English – Missie Bee

Teaching sentences using diagrams

After trying multiple forms of writing assessment – other people’s tick grids, our own, comparative judgement, just.. nothing… – we have circled back round to creating our own assessment grids this year. Each year group has a set of 2-4 ‘key criteria’ which the children must achieve in order to be assessed within that year group (perhaps another blog on that coming soon).

As you can probably imagine, the majority of children have been held back by their sentence-writing skills. After some training with Hampshire Local Authority’s English Team (@HIASEnglish), I made a resource in which sentence types were represented through diagrams. I’m planning on going right back to basics with my Year 5/6s, so hopefully this will help!

You can access this resource yourself below:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vu3gK1DuNCEruoncYN3eBpIKr-HIhQ4U?usp=drive_link

2023 KS2 SATs English papers analysis

Over the past couple of years, I’ve written some blog posts which have been published on other sites. I’m quite proud of these and would like to keep them all in one place so I can find them again, hence my replicating them here on my blog. I haven’t copied and pasted the entire article as it does belong to the original site, despite being written by me, so please do continue to read it there if you find it of interest!

This one was written for Learning by Questions in May 2023.

Well, hasn’t this year’s reading paper caused quite the stir? So much so that this BBC article was written days after children sat the test and the papers were released earlier than they ever have been “due to public interest in the tests”. I think a hotspot of Texan bats is going to go down in the SATs hall of fame, alongside the bewilderingly milling warthogs of 2016…

Predictions vs the real thing

Firstly, let’s have a look to see how our predictions for this paper earlier this year held up…

Prediction: The majority of the questions in the reading papers have always been retrieval (2b) and inference (2d) – this was still the case in 2022 and so it seems sensible to expect it to be the same in 2023 as well.

As you can see below, this indeed continues to hold true. In fact, this year’s test contained the highest proportion of inference questions that we’ve ever seen – nearly half the paper!

The amount of vocabulary-focused questions (content domain 2a) was back up to levels similar to those seen in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Like last year, there were no questions based on authorial choice (2g) or comparisons (2h). Prediction questions (2e) also had no representation this year, just like years 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Prediction: A poetry extract hasn’t appeared since 2018, so it may be sensible to assume that a poem might be included in the 2023 reading papers.

I know, I know – I’m sorry! SURELY poetry has to appear next year, right?

Wordiest ever Reading SATs paper

Since the new style SATs began in 2016, in this year’s reading paper (I’m using ‘wordy’ here to mean the amount of words!):

Extract 1 was the second wordiest extract 1 ever (closely beaten by 2019’s Extract 1)
Extract 2 was the wordiest extract 2 ever
Extract 2 was the wordiest non-fiction extract ever
Extract 2 was the second wordiest extract ever
Extract 3 was one of the least wordy extract 3s (last year’s was less wordy)
The entire paper was the second wordiest paper ever (closely beaten by 2019’s paper)

Other points to note:

Continue reading this blog here.

Last-minute tips for KS2 writing moderation

Over the past few years, I’ve written some blog posts which have been published on other sites. I’m quite proud of these and would like to keep them all in one place so I can find them again, hence my replicating them here on my blog. I haven’t copied and pasted the entire article as it does belong to the original site, despite being written by me, so please do continue to read it there if you find it of interest!

This one was written for Learning by Questions in April 2023.

As if this time of year isn’t the busiest for Year 6 teachers as it is (transition, production, SRE…), the assessment season is also upon us! Once SATs is out of the way, KS2 writing moderation looms and the panic of ‘Have I even done enough writing this year?!’ sets in.

Some schools may be continuing their writing lessons as normal; some may have reduced them to make way for SATs revision; some may have paused them completely until SATs are over. Whatever your approach is, once SATs week is complete, there are two teaching weeks left until the KS2 writing moderation window begins.

Take note of these important dates from the Key stage 2 assessment and reporting arrangements for 2023:

By now, the majority of the writing work is done, but here’s some last-minute advice for the run up to (potential) moderation!

