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Upper Key Stage 2

Curriculum Evening

SPAG

Stands for Spelling,

Punctuation and Grammar

Importance of SPAG The SPAG element of the curriculum was

brought in a couple of years ago by the

government as a way of testing Year 6

on their understanding of grammatical

knowledge.

‘The Government wants all children to leave

primary school with a sound grasp of essential

English skills,’ says a Department for Education

(DfE) spokesperson. ‘The test will put an

additional focus on writing skills and encourage

good teaching.

What are they expected to know?

You should have a

copy of the SPAG

overview.

All the content on

these documents is

what your children

should know.

There is a lot!

However over

Years 5 and 6 we

cover it in class

and children have

lots of practice to

learn and apply to

lots of areas.

Using and applying

As well as being able to answer the

questions in the SPAG test, children

need to be able to use and apply

this knowledge within their reading

and writing.

This is also an important life skill

that will stand them in good stead

for later on in life.

Timings of the tests.

Paper 1

• The test looks at challenging all children .

There are 50 questions in Paper 1

Each worth set marks

It is a 45 minute test and therefore children

need to be aware of the time frames and answer

the questions both accurately and quickly

We do practice questions and tests in school and

the children are well prepared

Timings of the tests.

Paper 2

• Is a spelling test.

• Children are tested on 20 spellings through a

dictation exercise these will be a selection of

unrelated words and sentences.

• For example

• The word is unconscious

• The boy fell into an unconscious state when he came

off his bike.

• The word is unconscious

Examples

Children should be able to demonstrate

that they have a solid understanding of

grammar and when to use it

appropriately in their writing. They

should be able to name key

grammatical features using the correct

name. See the handout in the pack.

Spelling lists The new interim

assessment

document for 2016

states that in

order to meet

national standard

children must be

able to read and

spell all of these

words.

If they can’t spell

these - they will

not meet National

Standard.

Spelling…

• Weekly spellings –

important to

support your child.

Be aware of what

rule they are

learning so you can

point out the

spelling patterns

when you hear them

read.

Learning the rule

for spellings allows

children to then

apply to a range of

words and

therefore give

them more skills

for later life.

Reading

Orleans Primary – read every night for 10-15

minutes and record in diaries.

Be asked questions about the text

(see diaries and handout)

Reading Model

Example questions

Just because they are fluent word

readers does not mean they are

‘good’ comprehenders – this is what

the new test covers.

We must use the new style of

questioning to infer meaning.

See question stems

Comprehension questions

Comprehension questions

Comprehension questions

Reading paper

Given 1 hour

To read the three texts – one

poetry, one fiction, one non-fiction

and answer questions

Last year there was no poetry, but

that doesn’t mean it won’t appear

this year.

Reading

It is still vitally important for your

child to read every night as although

they may be able to read all of the

words on the page, there may be some

gaps in their understanding.

Dictionaries and thesauruses are a

useful tool in aiding children’s

understanding of words.

Although children can be competent

readers in KS2, it is good for children to

have stories to read to them to get ideas

for their writing and also to hear how to

adopt a story telling voice.

Reading

The quality of the texts is also vital.

Although children enjoy reading books such as

Diary of a Wimpy kid, Dork Diaries etc. The

content such as War horse, Northern lights

are much more valuable for children to read

and understand as they can magpie high

quality writing techniques as well as varied

vocabulary

Reading

Although children can be competent

readers in KS2, it is still important

for children to have stories that are

above their reading level, read to them

to get ideas for their writing and also

to hear how to adopt a story telling

voice. This also assists comprehension.

It could also be an audio book.

Reading Diaries

They should be reading every day for

10- 15 minutes and then recording

this in their reading diaries in the

notes section.

They should come in every day.

Children can write in their own

diaries but an adult needs to sign it.

Ensure your child reads a variety of

genres, use our library and the local

library.

