From the summer of 2016, there will be major changes to SATs tests for those in Year 2 and Year 6. For those in Year 6, there will be three Mathematics papers, plus papers in English Reading, Spelling and Punctuation and Grammar.
If I am tutoring your child to take these tests in summer 2016, I will be using sample papers published by the Government. I will also make use of existing SATs papers (which go back about 10 years) as the style of some of the questions will be similar.
Hopefully, more sample papers will be published as the tests get nearer, allowing children to have the opportunity to get used to the new way of testing.
Many details have still to be announced, but you can read about the changes by following this link.
This article gives you an idea how marks will be allotted in the new tests.
This article from the Daily Telegraph suggests the new tests will be tougher than before.
Key Stage Two
The Reading Test
One test of one hour
The test will last for one hour, to include reading time, and will consist of a selection of fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts, with an accompanying answer booklet. Questions will be roughly in order of difficulty. The paper will be scored out of 50. There is no Level 6 paper.
Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling
One test of 45 minutes
One test of spelling
One paper of 45-minute duration will assess punctuation and grammar (50 marks) through short answer questions. A second test will assess spelling (20 marks). The spelling test will be read to pupils, with each spelling contained in a contextualised sentence as has been the case since 2013. As with reading, overall marks out of 70 will be converted to a scaled score, with 100 representing the expected standard. Most questions on the punctuation and grammar paper will be short answers, with some sentence answers towards the end of the paper. There will be no extension paper.
Arithmetic paper of 30 minutes
Two further papers of 40 minutes
The former mental mathematics paper is to be replaced by a 30-minute arithmetic paper, which assesses content from the number domain only. This new paper will consist largely of one-mark questions using context-free calculations. There will be some 2-mark questions for long multiplication and long division calculations. In two-mark questions, it will only be possible to obtain a single mark for a wrong answer derived from a correct method when using the intended standard method. There are 30 marks for this paper, representing 27% of the total test score.
There will be a further two test papers, each lasting 40 minutes and containing 40 marks. These will assess fluency, reasoning and problem solving, in a manner similar to the current tests. Up to half of the questions will be provided within a context. There will be no calculator paper (and calculators cannot be used in the tests), and no extension paper. Formulae will be provided where required (apart from the area and volume of a shape).