Key Stage 2 · Year 6 · ages 10 or 11
Year 6 maths: what your child learns
Year 6 brings long division and long multiplication, fractions with different denominators, ratio, percentages and a first look at algebra. Children also work with numbers up to 10,000,000, find the area of triangles and the volume of cuboids, and use pie charts and the mean. The Key Stage 2 maths tests, an arithmetic paper and two reasoning papers, take place in May.
Guides for parents
Year 6 maths
Introduction to algebra
What algebra looks like in Year 6: simple formulae, number sequences, missing number problems written with letters, and pairs of numbers that fit an equation.
Year 6 maths
Order of operations and multi-step problems
What Year 6 children learn about common factors, common multiples, prime numbers, BIDMAS-style order of operations, multi-step word problems and estimating answers.
Year 6 maths
Long multiplication and division
How Year 6 children multiply by two-digit numbers, use long and short division, handle remainders and calculate mentally, with a worked example and common mistakes.
Year 6 maths
Decimals, percentages and rounding
What Year 6 children learn about turning fractions into decimals, multiplying and dividing decimals, rounding, and the link between fractions, decimals and percentages.
Year 6 maths
Simplifying and calculating with fractions
A parent’s guide to Year 6 fractions: simplifying, comparing and ordering, adding and subtracting mixed numbers, multiplying and dividing fractions, with an example.
Year 6 maths
Four-quadrant coordinates, translation, reflection
How Year 6 children use coordinates in all four quadrants, translate shapes and reflect them in the axes, with a worked example, common mistakes and ideas for home.
Year 6 maths
Angles, circles and nets
What Year 6 children learn about drawing shapes accurately, nets of 3-D shapes, circle vocabulary and finding missing angles in triangles, quadrilaterals and polygons.
Year 6 maths
Units, area and volume
A parent’s guide to Year 6 measurement: converting units with decimals, miles and kilometres, area of triangles and parallelograms, and the volume of cubes and cuboids.
Year 6 maths
Numbers to 10,000,000 and negatives
What Year 6 children learn about numbers up to ten million, rounding to any degree of accuracy and negative numbers, with a worked example and ideas for home.
Year 6 maths
Ratio, percentages and scale factors
How Year 6 children solve ratio problems, find percentages of amounts, use scale factors for similar shapes and share unequally, with an example and common mistakes.
Year 6 maths
Pie charts, line graphs and the mean
How Year 6 children read and draw pie charts and line graphs and calculate the mean, with a worked example, common mistakes and simple ideas to try at home.
Everything in the Year 6 maths curriculum
The National Curriculum topics for Year 6, in the order the National Curriculum lists them.