Mock SATs at Home: How to Run One That Actually Helps (Without Tears)

A well-run mock SATs at home is worth a fortnight of sit-down revision. A badly-run one is worth less than nothing — it teaches the child that SATs make them feel terrible. Same paper. Completely different result.

Here's how to make sure you're running the first kind.

The point of a home mock

Before anything else, get clear on what a home mock is for. It's not for diagnosing how good your child is — the school has already done that. It's for three specific things:

• Format familiarity — knowing what a paper feels like, how the booklet is laid out, how much time each section takes
• Endurance — sitting in silence for 30 to 60 minutes with no phone, no snack, no distraction
• Self-knowledge — which question types eat time, which ones they're confident on, where they panic

Notice what's not on that list: "improving their score." That isn't what a mock is for at this stage. The score is feedback for the timing, not a verdict on the child.

One paper at a time, not a full mock day

Schools sometimes run full mock days. At home, don't. Year 6 doesn't have the stamina for four papers in a row at home, and you don't have the time to mark them properly afterwards.

Run one paper per weekend. Three weekends, three papers — arithmetic, then reading, then reasoning. By the third one, the child has the rhythm. They're not learning content. They're learning the choreography.

Setting the room

The environment matters more than the paper. A few rules:

• The kitchen table is fine. You don't need to recreate a school hall. The child knows it's a kitchen — pretending otherwise produces theatre, not focus
• One pencil, one rubber, a water bottle. No phone, no snack, no music. Removing options reduces decision fatigue
• Set the timer where they can see it. Time management is the whole point of practice — they need to learn to pace themselves
• You sit somewhere else. Reading, writing emails, anything. You're not invigilating, but you're nearby

What to do during the paper

Nothing. Genuinely nothing. Do not hint, do not look at the screen, do not interpret a question, do not check their workings. Even glancing produces pressure. The most useful thing you can do is be visibly relaxed in the next room.

If they ask for help mid-paper, the answer is always: "skip it, come back at the end if there's time." That's exactly what the invigilator would say in May.

The 24-hour pause

This is the single most important rule. Don't mark the paper that day. Don't even glance at it. Put it in a drawer until tomorrow.

A child who finishes a 60-minute paper and is immediately handed a marked version with red pen on it learns one thing: tests produce a punishment. A 24-hour pause turns it into a calmly reviewed piece of work, which is a completely different experience.

Marking together, not for them

The next day, sit down with the mark scheme. Mark it together. Two rules:

• They mark, you read out the answer. The act of recognising "I got it right" or "I see where I went wrong" is the learning — not the score at the end
• Tick the right ones first, then look at the wrong ones. Most children expect a critique. Lead with what worked

When you reach a wrong answer, the question is never "how did you not know that?" It's always "what made you choose this?" The answer reveals the thinking, and the thinking is what you can change.

The three categories of wrong answer

Sort the wrong answers into three piles:

• Silly mistakes — they knew the answer, they wrote the wrong thing. Don't drill the topic. They already know it
• Format mistakes — they answered the wrong shape, wrote a paragraph for a one-mark question, gave one inference instead of three. Worth a five-minute conversation about how the marks work
• Knowledge gaps — they genuinely didn't know the topic. Worth ten focused minutes in the next week. Not now

Most "wrong answers" are in the first two piles. The number of genuine knowledge gaps in a Year 6 child in May is usually small.

What the score actually tells you

Whatever the score, it's telling you about one paper on one Saturday morning. Don't over-read it. SATs scaling means raw marks change into scaled scores in ways that don't always feel intuitive — and there's a separate guide on that here.

Use the mock for timing, format, endurance, and a calm conversation. Use it as evidence the next time your child says "I can't do this" — because they can show you that they can.