Year 6 maths this term: what to cover before the SATs in May
Year 6 maths uses everything from the years before and asks for more of it. The autumn term is for learning the new ideas. Paper practice comes later. This guide shows what is new, how the May papers are set out, and what to do each week until Christmas.
What Year 6 maths adds
The England Year 6 maths page lists the lessons in order. These are the ideas that are new or much harder this year:
- Bigger numbers. Up to seven digits, and numbers below zero.
- Long multiplication. Two digit by two digit, then larger.
- Long division. Dividing by a two digit number.
- Multiples and factors.
- Order of operations. Often called BIDMAS.
- Fractions. Adding and subtracting with different denominators, mixed numbers, multiplying and dividing.
- Decimals. To three places. Multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000.
- Percentages. And how they link to fractions and decimals.
- A first look at algebra. Putting a number in place of a letter, and one-step equations.
- Area, volume and angles. Triangles, parallelograms, and angle facts.
- Data. Line graphs, pie charts and the mean.
That is a full year of work. In the autumn, stay with number and fractions.
How the May maths papers are set out
Year 6 pupils in state schools in England sit the key stage 2 tests in May. The maths test has three papers.
| Paper | What it tests | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Paper 1 | Arithmetic | 30 minutes |
| Paper 2 | Reasoning | 40 minutes |
| Paper 3 | Reasoning | 40 minutes |
No calculator is allowed. The dates and past papers are on GOV.UK: key stage 2 tests.
Paper 1 is all calculation. A child who is quick and accurate with the four operations, fractions and percentages starts the reasoning papers with time to think. That is the reason the autumn term is for methods, not for papers.
Worked example 1: fractions with different denominators
Add 1/2 and 1/4.
1/2 is the same as 2/4. 2/4 plus 1/4 is 3/4.
A common slip is to add the tops and the bottoms and get 2/6. The denominator tells you the size of the piece. You do not add those sizes together.
Worked example 2: order of operations
Work out 2 + 3 × 4.
Multiply first. 3 × 4 is 12. Then add 2. The answer is 14, not 20.
A child who gets 20 has read the line from left to right. Circle the multiplication and do that part first.
Worked example 3: long multiplication
Work out 34 × 27.
Split 27 into 20 and 7.
34 × 7 = 238.
34 × 20 = 680.
238 + 680 = 918.
The common slip is to forget the zero when multiplying by the 20. Say “twenty”, not “two”.
Worked example 4: a percentage of an amount
Find 25% of 80.
25% is one quarter. Half of 80 is 40. Half of 40 is 20. The answer is 20.
Learn four percentages by heart: 50% is a half, 25% is a quarter, 10% is a tenth, 1% is a hundredth. Most other percentages are built from these.
Five questions to try
- 3/4 − 1/8
- 20 − 4 × 3
- 10% of 250
- 6.4 × 10
- Write all the factors of 12.
Answers
- 5/8. Change 3/4 to 6/8 first.
- 8. Multiply first: 4 × 3 = 12, then 20 − 12.
- 25
- 64
- 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12
What the wrong answers tell you
- 2/4 or 1/2 for question 1. The tops and bottoms were subtracted. Go to the lesson on fractions with different denominators.
- 48 for question 2. The line was read left to right. Go to the BIDMAS lesson.
- 6.40 for question 4. A zero was added to the end. Multiplying by 10 moves every digit one column to the left.
- Missing 1 or 12 in question 5. Factors come in pairs. Write them as pairs: 1 and 12, 2 and 6, 3 and 4.
A plan for the year
| When | What to work on |
|---|---|
| Autumn, first half | Place value, long multiplication, long division, factors |
| Autumn, second half | Fractions: equivalent, add, subtract, multiply, divide |
| Spring, first half | Decimals, percentages, BIDMAS |
| Spring, second half | Algebra, area, volume, angles, graphs |
| After Easter | Short timed practice, then full papers |
A week that stays small
Four short sittings are enough. Fifteen to twenty minutes each.
- Sitting one. One new lesson: watch the video, do the questions.
- Sitting two. The same idea, new questions.
- Sitting three. A second lesson from the same strand.
- Sitting four. Your child explains one question out loud, from start to finish.
If your child can explain it, the idea stayed. If they cannot, do sitting one again next week. That is not falling behind. It is the plan working.
This week
Pick fractions or BIDMAS, not both. Do four sittings on one of them, with the matching lessons on the Year 6 maths page. Each lesson is a short video, then questions on that idea. If the questions stall, rewind the video to the step before the stall.
If the Year 6 lesson is too hard, the idea underneath it is on the Year 5 maths page. Going back one year for one lesson is quicker than repeating a lesson that does not land.
Other year groups are on Maths. What the programme includes is on the pricing page.