Moderation-appropriate writing lessons

‘Independent writing’ is the crux of Year 6 English lessons because a piece of writing must be considered independent in order for it to be moderated. Depending on the scheme or strategies your school employs for teaching writing, the children may be used to much more scaffolded or supported lessons prior to Year 6.

Here are a few things your final writing lessons should include in order to produce any final pieces of independent writing you may need.

Continue to read this blog here.

Creating a reading culture

This one was written for Learning by Questions in September 2022.

“If you are a literate child who reads for pleasure, then this has more of an impact on your future life chances than any other factor. Encouraging reading for pleasure is a social justice issue.” – CLPE’s Reading for Pleasure research, January 2021.

It is vital that we instil a love for reading within our children. Reading for fun has so many benefits:

The benefits of reading for pleasure

It expands vocabulary. The more children read, the more words they encounter; the more words they encounter, the more words will enter their vocabulary!
It develops empathy. Some children will only experience different types of people, families, cultures and experiences through reading about them in books.
It improves imagination: many children often struggle with creativity when left to their own devices – whether that’s in writing, art or even playing a game outside. The more exposure children have to different plots, settings, characters and worlds, the more varied the ideas they have to inspire them when having to think imaginatively.
It increases general knowledge. Perhaps more commonly from non-fiction, but where else better to learn something than from a book you’re enjoying reading?!
It contributes towards accelerated academic progress – read more here and here. Reading more is linked to improved maths, text comprehension, grammar, spelling and writing in general.

A key part to developing a love for reading in the classroom is to ensure access to good quality children’s fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, but also a range of graphic novels, audiobooks, and digital texts; children should be aware that reading doesn’t always have to be from a book.

9 ways to encourage reading for pleasure

As well as providing a rich and varied diet of texts, there are many other ways we can keep our pupils engaged and motivated with reading for fun.

1. Reading for pleasure displays

A display is a great way of showing the importance you place on reading in your classroom. For the last few years, I have developed a ‘connections’ board, see here, where children identify any links between all the different books we’ve read in class (both during English lessons and class story time). This is a constantly evolving display as we replace and add books throughout the year – now the children love to call out ‘connection!’ during any reading of a text!

Reluctant readers often don’t understand the ‘point’ in reading – across the past few years, many different authors have given their opinions on ‘Why should I read?’ and these could be displayed around the classroom (example here but there have been many more updated versions).

A book recommendation display works really well, such as this example from Year 6 teacher, Cassie Hayward-Tapp @CassHT.

Another popular display for book recommendations is a ‘Bookflix’ one, inspired by the Netflix homepage [there are SO many examples of this on Google!]

A different kind of reading display is this from Year 6 teacher Emily Weston, @primaryteachew.

Each child responds to a different question weekly, but answering based on their own reading book. The questions created by @CassHT can be found here.

In order to model how we as adults also read for pleasure, you could also share which book you are currently reading on your classroom door, or somewhere the children regularly see it (and don’t forget to update it!)

Continue reading this blog here.

‘The Viewer’ – unit plan and resources for UKS2

If you use these resources and find them useful and would like to buy me a coffee in return, I’d really appreciate it ☕️

The Viewer is a fantastic picture book aimed at Upper Key Stage 2.

The story is short enough to read in 10 minutes, but has always, in my experience, gripped the children’s attention and produced some brilliant pieces of writing.

Use the six-week unit plan and accompanying teaching pack to help your pupils emulate the story of The Viewer to write their own narrative, by imitating the grammatical techniques used and analysing how the story has been constructed, right down to sentence level.

Download the planning and resources here (originally created for Teachwire (or Teach Primary) in 2022).

Make relative clauses interactive

This one was written for Teachwire (or Teach Primary) in January 2023.

You say ‘Year 5’, and teachers across the country hear ‘relative clauses’.

Thanks to the National Curriculum, they’re a common feature in many writing lessons and grammar tests as soon as children hit UKS2.

So, when it comes to teaching, we need to make sure the concept really sticks.

