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Revision can be fun… yes, really

“Revision doesn’t just mean poring over a revision guide or completing a practice paper. This week I’m going to share some ways of preparing for the KS2 national tests that might actually be (whisper it) fun.�

Hello, I’m James Clements. For ten years, I worked as a teacher and deputy head at a successful primary school in West London. For seven of those years I taught Year 6. As well as making sure the children I taught achieved their very best, a big part of my job was working with parents so that they could help their children in the final year of primary school. I’m also the parent of two small children.

Revision doesn’t just mean poring over a revision guide or completing a practice paper. This week I’m going to share some ways of preparing for the KS2 national tests that might actually be (whisper it) fun.

Writing a test paper

Setting a question or paper quiz for someone else can be a great revision activity for children. This might focus on one area of the curriculum (writing a maths test, for example) or a Year 6 quiz, with questions from different areas of the curriculum, including parts that aren’t tested by the SATs like history, geography or science. Of course, any test they make will require the child to create a detailed mark sheet with the correct answers on it too. If you’re the parent sitting the quiz and you get some questions wrong, you just might need your child to sit and show you how to work out the right answer, something that is really useful for building their understanding.

Family learning challenge

Set the whole family the challenge of learning one new thing per day. If you’re helping your child to prepare for the tests, it might a particular times table, a fiendish spelling, a new word to use in their writing or something tricky from the grammar and punctuation test. Don’t forget to check that they can remember it the next day.

Highlighters

Never ever underestimate the power of a colourful highlighter pen to an 11-year-old. Highlighting number facts or spelling words on a chart that everyone can see or in a special book is a great way of recording progress. And making progress visible makes children feel good about their learning, something that will hold them in good stead at secondary school.

Beat the calculator

If they’re really good at their multiplication tables, a child should be able to come up with the answer to anything up to 12 x 12 before someone else can type it into a calculator. This works well as a competition with a friend, parent or even a younger sibling doing the typing. And of course the parent has to have a go against the calculator too. It’s only fair.

Make a ‘how to…’ film

The internet is full of films that explain different areas of the curriculum – from long division to the tricky-to-remember bits of grammar. If your child is struggling with one particular area, you could make a film of it ‘to help other people’. The process of choosing an example, writing a script and then filming it might be enough to make it stick.

Reading

This is one of the simplest and most educationally-valuable ways a child can spend their time. Extended reading time is great for developing children’s fluency and comprehension, building their vocabulary and their general knowledge. It also helps to support their writing. And sometimes we need to give children time to do it so that they can see it’s an enjoyable thing to do.

Want to read more?

Read James’ earlier posts here.

More from Oxford Owl

• Read more KS2 SATs advice and help for parents for more tips on supporting your child
• µþ°ù´Ç·É²õ±ðÌýBond SATs Skills workbooks and flashcards

Five tried and tested revision techniques

“The first step is to talk to them about where they feel their strengths lie and where they might need to develop.�

Hello, I’m James Clements. For ten years, I worked as a teacher and deputy head at a successful primary school in West London. For seven of those years I taught Year 6. As well as making sure the children I taught achieved their very best, a big part of my job was working with parents so that they could help their children in the final year of primary school. I’m also the parent of two small children.

All children have areas of the curriculum that they find easier than others. As time is limited, it makes sense for children to focus their revision on the aspects of English and mathematics where they’re not feeling so confident. The first step is to talk to them about where they feel their strengths lie and where they might need to develop. If you haven’t already, you might also want to talk to their teacher about areas where they think your child could do with some extra work. It makes sense for the child, parent and school to be working together.

Areas of the curriculum

The key areas covered by the KS2 national tests are:

Mathematics

The national curriculum puts great emphasis on children being able to add, subtract, multiply and divide with confidence, so this is a good place to start revision. Even if children can do each of these things, the quicker and more efficient they are, the better. If there are lots of questions to answer in a timed test it can be easy to make mistakes because you’re working quickly.

Practising these four operations, both in their head and using a pencil and paper, is one of the most useful things Year 6 children can do in the run up to the tests. The curriculum expects children to use standard written methods for these (yes, that includes long division) so if you’re a bit rusty, you might want to refresh your knowledge of these by searching online and watching one of the many films that explain the different processes step-by-step.

Fluency in times tables (up to 12 x 12) and number bonds (knowing the numbers that add together to make 100, 1000 or 1 [such as 0.23 + 0.77]) is also likely to be really helpful.

Helping your child prepare for the KS2 SATs maths test

Reading

We want our children to be fluent readers and have strong comprehension skills so that they can understand and enjoy the books they read. The best way to improve as a reader is to read lots. As a teacher, I spent a lot of my time encouraging the children in my class to read as widely as possible. This means quantity (reading everyday), but also quality (books that are going to introduce them to new ideas and new language) and range (different types of books – fiction and non-fiction, including books they might not normally choose to read). Taking a reading test is slightly different as being a strong reader isn’t enough to do well; it’s also a test of writing. It can be really helpful for children to have some practice responding to questions about a text in writing.

Preparing for the KS2 SATs reading test

Grammar, punctuation and spelling

A lot of the content of this test is knowing the names for different parts of language and being able to identify them, rather than being able to use them in writing. As with some of the mathematics content, you might find yourself wanting to brush up on the subjunctive and fronted adverbials…

Preparing for the KS2 SATs grammar, punctuation, and spelling test

Writing

Not a test as such, but teachers will make a judgment about the quality of a child’s writing based on several recent pieces of work. The criteria used to judge Year 6 writing this year leans heavily towards accurate use of punctuation and grammar, with ‘most’ of the Year 5 & 6 word lists spelled correctly.

Models for revision

Different approaches work for different children, but here is some tried and tested advice that’s worked with classes in the past:

1. Don’t just read

The best revision doesn’t involve sitting and passively reading a revision guide. It involves writing or doing something. This might be making notes, answering questions or explaining an idea to someone else. For most children re-reading notes isn’t the best way of revising.

2. Concentrate on the tricky bits

When revising, it can be very tempting for children to spend time on the topics they enjoy and are already good at. Instead, we want them to spend time on the bits of the curriculum that don’t come so easily. Most children will benefit from some support with this.

3. Space out your revision

Try practising the same thing more than once, leaving increasingly long spaces in between revision. For example, a child might do ten division questions one evening. Then they could try and do five the next day. Then wait a couple of days and do another five. Then wait three days and do three more. Then… well, you get the idea.

4. Mix up the revision

Little and often is a better model than a block of learning about something and then not thinking about it again for a week. Ten minutes of spelling practice every day will be more useful than an hour once per week. I used to tell my classes to practice a different multiplication table each night while they cleaned their teeth. Good for their maths fluency (and for making sure they brushed for long enough). However, I did used to get lots of complaints from parents about toothpaste all over the bathroom.

5. Sitting practice tests

Using these is fine: they can be good for helping children get used to working with a time limit and making sure children have covered all of the key knowledge they need. But on its own, a test doesn’t help you to learn anything new. The real value lies in what you do afterwards – children need to look at the questions they didn’t get right and then work out how to answer them correctly next time. That’s where the learning happens.

More from Oxford Owl

• Read our blog posts on KS2 SATs advice and help for parents for more tips on supporting your child
• µþ°ù´Ç·É²õ±ðÌýBond SATs Skills workbooks and flashcards