Free Year 6 Maths Test And Free Downloadable Year 6 Quizzes

Standard Year 6 maths tests often cover too much ground, leaving little time to focus on the key, challenging concepts pupils actually need for SATs success. Endless practice doesn’t help if it’s not targeted, leaving gaps in essential knowledge just before the SATs. 

As math specialists, we understand that focused revision is the key to success. We’ve created this unique resource drawing on our years of experience pinpointing the exact topics where Year 6 pupils need the most practice. 

This resource focuses exclusively on crucial Year 5 and 6 topics and includes both printable student papers and a complete mark scheme for easy assessment – ideal for an end of term or unit test.

If you just want the Year 6 maths test straightaway, download it now.

About the Year 6 maths test

This Year 6 maths test is based on topics from the national curriculum programme of study for Years 5 and 6.

The 25 questions test children on a number of content domains and also a variety of maths skills that they’re likely to need for their SATs exam in May. Answer sheets are provided and, while this isn’t an actual diagnostic assessment, it will give you and your pupils a chance to see where they need to improve before they sit their official Key Stage 2 SATs test papers in May. 

In this Year 6 maths test, we’ve included:

• 8 arithmetic and 17 reasoning questions to roughly mimic the percentage split between arithmetic and reasoning in the 3 SATs papers.
• A mix of 1, 2 and 3 mark questions so children get used to looking at the marks allocated. 

It is important to encourage children to show all their workings out, as they can score marks for using the correct method, even if the final answer is calculated incorrectly. 

Showing workings is an important skill for students to learn. Especially when it comes to the maths SATs exams, students receive extra marks for showing their methods. Third Space Learning’s online, one-to-one primary AI maths tutoring and SATs revision programmes encourage students to practice showing their problem solving methods.

How to use this Year 6 maths test

This test is useful for assessing your pupils’ understanding of the Year 5 maths and Year 6 maths curriculum and identifying any knowledge gaps they may still have. Unlike the standard Key Stage 2 SATs papers, which test mathematical content taught across the entire key stage, this assessment deliberately focuses only on the upper KS2 (Years 5 and 6) curriculum.

This focus is crucial because in an analysis of 8 years of SATs papers (2016–2019, 2022–2025), we found that the majority of questions continue to assess upper KS2 content. Focusing on upper KS2 ensures that revision efforts are strategically concentrated on the Year 5 and 6 strands that carry the highest weighting.

Read more about our analysis of past SATs papers and the top 20 Year 6 maths revision topics to help your pupils meet age-related expectations and achieve 100 in SATs here.

We recommend using this test towards the end of the Spring term, once children have learnt most of the Year 6 content, but with still sufficient time to work on any areas highlighted as being a challenge for any individuals or groups of students. 

If you’re looking for a test earlier in the school year, our back to school maths quiz for Year 6 assesses Year 5 content to help you benchmark and tailor your teaching.

You might choose to use self-marking, peer-marking, or teacher-marking depending on your purpose and the time available, ensuring consistent and useful feedback is delivered.

Consider how you will use the data/outcomes of the test and how you might share feedback with your students. You may wish to provide individual comments and targets or opt for whole class feedback.

25 question Year 6 maths test (with answers)

Turning Year 6 maths test scores into action: intervention strategies for weak spots

The key to ensuring this Year 6 maths test is effective in helping to support your learners is how you then use the results. Raw scores are only the starting point; the real value is in diagnosing common errors and misconceptions to plan targeted intervention.

Here are some simple, practical tips for tackling frequent SATs weak spots:

Misconception Area	Example SATs Error	Practical Intervention Tip
Fractions	When adding or subtracting fractions, pupils add or subtract both the numerator and the denominator (e.g., 1/2 + 1/4 = 2/4).	Use maths manipulatives (like fraction circles or Cuisenaire rods) to physically demonstrate that the ‘whole’ must be the same size, visually establishing the need for a common denominator.
Algebra KS2	Students struggle to understand that a letter represents a variable number, not a specific object (e.g., in a + a + a = 3a, a is not apples).	Use a ‘Function Machine’ diagram or create simple ‘What’s the Rule?’ input/output tables to show how a variable changes based on the rule applied. This reinforces the concept of a rule or relationship.
Ratio KS2 & Proportion	Students fail to maintain the multiplicative relationship when scaling up or down.	Use double number lines or concrete examples (like recipe scaling) to show the ‘paired’ values and ensure the same factor is applied to both sides of the ratio.
KS2 Area & Perimeter	Students confuse the two concepts, often calculating the area when asked for the perimeter, or vice versa.	Always use coloured tape or string to physically outline the perimeter (the distance around) and squared paper to shade the area (the space inside). Constant emphasis on the correct units (cm vs cm2) helps cement the difference.

Once you’ve identified the topics and areas your pupils need to revisit (whether for SATs preparation or not), we’ve got several Year 6 maths worksheets available for free download organised by topic. For schools following White Rose maths year 6, we also have White Rose aligned resources.

While topic-focused intervention may be beneficial, most primary schools we talk to tell us that it’s Year 6 maths questions involving reasoning and problem solving skills that children tend to struggle most with. You’ll find several examples of maths word problems and multi-step problems on our blog, as well as Year 6 maths reasoning questions and strategies on answering SATs questions, providing pupils with all-important SATs practice.

100% of our Year 6 Third Space Learners met the expected standard in their maths SATs. It helped them consolidate learning and addressed misconceptions. The sessions help those children who are unsure and need to go back over concepts from earlier year groups.
Barbara Yeo, Deputy Headteacher at King’s Cliffe Endowed Primary School

SATs and other resources for Year 6

In addition to our AI tutoring, we offer other free resources and revision packs for Year 6 and upper KS2 maths to help you support your class this year.

SATs practice test

If you’re clear that what your students need are ‘real’ Year 6 SATs practice papers, then we have 6 free SATs practice tests to give away – two sets, each of which have 2 reasoning and an arithmetic paper just like the real thing.

SATs maths papers

Find out about the pedagogy behind our maths SATs papers and why they’re so popular. You’ll also find links to other KS2 SATs papers including our collection of topic based SATs questions and several past SATs papers.

Year 6 SATs revision

If all that wasn’t enough, the best SATs revision resources we haven’t mentioned above plus several other SATs practice papers are available to you from our regularly updated SATs revision article. 

More SATs papers

Finally this is where you’ll find links to all the government’s practice SATs papers and mark schemes: National Curriculum Assessments Practice Materials. There are both free SATs papers and paid for ones for maths, English (reading and SPaG), all with answers and mark schemes.

More maths tests and quizzes

As well as this Year 6 maths test and other Year 6 maths resources, if you are looking for secondary resources, you can also use our extensive secondary resource library where you’ll find other maths tests more focused towards KS3 teaching.

Year 6 maths FAQs