KS2 SATs 2027: Dates, Papers and What the Maths Tests Cover

The 2027 KS2 SATs will be sat from Monday 10 May to Thursday 13 May 2027. If your child is in Year 6 this year, that is about seven months away, which is plenty of time if the work starts now and a stressful spring if it does not.

This post covers the timetable, what is in each maths paper, the scores that count as meeting the expected standard, and what I would do at home between now and May.

The 2027 timetable

Day	Tests
Monday 10 May	English grammar, punctuation and spelling, Papers 1 and 2
Tuesday 11 May	English reading
Wednesday 12 May	Maths Paper 1 (arithmetic) and Paper 2 (reasoning)
Thursday 13 May	Maths Paper 3 (reasoning)

Writing is not tested. Your child's teacher judges it from their work across the year, and science is teacher assessed as well. If your child is ill on a test day, the school may be able to let them sit the missed test up to five school days later.

The three maths papers

Paper	Time	Marks
1, Arithmetic	30 minutes	40
2, Reasoning	40 minutes	35
3, Reasoning	40 minutes	35

That is 110 marks in total, and calculators are not allowed on any of them. The reasoning papers allow a ruler, a protractor and a mirror.

The arithmetic paper is straight calculation with no words. Long multiplication, long and short division, fractions, decimals, percentages of amounts and the order of operations all appear. It is worth 40 of the 110 marks, and it is the most improvable part of the whole test, because every question type can be practised until it is automatic.

The reasoning papers put the maths into problems, charts, shapes and measures. Up to half the marks are set in a real life context, so reading carefully matters as much as calculating. Questions worth two marks usually give a mark for correct working, even when the final answer is wrong.

Across the three papers, between 75% and 85% of the marks come from number, ratio and algebra. The rest comes from measurement, geometry and statistics.

Scores and the expected standard

Raw marks are turned into a scaled score between 80 and 120. A score of 100 or more means your child has met the expected standard, and 110 or more is the higher standard.

The number of marks needed changes a little each year. In 2026, 56 marks out of 110 reached 100 in maths, and 94 marks reached 110. In 2025 the figures were 58 and 95. So the expected standard is a little over half the marks. Our scaled score converter turns a practice paper score into a scaled score using the official tables.

Nationally, 75% of children met the expected standard in maths in 2026, and 27% reached the higher standard.

Schools receive results on Tuesday 6 July 2027, and parents get them by the end of the summer term. SATs results do not decide secondary school places. Secondary schools do receive them, and some look at them alongside their own tests when they first get to know a new Year 7.

How to prepare between now and May

1. October to December, fill the gaps. Find the Year 5 and Year 6 topics your child is unsure about and teach them properly. Fractions with different denominators, ratio and algebra are the usual gaps, because they arrive late in Year 6.
2. January to March, one arithmetic paper a week. Timed at 30 minutes, marked the same day. Look at the question types that are wrong and practise those, rather than doing more whole papers.
3. March to April, reasoning papers. One a week, then go through every wrong answer and ask your child to explain what the question was asking.
4. The last two weeks, keep it light. Short, familiar practice and early nights. Cramming new topics in May tends to shake confidence rather than add marks.

All the recent papers are free on our KS2 maths SATs past papers page, with the mark schemes, so you can mark them at home.

Help that fits around school

Our Complete KS2 SATs Maths Course is 64 interactive lessons in teaching order, climbing from Year 3 up to SATs standard, with 5,538 questions. Each lesson teaches the method with worked examples your child clicks through one line at a time, then gives them questions to answer on paper and check on screen. It works well for filling the gaps in the October to December stage.

For the English side, our free SATs spelling test reads the words aloud the way the real spelling paper does. For topic by topic maths practice, the free maths practice pages cover 16 topics at three levels.

For Year 4 parents, the times tables check

Year 4 children sit the multiplication tables check in a two week window from Monday 7 June 2027. It is 25 questions on screen, on tables up to 12 × 12, with 6 seconds for each. There is no pass mark, but it shows clearly whether the tables are secure, and secure tables make every SATs paper two years later easier. Our Learn Times Tables page is a good place to start.

Aadam, SHLC Tutors