KS2 SATS Update The KS2 SATs underwent a major reform a couple of years ago and the papers are significantly different. There are now three separate Maths papers. Paper 1 is an arithmetic paper where children have to answer fixed calculation questions. This is testing their mental maths skills as well as their written calculating skills and questions will include both short and long multiplication and division. Papers 2 and 3 are called reasoning papers and cover all areas of the maths curriculum including, amongst others, measurement, fractions, symmetry and statistics. The questions vary; some are multiple choice, some are problems written in words and others require the method to be shown or an explanation of the approach taken to solve the problem in order to gain full marks. Paper 1 is timed at just 30 minutes whilst Papers 2 and 3 are each 40 minutes long. There are usually 36 questions in Paper 1: this means children have barely a minute to answer each question, including tricky questions such as 8827 ÷ 97 = and finding 28% of 650. To be able to do this, good mental arithmetic skills are essential and a good understanding of the formal written methods of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are also needed. More than this, it is also important for children to be comfortable with the style and layout of the questions so that they know, quickly, what to do. Papers 2 and 3 usually have just over 20 questions each, again not a lot of time to work through the whole paper. We have carefully studied all these Papers and written a large number of questions, not only of the same difficulty but also the same style. This will really help children to be familiar with the type of question before taking the tests. For teachers they are also ideal for Booster sessions or SAT related homework. I know many teachers used the MathSphere Booster CD but unfortunately this is now out of date and no longer available, but the good news is that we have used the same writers for our up-to-date Booster resources. Go to KS2 SAT Booster