SAT Preparation Tips

This year, in the U.K, Key Stage 2 SATs will take place over four days from Monday 13th to Thursday 16th May and include papers on Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar, English Reading and Maths Paper 1 (Arithmetic), Maths Paper 2 (Reasoning) and Maths Paper 3 (Reasoning). There will also be Writing teacher assessments.

Everyone who has ever taken a school test can attest to the fact that tests at school can be a great source of worry. This type of worry is a normal type of stress that is needed to build resilience. However, the stress must not cross a certain threshold, otherwise it drains mental health and can become very unhealthy especially as these are children.

As SATs week approaches, there are steps that both parents and children can take to ensure that stresses are minimised, prevented or that if unavoidable stresses occur, they are within acceptable limits and are correctly and adequately managed. Here are some tips on how you and your child can prepare for SATs. These tips can also be shaped for tests and exams in general:

Pacing

Pacing oneself includes taking regular rests and breaks in the build up to the test week and during your revision. Rests and breaks can be in the form of taking a 10 minutes walk in your garden, reading a book, listening to your favourite music and doing some mind-calming drawing, tracing or colouring. Taking your mind off things can give your brain time to process all the information you are learning. Rests can be in the form of switching off your phone or grabbing a glass of water or other healthy drink from your kitchen. You could go for a walk or even just close your eyes and relax for a few minutes.

Encourage Self care and management

Take a rejuvenating shower or bath to pamper yourself. Taking showers or baths not only help you maintain a clean body or meet the social standards on cleanliness, they also improve your circulation, relaxes your muscles and lower anxiety - they can calm you down. Go for regular walks, get involved in activities that provide a form of physical exercising. These will help your body burn energy, refresh your brain and improve your sleep at night. Physical exercises can also open up your appetite. It's important to try to eat well and get lots of sleep during the lead-up to a test. If you don't give your mind a rest or the right fuel it might not work as well as it could.

Help your child to focus on themselves

People are different, which is why even identical twins- who have the same DNA sequence and tend to share very similar appearance - are not 100% identical. You are different and unique and this means you are different from your classmates; what works for one person might not work for the other. Our differences and uniqueness then implies that everyone learns things differently and some people find things easier than others. So, while you are using generic learning approaches, be sure to explore your unique learning styles. Choose a revision plan that works best for you. If your friends have positive learning strategies that work for you, then adopt them and add to your personally developed styles.

Your child’s mental health is very important

SATs, like all other tests, can be a stressful time for children, parents and teachers. All children should be encouraged to share their feelings and talk about their fear and anxieties at all times but especially during stressful periods. Parents should talk to their child’s school to help reinforce the notions that all pupils are valued and supported.

When children write a test, it’s good for them to understand that the most important part of writing that test is for them to accept it when they have absolutely given it their best. If a child feels stressed about a test, they should speak with the trusted people in their lives: it could be a parent, friend, a teacher or other members of the family. Children should be supported to feel confident about their efforts during a test but most importantly, children’s self belief should be nurtured daily to handle the normal challenges of growing up. School  leaders and teachers have a responsibility to support their pupils’ growth and ‘broader development’ (Ofsted, 2019; Education Endowment Foundation [EEF], 2019) by going beyond the academic to develop behaviours, skills and attitudes which support success at school and later life (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2021). In nurturing broader development of pupils, educators use a range of terms such as social and emotional skills, non-cognitive abilities or soft skills (Ambition Institute, 2022). In this regard, research has increasingly looked to understand the role that pupils' wider skills, attitudes and behaviours play in their long-term outcomes. Most children will feel stressed by exams but pupils who have developed  ‘skills, strategies and behaviours, such as motivation, perseverance and positive self-perceptions’ are likely to have greater control of the stress and produce successful outcomes because these skills ‘have been linked to better academic outcomes and improved life chances for pupils’ (EEF, 2019; Gutman & Schoon, 2013).

Preparation - learning content

Preparing for a test is important if one wants to get a great outcome and performance. We may not always  get the outcome we desire or even deserve, but we must always strive to be the best we can be. Sometimes, with the best possible preparation, a pupil could still get poor outcomes in a test. This, however, is the exception because generally, in life, to reap ‘excellence’, you need to invest ‘excellence’. I particularly like a quote from the book- ‘How To Excel and Have Fun at University’, by Dr J. Adonu - in which he notes that ‘Proper preparation prevents poor performance’. 

Thank you for reading and now to all Year 6 children writing their SATs this year and to everyone taking any form of test, I wish you well. Remember, “Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.” - Helen Keller

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