This lesson focuses on embedded relative clauses: how to turn a simple sentence (or single independent clause) into a complex sentence by adding more information to the noun.

The physical aspect of the task helps children to quite literally see the difference between the two sentences.

Simple sentences

Start by thinking of seven or eight simple sentences to which children could add a relative clause in the middle.

These could be something abstract but, ideally, some would be related to the book you’re studying in English (e.g. ‘The boys at Camp Green Lake have to dig a hole every day.’) or a topic you’re teaching in another curriculum area (e.g. ‘Jupiter is the largest planet.’).

Doing this allows children to consolidate and apply their learning from other subjects.

Folding paper

Take some A4 paper in landscape orientation (this bit is fiddly so perhaps prepare these in advance!).

Mark about 6cm along from each side (left and right) and fold the sides underneath (mountain fold) so you have a rough square shape.

Continue reading this blog here.

Wonderscape: a blog tour review

Walker are publishing a brand new middle-grade from author Jennifer Bell in June this year.

Wonderscape is all about three children who unwittingly stumble upon an in-reality-game (think virtual escape rooms!) called The Wonderscape. They travel through various realms and must solves riddles, puzzles and challenges in order to move on to the next. However, the game isn’t as straightforward as it seems… there is something more mysterious going on in the background – something that the children make it their mission to solve!

Wonderscape was an intriguing read, and always had something to keep you guessing. I especially loved the idea of the Wondercloaks: cloaks worn around the children during the game that adapted depending on their mood, emotions and thoughts. The text put a lot of focus on dialogue and action, as opposed to slightly heavier descriptive sections that may be off-putting to readers with a weaker reading stamina; however, this did not detract from it being a high-quality text with a wide range of – as we might call it in the classroom – ‘ambitious’ vocabulary for the children to ‘magpie’!

This is a fast-paced adventure story, perfect for KS2 children (particularly Years 5-6). The tasks in the Wonderscape are all set up by a diverse range of historical heroes, including Sir Isaac Newton (the extraordinary scientist who discovered gravity), Tomoe Gozen (an admired twelfth century samurai warrior), Mary Shelley (the celebrated author of Frankenstein) and Wangari Maathai (an inspirational environmental activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner). These, and the others included in the book, could very well be figures you encounter in your curriculum, making it a great link to a variety of school topics.

Jennifer Bell wrote this book partly because of her love for history and all the incredible people that inspire her, but also for “the heroes of tomorrow” – in other words children just like those reading her books, because she wants her readers to know that they can be anything they want, they possess the power to be heroes too.

To celebrate this message, Walker Books are setting up a blog tour that celebrates heroes of our past and present – here are mine!

Look out for more posts coming up on the blog tour this week!

How to use The Writing Revolution in a primary classroom

This one was written for Teach Primary in April 2019.

Teaching writing in Y6, I have learned many things about children: they have brilliant imaginations; they are capable of understanding complex concepts; once they learn about that semi-colon, they love using it just about anywhere; and many of them have no idea what a sentence is.

This can present itself in many forms, from the struggling writer who has no understanding of where to use a full stop, to the more competent writer who, despite writing proficiently (for the most part) at length, still unknowingly uses fragments and run-on sentences.

There are many things we could blame for this – for starters, the curriculum, which is so rammed with content that it puts the pressure on teachers to just steamroller through, no matter how hard the party line of “they must not move on to new learning until they’ve mastered the old stuff” is drilled into us.

We’ve all tried desperately to teach that child, who still doesn’t understand nouns, about the subjunctive (“If I WERE, if I WERE!”).

We could blame Ofsted (it’s always easy to blame Ofsted) for apparently (according to some school leaders) creating a certain expectation of the ever-increasing quantity of writing that should be in children’s books through their primary school years (just to be clear, I’ve never seen evidence of this apparent expectation in any sort of official documentation).

But rather than working out who to blame, it’s far more productive – and satisfying – to find a solution.

