KS2 English SATs Past Papers
Check a KS2 English SATs mark
Marked a paper? Turn the raw mark into the scaled score it would have earned that year.
Check a KS2 English SATs mark
Marked a paper? Turn the raw mark into the scaled score it would have earned that year.
KS2 SATs scaled score converter
Turn a raw mark on a past KS2 paper into the scaled score it would have earned that year. A scaled score of 100 is the expected standard; 110 or more counts as working at greater depth in reading and maths.
| Raw mark | Reading | GPS | Maths |
|---|
How to use these KS2 English papers properly
KS2 English SATs split into reading and into grammar, punctuation and spelling. They are very different tests with very different fixes, and treating them as one subject is why practice often does not move the score.
What the English papers are
| Paper | What it tests | Time | Marks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reading | Comprehension across three texts | 60 min | 50 |
| GPS Paper 1 | Grammar and punctuation questions | 45 min | 50 |
| GPS Paper 2 | Spelling, read aloud by the teacher | about 15 min | 20 |
The grammar and punctuation paper is the most improvable test in the whole of KS2. It examines named technical knowledge: subordinate clauses, subjunctive form, modal verbs, expanded noun phrases, the difference between a colon and a semicolon. It is learnable content with right and wrong answers, and it responds to revision faster than anything else your child will sit.
Reading is the opposite. It rewards a habit built over years, and six weeks of practice papers will not manufacture one.
The reading paper's real problem is pace
Sixty minutes, three texts, fifty marks. Children who run out of time almost always spend too long on the first text, which is usually the easiest and carries the fewest marks.
Teach the split explicitly: roughly twenty minutes per text, and move on whether or not it feels finished. Practise with a clock visible so it becomes a habit rather than a rule they are told once.
The other recurring loss is the three-mark questions. They want evidence from the text, quoted or referenced, not an opinion. A child who answers from memory of the story rather than from the words on the page scores one mark out of three consistently.
What the scaled score actually means
SATs results are not reported as a raw mark or a percentage. Each raw score is converted to a scaled score, where 100 is the expected standard and the scale runs from 80 to 120.
The conversion changes every year, because it adjusts for how hard that year's papers were. So a raw mark that reached 100 last year might not this year, and comparing raw marks across years tells you very little. Our scaled score converter holds the published tables so you can see what a practice mark would actually have been worth.
Worth saying plainly to a Year 6 child: nothing about the number changes which secondary school they go to. SATs are a measure of the school as much as the pupil, and secondary schools use them for setting rather than admission.
Spelling is worth twenty marks and gets almost no practice
Twenty of the seventy GPS marks are spelling, read aloud by the teacher and written into a gap. That is a significant slice of the grade and it is the part families most often skip, because it is dull.
It is also completely learnable. The statutory Year 5 and 6 word list is published, it is a few hundred words, and fifteen minutes twice a week through the spring term covers it. Test by writing the words from dictation rather than by reading them over, because dictation is what the exam actually does.
Questions parents ask
My child reads constantly and still scores badly on the reading paper. Why?
Reading for pleasure and answering comprehension questions under time pressure are different skills. Strong readers often lose marks by answering from impression rather than finding the evidence, and by spending too long enjoying the first text.
The fix is technique rather than more reading: locate, quote, answer the actual question asked.
Is grammar worth revising if my child writes well?
Yes, and this catches out a lot of strong writers. The GPS paper tests naming and identifying grammatical features, not using them. A child can write beautifully and be unable to label a subordinate clause.
That gap is pure content knowledge and closes quickly.
Do the SATs results follow my child to secondary school?
The scaled scores are passed on and are typically used for setting and for baseline targets in Year 7. They do not affect admission, which is decided long before the tests are sat.