The confirmed KS2 SATs 2027 week, the official test timetable by day, which papers Year 6 sit, how scaled scores work, and the latest DfE/STA changes explained.
Book a Free ConsultationThe KS2 SATs for Year 6 pupils in England are confirmed to run from Monday 10 May to Thursday 13 May 2027, according to the Standards and Testing Agency's official "Primary assessments: future dates" guidance on GOV.UK. Pupils sit six papers across English reading, English grammar, punctuation and spelling, and mathematics, with writing and science assessed separately by teachers. This page sets out exactly what's confirmed for 2027, what's still an informed estimate based on the established pattern, and what has genuinely changed in how the tests are run since the 2026 cycle, drawing on the Standards and Testing Agency's own "Primary assessments: future dates" guidance. If your child is preparing for SATs alongside other Year 6 milestones, our SATs tuition and primary tuition programmes are built around this exact test calendar.
The Department for Education, via the Standards and Testing Agency (STA), publishes the KS2 test week for several years ahead so schools can plan their academic calendar. As of August 2026, the confirmed weeks are:
| Academic year | KS2 test week | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | Monday 11 May - Thursday 14 May 2026 | Confirmed, full daily paper timetable published |
| 2026-27 | Monday 10 May - Thursday 13 May 2027 | Week confirmed by STA; detailed daily paper order not yet formally published |
| 2027-28 | Monday 8 May - Thursday 11 May 2028 | Week confirmed by STA; detailed daily paper order not yet published |
Every year since the current test structure was introduced in 2016, KS2 SATs have run on a consistent day pattern: grammar, punctuation and spelling on day one, reading on day two, and mathematics split across days three and four. STA confirmed this exact pattern for the 2026 cycle (11-14 May 2026): Monday 11 May for grammar, punctuation and spelling papers 1 and 2; Tuesday 12 May for English reading; Wednesday 13 May for mathematics papers 1 and 2 (arithmetic and reasoning); and Thursday 14 May for mathematics paper 3 (reasoning). Because this pattern has held for a decade, it is reasonable to expect the 2027 week (10-13 May) to follow the same order - but at the time of writing, STA's future-dates guidance confirms only the week for 2027, not a paper-by-paper daily breakdown in the way it has for 2026. STA has historically published the fully detailed test timetable, with exact paper names and durations, in the autumn or winter roughly six to nine months before the test week itself, so schools should expect the finalised 2027 daily timetable to be confirmed by STA around autumn or winter 2026.
Friday of test week is set aside only for schools that need to run catch-up papers for pupils who missed a test through illness, a medical appointment, or another genuine and unavoidable reason - it is not a fifth day of testing for the whole cohort. Individual schools also have flexibility over exactly what time of day each paper is sat, provided it falls between 7am and 7pm, which is why some multi-form-entry schools stagger start times between classes.
Year 6 pupils sit externally-marked national tests in three subjects. Writing and science are not tested this way - they are assessed by class teachers over the course of the year and reported as a judgement rather than a mark.
| Subject | Papers | Approximate duration | How assessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| English grammar, punctuation and spelling (GPS) | Paper 1 (grammar & punctuation) + Paper 2 (spelling) | 45 minutes + ~15-20 minutes | Externally marked national test |
| English reading | One paper, based on three linked reading texts | 60 minutes | Externally marked national test |
| Mathematics - arithmetic | Paper 1 | 30 minutes | Externally marked national test |
| Mathematics - reasoning | Papers 2 and 3 | ~40 minutes each | Externally marked national test |
| Writing | No formal test | Assessed across the year | Teacher assessment |
| Science | No formal test for the great majority of pupils | Assessed across the year | Teacher assessment (a small national sample sits separate standardised science sampling tests every two years, most recently affecting only a subset of schools, not all Year 6 pupils) |
In total, that is six separate marked papers sat over four days - two GPS papers on day one, one reading paper on day two, and three maths papers spread across days three and four. Pupils with an Education, Health and Care Plan or identified special educational needs may access modified papers, including large-print, braille or word-processed formats; STA introduced new electronic modified large-print versions in 18, 24, 36 and 48-point sizes as part of the 2026 arrangements, editable in Word rather than fixed PDFs.
Every marked paper generates a raw score (the number of marks a pupil earned) and, once national marking is complete, a scaled score that allows fair comparison across different years, even though the difficulty of each year's papers varies slightly. Scaled scores run from a minimum of 80 to a maximum of 120 in each subject. A scaled score of 100 or more means a pupil has met the "expected standard" for Year 6 - a fixed benchmark that STA recalculates the underlying raw-mark threshold for each year, rather than an average that shifts with cohort performance. Scores below 100 do not mean a child has failed; they indicate the pupil is still working towards the expected standard, and schools receive a breakdown showing how close a pupil was.
