To share the expectations for SPaG laid out in the National Curriculum for English To provide you with a greater understanding of how English is taught in school and to see the progression of spelling, punctuation and grammar across the phases To have a go at questions from SPaG tests given to children at the end of KS1 and 2 To give suggestions on how to help your children at home
Stronger emphasis on vocabulary development, grammar, punctuation and spelling (for example, the use of commas and apostrophes is now taught in KS1) A greater number of specific grammatical structures and terms for the pupils to understand and use Handwriting is expected to be fluent, legible and speedy
SPaG testing at KS1 is optional. We choose to do this as it helps to assess the children and monitor progress. Writing is a national statutory assessment and the children are marked according to whether they are meeting the expected requirements for the end of Year 2.
Examples from Key Stage 1 SPaG tests.
Basic skills sessions are taught in every year group with a focus on spellings which begins as phonics in EYFS and moves on to learning about spelling rules and patterns as the children progress. These sessions are differentiated across the year group and children are given sounds and/or words to learn each week. Children in KS2 revise their weekly spellings in the daily independent SaCaWaC activity
Grammar is taught discretely, often as part of the English lesson, and then reinforced during reading and writing activities Weekly spellings and grammar exercises form part of the children s regular homework
Year 3 To express time, place and cause using conjunctions (e.g. when, before, after, while, so, because), adverbs or prepositions (e.g. before, after, during, in, because of) To introduce paragraphs as a way to group related material To use headings and subheadings to aid presentation To use the present perfect form of verbs instead of the simple past
Year 3 Vocabulary: To express time, place and cause using conjunctions (e.g. when, before, after, while, so, because), adverbs or prepositions adverb, (e.g. before, preposition, after, during, conjunction, in, because of) word family, prefix, clause, subordinate clause, direct speech, consonant, letter, vowel, inverted commas To introduce paragraphs as a way to group related material To use headings and subheadings to aid presentation To use the present perfect form of verbs instead of the simple past
To use noun phrases expanded by the addition of modifying adjectives, nouns and preposition phrases To use fronted adverbials To use paragraphs to organise ideas around a theme To use the appropriate choice of the pronoun or noun within and across sentences to aid cohesion and avoid repetition. To use inverted commas and other punctuation to indicate direct speech. To use apostrophes to mark singular and plural possession. To use commas after fronted adverbials.
To use noun phrases expanded by the addition of modifying adjectives, nouns and preposition phrases To use fronted adverbials Vocabulary: determiner, pronoun, possessive pronoun, adverbial To use paragraphs to organise ideas around a theme To use the appropriate choice of the pronoun or noun within and across sentences to aid cohesion and avoid repetition. To use inverted commas and other punctuation to indicate direct speech. To use apostrophes to mark singular and plural possession. To use commas after fronted adverbials.
To use relative clauses beginning with, who, which, where, when, whose, that or an omitted relative pronoun To indicate degrees of possibility using adverbs or modal verbs To use devices to build cohesion within a paragraph To link ideas across paragraphs using adverbials of time, place and number or tense choices To use brackets, dashes or commas to indicate parenthesis To use commas to avoid ambiguity and to clarify meaning
To use relative clauses beginning with, who, which, where, when, whose, that or an omitted relative pronoun Vocabulary To indicate degrees of possibility using adverbs or modal verbs modal verb, relative pronoun, relative clause, parenthesis, bracket, dash, cohesion, ambiguity To use devices to build cohesion within a paragraph To link ideas across paragraphs using adverbials of time, place and number or tense choices To use brackets, dashes or commas to indicate parenthesis To use commas to avoid ambiguity and to clarify meaning
To use bullet points to list information. To use hyphens to avoid ambiguity. To use the passive to affect the presentation of information within a sentence To know the difference between structures typical of informal speech and structures appropriate for formal speech and writing or the use of subjunctive forms To link ideas across paragraphs using a wider range of cohesive devices: repetition of a word or phrase, grammatical connections and ellipsis To use layout devices headings, subheadings, colons, bullets, tables To use the semi-colon, colon and dash to mark the boundary between independent clauses To use the colon to introduce a list and use of semi-colons within lists
To use bullet points to list information. To use hyphens to avoid ambiguity. To use the passive to affect the presentation of information within a sentence Vocabulary To know the difference between structures typical of informal speech and structures appropriate subject, for formal object, speech active, and writing passive, or the use of subjunctive forms synonym, antonym, ellipsis, hyphen, colon, semi-colon, bullet points To link ideas across paragraphs using a wider range of cohesive devices: repetition of a word or phrase, grammatical connections and ellipsis To use layout devices headings, subheadings, colons, bullets, tables To use the semi-colon, colon and dash to mark the boundary between independent clauses To use the colon to introduce a list and use of semi-colons within lists
Handout lots of games and ideas for spelling Lots of information on the website (including links to the National Curriculum for the spelling lists etc) Using punctuation when reading eg emphasising the pause with a comma and naming the punctuation
Encouraging writing: cards, thank you letters, lists. Trying spellings on the computer with spellcheck Not being afraid to have a go - S=P+A+C+E Talk, talk, talk FUN