Place Value and Ordering Numbers: Year 6

Year 6 maths worksheets on place value, comparing and ordering numbers: 36 questions in three levels (All, Most, Some) with answers. Free PDF.

7-page A4 PDF from the Tiger Shark Education question bank. All: Read, write and compare numbers up to 1,000. Most: Compare numbers, and find the value of each digit. Some: Read, write and use numbers up to 10 million. Each level is two pages of six questions, each with a squared working area, and the last page has every answer, with short working for multi-step questions. Each level is also available as its own 3-page PDF. Example questions from the Some level: What is the value of the digit 4 in 4,787,288? / Write this number in digits: four hundred and forty-three thousand, three hundred and eighty-five.

What is place value? Place value is the value of a digit depending on its position in a number. In 4,503,217, the 5 is worth 500,000. Year 6 pupils read, write, order and compare numbers up to 10,000,000 and determine the value of each digit. Place value underpins every written calculation method.

Common mistakes and tips: Children often misread large numbers by losing track of zeros (writing four million and five thousand as 4,5000). Using commas to group digits in threes and a place-value chart makes structure visible. When ordering, compare the number of digits first, then work digit by digit from the left.

This topic is part of the Year 6 National Curriculum for maths, and it regularly appears on the KS2 SATs papers. The All, Most and Some levels let you check basic fluency first and then move on to the multi-step, contextual questions found on the reasoning papers.

How teachers use these sheets: as a lesson’s independent task, as a starter to revisit a topic from earlier in the year, or as a revision pack in the weeks before the SATs. Children can mark their own work with the answer page, then explain one mistake to a partner to deepen understanding.

Reasoning and explanation: once children can answer the questions, ask them to explain their method to a partner or write a short explanation of one answer. The SATs reasoning papers include ‘explain how you know’ questions, and talking about methods deepens understanding far more than repeating calculations.

Use All for children working towards the expected standard, Most for secure Year 5 skills and Some for SATs-standard practice: three entry points to the same lesson. Suits whole-class differentiation, intervention groups, homework and SATs revision, and upper KS2 generally.

Part of a set of 42 Year 6 maths topics.