Nationally, roughly 70-80% of pupils meet the expected standard in any given subject, and higher scores - typically from around 110 upward - are associated with greater depth of understanding of the Year 6 curriculum. Once STA finishes national marking, it publishes official raw-to-scaled-score conversion tables on GOV.UK; for the 2026 cycle, these were confirmed for publication on Thursday 16 July 2026. Schools receive individual pupil results before conversion tables go public, typically in the first half of July, roughly six to eight weeks after the test week itself. National and school-level performance data, including the percentage of each school's Year 6 cohort reaching the expected standard, is then published later in the year - usually in December - feeding into performance tables that parents can use when comparing primary schools.
Two genuinely new developments affect the 2026 and 2027 cycles, and it's worth separating operational changes (which are confirmed) from policy changes (which are still under review).
Confirmed operational change - new test delivery provider. From September 2025, Pearson Education Limited took over as the Test Operations Service provider for England's national curriculum assessments, a contract previously held by a different supplier. Alongside this, STA retired the old Primary Assessment Gateway and replaced it with the National Curriculum Assessments Portal, which requires multi-factor authentication for school staff logging in to order papers, register pupils and download results. KS2 test attendance registers also moved from paper-based forms to an online-only process for the first time in 2026. None of this changes what pupils sit or how it's marked, but it is the most significant change to the administrative side of SATs delivery since the tests were last overhauled in 2016.
Under review, not yet confirmed - assessment format. In November 2025, the government published its response to the independent Curriculum and Assessment Review. On KS2 SATs specifically, it committed the Standards and Testing Agency to review the grammar, punctuation and spelling assessment, in response to concerns that it encourages grammar being taught in isolation rather than as part of writing. The response also committed to improving the assessment of writing at key stage 2, with "greater focus on fluent writing," backed by a newly published Writing Framework covering reception through to the end of KS2. On the separate Year 4 multiplication tables check, the government acknowledged concerns about its strictly timed format and said it would "work with the STA on how to minimise any unintended impacts," while keeping the timed element itself, which it says is central to testing fluent recall. None of these reviews have yet resulted in a confirmed change to the actual KS2 SATs papers pupils will sit in May 2027 - families should treat the 2027 test content and format as unchanged from 2026 unless STA publishes updated test frameworks, which typically happens well over a year in advance of any live change.
Preparing your child for KS2 SATs 2027?
Whether your child needs to consolidate GPS knowledge, build reading stamina for the 60-minute comprehension paper, or sharpen speed and accuracy across the three maths papers, our specialist tutors design a programme around the exact KS2 SATs 2027 timetable (10-13 May 2027), using timed past-paper practice so pupils walk into the real test week already used to the pace and pressure.
Rated 4.8/5 on Trustpilot. Families we've worked with have seen children move from below the expected standard to a scaled score of 100+ within one to two terms of consistent weekly tutoring.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppUnderstanding recent trends helps put any single child's result in context. Department for Education statistics for the 2024-25 academic year show the following national picture for England:
| Measure | 2023-24 | 2024-25 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reading, writing & maths combined - expected standard | 61% | 62% | +1pp |
| Reading - expected standard | 74% | 75% | +1pp |
| Maths - expected standard | 73% | 74% | +1pp |
| Writing (teacher assessed) - expected standard | 72% | 72% | ~+0.5pp |
| Grammar, punctuation & spelling - expected standard | 72% | 73% | +1pp |
| Science (teacher assessed) - expected standard | 81% | 82% | +1pp |
| Average scaled score - reading | 105 | 106 | +1 point |
| Average scaled score - maths | 104 | 105 | +1 point |
| Average scaled score - GPS | 105 | 105 | Unchanged since 2022 |
The 62% combined figure for 2025 is described by the DfE as the largest year-on-year increase seen since the pandemic, but it still sits below the pre-pandemic 2019 benchmark of 65% and remains well above the post-pandemic low of 59% recorded in 2022. Put another way, around 29.4% of the roughly 640,000-strong Year 6 cohort - close to 189,000 pupils - did not reach the combined expected standard across reading, writing and maths in 2025, alongside a further 8.5% who were not assessed in all three subjects (often due to working below the level the test can measure) and 7.9% who worked below assessment level in at least one subject. These figures matter for planning: a child who narrowly missed 100 in one subject in Year 5 mock assessments, or in the Year 6 autumn term, has a genuine and realistic chance of crossing the threshold by May with focused, subject-specific support over two to three terms.
