Home / Free papers / Reading / 2019

2019 KS2 SATs reading papers

Year 6 · with the official mark scheme


The reading SATs papers that Year 6 children in England sat on Tuesday 14 May 2019, at the end of Key Stage 2. One reading booklet and one answer booklet, sat together. 50 marks in all. That year, 28 marks reached the expected standard. They open on GOV.UK, with the mark scheme.

Why these open on GOV.UK

The reading booklets contain material we are not allowed to host, so these link to the official copy. Same file, one click further.

2019 reading at a glance

  • Sat on Tuesday 14 May 2019
  • Marks for the expected standard 28 out of 50 (a scaled score of 100)
  • Marks for the higher standard 41 out of 50 (a scaled score of 110)
  • Across England 73% of pupils reached the expected standard, and 27% the higher standard.

What your child's mark means

Add up the marks with the mark scheme, then find the total on this bar. These are the 2019 boundaries; other years are slightly different.

For the exact scaled score for every mark, see the 2019 conversion table. Fewer than 3 marks gets no scaled score.

How 2019 compares with other years

The marks needed for the expected standard change every year, because some papers turn out a little harder than others. For reading, it has ranged from 21 marks (2016) to 29 marks (2022).

In 2019, 28 marks were needed for the expected standard, the same as in 2018. That makes it one of the papers that needed more marks than usual, which suggests children found it a little easier. 73% of pupils reached the expected standard, compared with 75% in 2018.

Marks needed for the expected standard, out of 50

Average, 26 marks. Columns start at 16 marks so the differences show. There were no tests in 2020 or 2021.

What was different in 2019

The last SATs before the pandemic. From this year, reading and maths results came from the tests alone, with no separate teacher assessment in those subjects.

What this paper set is

One reading booklet and one answer booklet, sat together. 50 marks.

A raw mark on its own does not mean very much. It is converted to a scaled score between 80 and 120, where 100 is the expected standard, and the conversion changes every year because the papers differ slightly in difficulty. How KS2 SATs work explains the whole thing, including where to find that year's conversion table.

Dates and marks from the Standards and Testing Agency's 2019 conversion table and 2019 assessment arrangements. National figures from the Department for Education.

Contains material developed by the Standards and Testing Agency for 2019 national curriculum assessments and licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0.