In the reading diaries there is a grid

for them to record what genres

they have read

Government expectations

Year 5 Year 5

Writing

It is essential that teaching develops pupils’

competence in transcription (spelling and handwriting)

and composition (articulating ideas and structuring

them in speech and writing). . In addition, pupils

should be taught how to plan, revise and evaluate

their writing. These aspects of writing have been

incorporated into the programmes of study for

composition.

All year groups cover the following

areas:

Narrative- which includes play-scripts, myths and

legends, stories from other cultures, traditional

stories and stories with flashbacks.

Non Fiction- which includes instructions,

explanations, reports, diaries, recounts and

persuasive texts.

Poetry

In order to be a ‘good’ writer they have to be

able to write in all these genres and use the correct

features.

PREWRITE PLAN DRAFT WRITE REVISE EDIT WRITE INCLUDING EDITING PUBLISH

How do we start?

We start with a stimulus, and this

might be:

• A book (fiction or non-fiction)

• Poem

• An clip from a film or book

• A photograph or painting

• A piece of music or an object

Images for writing

Children were given this picture

and the following story opener

and asked to continue the story

on.

The scuttling noise had disturbed

Michael, and he’d shot bolt

upright in bed. After taking a

deep breath, he flung himself

onto the smooth wooden boards

of his bedroom floor and took a

peek…

Reading linking to writing

• Children cannot write a certain text type

without having experienced it first. Therefore,

writing is always preceded by:

• Reading a text that will support their writing.

• Looking at ‘good models’ of the text

• Using this as a tool to teach reading

comprehension.

• Collecting helpful words or phrases.

• Magpie ideas from others and discussions.

Writing

•Before children are expected to write a piece they

will go through a process.

•Modelled writing, shared writing, paired writing,

group writing.

•By this point the children are very much prepared

to produce a piece of writing of a high level.

•They will have learnt new words and phrases,

worked on punctuation and sentence structure,

interlinked SPAG and studied ‘good’ examples of

texts.

The whole process is covered over

several weeks.

It will be documented in various

forms in their books and children will

be confident in what they will be

doing!

We encourage VCOP in all

writing!

Display photo

Ask your child about VCOP!

V- VOCABULARY or adjectives!

C- CONNECTIVES/CONJUNCTIONS – once, after, besides, however…

O- OPENERS – connectives, -ly words, -ing words

P- PUNCTUATION

This is working towards the standard in Year 6.

You will notice that it is actually quite good.

Therefore in order for your child to meet national standard

they need to produce work consistently to this standard.

Government expectations

How to help your child to write

Every time they write something, get them to go back and re

read it aloud.

- Firstly checking full stops and capitals are correctly demarcated.

- No words have been omitted

- Nouns have adjectives to describe them where necessary

- They have varied conjunctions (not just ‘and’, ‘then’)

- Sophisticated punctuation is used

This is not only a skill they need at school but also in the real

world in future jobs.

How to help your child to write

Encourage your child to read a variety of texts –

fiction, information books, comics, newspapers,

magazines, etc – to broaden their vocabulary.

Use the questions in their reading journals to illicit

information.

Ensure your house is literature heavy and they see

you reading and writing.

Ways to motivate them

Get them to write their own travel blogs or

recommendations.

Get them to write up match reports of their favourite

sporting events.

Biographies of famous people.

A daily diary for their future self

Penpal letters or letters to grandparents

Make up a bedtime story for a younger sibling/cousin

SATs are fast approaching and I would like to point you towards

certain sites that can be used to help your children practice:

http://sats.highamstjohns.com/PastPapers.html A site

that splits SATs questions into different areas.

http://satspapers.org/mathsKS2SATS.htm All previous

SATs papers to print and use.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/ Lots of help.

http://resources.woodlands-

junior.kent.sch.uk/revision/ A great site for all school

topics.

http://sats.highamstjohns.com/ Fun ideas

Hope these will help.

http://www.ictgames.com/index.html

lots of interactive games to play

Try to keep it fun!

If it isn’t working, abandon it

and try again another time!