With the 2027 test week now confirmed as 10-13 May 2027, families have roughly nine months from the start of the academic year in September 2026 to build genuine exam readiness rather than last-minute cramming. Three things matter most in that window. First, familiarity with the format: because reading is a single 60-minute paper covering three linked texts, pupils who have never practised sustained reading and question-answering under time pressure often lose marks to pacing rather than comprehension - timed practice papers close this gap quickly. Second, GPS is the subject where knowledge gaps are easiest to miss at home, because grammar terminology (subordinate clauses, modal verbs, fronted adverbials, and so on) is rarely used in everyday reading and needs direct, structured revision rather than incidental exposure. Third, in maths, the split between the fast 30-minute arithmetic paper and the two longer reasoning papers means pupils need both raw calculation speed and the ability to unpick multi-step worded questions - two quite different skills that benefit from separate, targeted practice. Our specialist tutors build a preparation plan around the confirmed KS2 SATs 2027 dates, working backwards from 10 May 2027 to sequence topic coverage, timed past-paper practice and targeted revision of weaker areas, so pupils are neither under-prepared nor burnt out by test week. For many of our Year 6 families, KS2 SATs preparation runs alongside 11+ entrance exam preparation for grammar and independent schools, since both sets of exams draw on overlapping reading, grammar and reasoning skills - our tutors coordinate the two so revision time is used efficiently rather than duplicated. Families further along in secondary planning can also see how the autumn 11+ season lines up with SATs season on our guide to 11+ exam dates and timetables.
The Standards and Testing Agency's "Primary assessments: future dates" guidance confirms that the statutory key stage 2 test week for 2027 runs from Monday 10 May to Thursday 13 May 2027. This is the same week structure used every year since 2016: four consecutive weekdays, with Friday reserved only for schools needing to run catch-up tests for pupils who were absent through illness or another unavoidable reason. Individual schools set their own daily test start times, which must fall between 7am and 7pm, but every state-funded primary school in England sits the same papers on the same national dates that week.
Year 6 pupils sit six externally-marked test papers across three subjects: English grammar, punctuation and spelling (a 45-minute grammar and punctuation paper plus a roughly 15-20 minute aural spelling test), English reading (one 60-minute paper based on three linked texts), and mathematics (a 30-minute arithmetic paper plus two reasoning papers of around 40 minutes each). Writing is assessed by teachers throughout Year 6 rather than by a formal exam, and science is reported using teacher assessment judgements, not a national test, for the vast majority of pupils.
KS2 scaled scores run from 80 (lowest) to 120 (highest) for each subject tested. A scaled score of 100 or more means a child has met the "expected standard" for Year 6 - this is a fixed national benchmark, not a moving average, so it does not change year to year even though the raw marks needed to reach it do. In 2024-25, the average scaled scores were 106 in reading, 105 in maths and 105 in grammar, punctuation and spelling, according to the Department for Education's key stage 2 attainment statistics.
Yes. From September 2025, Pearson Education Limited took over as the Test Operations Service provider for national curriculum assessments, replacing the previous supplier, and schools now use a new National Curriculum Assessments Portal (with multi-factor authentication) instead of the old Primary Assessment Gateway. Separately, the government's November 2025 response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review committed the Standards and Testing Agency to review the key stage 2 grammar, punctuation and spelling assessment and to improve how writing is assessed, with a focus on fluent writing - though no changes to the 2027 test papers themselves have been confirmed yet.
Based on the pattern followed every year since the current test format began, schools typically receive KS2 results roughly six to eight weeks after the test week, usually in the first half of July. For the 2026 cycle, raw score to scaled score conversion tables are due to be published on GOV.UK on Thursday 16 July 2026. Results are reported to schools and parents first; national and school-level performance data is then published later in the year, typically in December, once the Department for Education has finalised the attainment statistics.
In 2025, 62% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, up from 61% in 2024 and the largest year-on-year increase since the pandemic, according to Department for Education statistics. By subject, 75% reached the expected standard in reading, 74% in maths, 72% in writing and 73% in grammar, punctuation and spelling. Results remain below the pre-pandemic 2019 level of 65% combined, and are well above the 2022 post-pandemic low of 59%, showing a slow but steady recovery.
Our specialist tutors build Year 6 pupils' confidence and accuracy across all three tested subjects - reading comprehension, grammar/punctuation/spelling and mathematics arithmetic and reasoning - using timed practice under real exam conditions so pupils are used to the pace of the actual May 2027 papers. Because many of our Year 6 families are also preparing for 11+ entry the same autumn, our tutors coordinate KS2 SATs revision with grammar school and independent school preparation so the two don't compete for a child's time and energy in the run-up to May.