paper itself — a 20-minute error-pattern discussion (which questions were missed, and why: careless error, timing pressure, or a genuine content gap) is more valuable than starting a fifth paper. If your child is scoring consistently below 100 on the scaled-score-equivalent conversion in any one paper by the end of March, that is the moment to flag it clearly with the class teacher, who can advise on any additional in-school support available before May.

April-May 2027: The Final Taper and Test Week Itself

The two weeks either side of the Easter holidays should mark a deliberate taper, not an escalation. Many parents instinctively increase the workload as the date approaches; the evidence from how the tests are actually structured suggests the opposite works better — a final full mock in mid-to-late April, followed by lighter, technique-focused sessions (timing strategy, "read the question twice," eliminating obviously wrong answers in reasoning questions) rather than new content. In the final week before 10 May 2027, stop full past papers altogether and focus on rest, sleep and routine: a consistent bedtime, a normal school-day breakfast, and arriving in good time each morning of test week. During the test week itself — Monday 10 May GPS, Tuesday 11 May reading, Wednesday 12 May Maths Papers 1 and 2, Thursday 13 May Maths Paper 3 — keep evenings genuinely light. A short walk, an early night and reassurance that the test is simply a check on what they already know will do more than any last-minute revision session.

How Can You Support Your Child's Wellbeing During the Countdown?

SATs-related anxiety is common and, in most cases, manageable without professional intervention — but it is worth taking seriously rather than dismissing as normal nerves. Keep the language around SATs neutral: describe the tests as "a chance to show what you've learned" rather than "important" or "make-or-break," since Year 6 pupils pick up on parental anxiety quickly and can mirror it. Watch for practical warning signs over several weeks rather than a single off day — disrupted sleep, reluctance to go to school, stomach aches with no other cause, or a sudden drop in appetite are the signals worth raising with the class teacher directly, since schools can adjust classroom pressure and, where a recognised additional need is documented, arrange access arrangements such as extra time or a separate room. Keep revision sessions to the planned length even when a child wants to "just finish" — over-running sessions teaches the wrong lesson about pacing under time pressure, which is exactly the skill the real test rewards.

What Happens After SATs Finish — And Where Does 11+ Fit In?

Once test week ends on 13 May 2027, most Year 6 classrooms shift quickly toward transition activities for Year 7 — but for a meaningful number of families, results week is also when questions about secondary school options resurface, whether that's because of a house move, a change of mind about the current school place, or simply because SATs performance prompts a fresh look at what's available. It's worth being clear that KS2 SATs and the 11+ admissions test are separate processes on separate timelines: for families pursuing grammar or selective independent school entry, the 11+ is typically sat in the autumn term of Year 6, months before SATs, with offers confirmed on National Offer Day the following March. If your family is only now starting to research the 11+ — for a younger sibling, for an in-year place, or because a school move is on the table — our 11+ six-month countdown guide uses the same monthly-milestone structure as this page, and our 11+ exam dates guide covers the specific test windows for the year ahead. For SATs results themselves, remember they influence Year 7 setting and early catch-up support, not admissions — see our guide to what greater depth in SATs actually means for more on how schools interpret a scaled score of 110 or above.

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