This content was created by Rob Langman. This content was uploaded by Rob Langman. This is a YouTube video titled "10 top tips to make SATs preparation fun" (created 2017-04-20) offering practical advice for primary school teachers to make SATs revision less stressful and more engaging. The excerpt is a narrated segment featuring two presenters (labelled SPEAKER A and SPEAKER B) who quote multiple teachers and school staff — including Graham Andre, Cherise Duxbury, Mr. B, Ms. B, John Brunskill and headteacher Chris Dyson — sharing tips such as taking pupils outside, using chalk and playground activities, online resources, deconstructing questions, error-spotting pair work, downtime and breakfast clubs, gamified practice (e.g. Hit the Button), light-hearted homework, and a pointer to thirdspacelearning.com for resources.
Chapters
Year three teacher and founder of Numeracy Shed Graham Andre says his number one tip for your pupils is to take them outside. The fresh air is so good for them and there's tons that you can do.
Examples include taking chalk out and using it to write questions and answers on the playground, timing how many times pupils can run round the playground and making mass word problems out of that, or working on measuring and estimating by measuring the size of the playing field. Primary school teacher Cherise Duxbury advises using online resources like Maths, Vidamins and Seesaw to record people's answers and explanations to their stats questions. And here's a tip from primary teacher and year six computing manager Mr. B teach he loves to deconstruct stats questions with his class. They break them down and then he teaches the skills and strategies needed to complete each one successfully in the weeks leading up to sats, why not give each pupil a pet project they can be getting on with or even start a whole class project? Design and art activities are a really good idea because they're something that can be put down and picked up again in the gaps between stats.
Year 6 teacher and SPAD leader Ms. B says she fills out stats papers with common errors that her pupils usually make.
She then makes the pupils work through the paper in pairs, seeing who can spot the errors first. It's a fun way to gamify things and it also creates great discussion with people saying things like missed you forgot the full stop again.
Plus, don't forget to let your pupils blow off some steam. Give them some downtime before and after SATs, maybe even outside. Let them work off some energy and let them be loud.
Reward them for their fantastic hard work and effort they've put in through all those weeks in the run up. SATS head of Year two John Brunskill says one of the things he likes to do to build fluency in arithmetic is play the classic hit the button game. It's a really good way to practice quick recall of number facts. A great way to put a positive spin on the SASS period is if you don't already run one to start a breakfast club. Giving your pupils a decent breakfast is a great way to start the day, helps ensure that they're relaxed and makes sure they're ready to learn.
So put some music on, laugh and make some food and you can set the tone for the entire day.
Let's face it, in the final two weeks before SATs assemblies aren't really going to add that much more to your pupils learning. They're just another thing for them to concentrate on and they do eat precious time out the timetable.
So just for now, suspend them and then you can make a really big deal out of having a welcome back and congratulations for all your hard work. Assembly.
Head teacher Chris Dyson says he likes to give out fun and light hearted homework tasks to his pupils to make the SATs period as enjoyable as it can be.
Often his homework as light hearted as build a den or sing a song.
If you want to download free resources or find out more about our one to one interventions, just visit thirdspacelearning.com.