I just want my class to stop writing how they speak! Look no further than The Writing Revolution (TWR) by Judith C Hochman and Natalie Wexler (Josey-Bass, £24.99), a book which “provides a clear method of instruction that you can use no matter what subject or grade level you teach… by focusing on specific techniques that match their [the children’s] needs” (as per the book’s blurb).

Despite being published in the US and being seemingly more applicable to secondary school teachers, TWR’s explicit method of teaching has proved invaluable in my primary school English lessons.

Each activity in the book is pitched for both “Level 1” (primary age equivalent) and “Level 2” (secondary age equivalent) students.

While the first half of the text is relevant for the primary phase, the first chapter in particular has now become the basis of all my writing lessons – Sentences: The Basic Building Blocks of Writing.

‘What Makes a Sentence a Sentence’ (p26 in TWR)? As many of you will know from experience, in children’s English books, quantity is often valued over quality.

TWR looks to challenge this by focusing regularly on sentence work. It advocates practising the skills embedded in content, so any examples I use in English lessons will be based around a topic in another area of the curriculum.

In order to write proficiently, children must understand the concept of a sentence. To achieve this, they are introduced to fragments – a group of words which are not a grammatically correct sentence. TWR suggests the following activities, which have now, on rotation, become my English ‘starters’ every day:

1 | Identifying fragments orally

Children can often instinctively hear fragments: for example, “built a wooden horse”.

When asked what’s missing, they will be able to tell you that we don’t know who built a wooden horse (the Greeks: our topic is the Trojan horse – note that every activity benefits from being embedded in content with which the children are familiar).

With Y6, we can tell them that the subject of the sentence is missing – here, we only have the verb and the object. They can then verbally add to the fragment to make it a grammatically complete sentence.

Continue reading this post here.

Mrs D, Mrs I, Mrs FFI…

Spelling. My teaching nemesis. I’ll admit, I’m not a fan of teaching it – probably because I haven’t found anything that works.

However, one thing that does seem to stick (for at least a few words!) are silly mnemonics or quirky rhymes that help the children remember. Thanks to my mum, when writing the word rhythm, I always recall an odd mnemonic she told me when I was younger. I even remember exactly when she told me – we were in the car, on the way to school, and I told her about this one word I could never remember how to spell. Thinking of this recently prompted the following tweet:

So many people replied (thank you everyone!), so I have collated them here in case they are useful to anyone else. If anyone has any more, particularly for those pesky words on the Year 5/6 (or Year 3/4) word list, then please tweet me so I can add them on!

Accommodation: 2 double rooms (@4321jc) / Cosy Cottage, Massive Mansion (me!)

Accident: if you have a car accident, it may dent your car (@mrsbteachy)

Affect/effect: (@missnolan91)

Believe: don’t believe the lie(@lissylawhuds)

Could/should/would: O U Little Devil (@emily489)

Dessert: double S because with dessert, you always want seconds (@misshuby23)

Diarrhoea: Done In A Rush Right Here Or Else Accident (@chrisjames_78)

Friend: I am your friend until the end(@emily489)

Here/hear: (@missnolan91)

Incubated: a man in Cuba called Ted (@charlotteraby)

Island: an island IS LAND surrounded by water (@rachelorr)

Mention: MEN, put your TIe ON (@mrsbteachy)

Necessary: Never Eat Cake Eat Salmon Sandwiches And Raspberry Yoghurt (@lifeatthenest) / 1 coffee 2 sugars (@sarahdrayton1) / 1 collar 2 sleeves (me!)

Off: (@missnolan91)

Onomatopoeia: as it’s phonetic until the P, you can then use Onomatopoeia Ends In A (@kateowbridge)

Peace/piece: (@missnolan91)

People: People Eat Oranges, People Like Eggs (@creativecards_) / Put Eggs On Plate, Let’s Eat (@slbsamantha)

Possession: it possesses a lot of Ss! (@siancumming1)

Queue: it’s a queue of ue ue (@simbo442)

Rhythm: Rhythm Helps Your Two Hope Move (@simbo442) / Run Home, Your Teacher Has Measles (@jeniwren87)

Said: Small Ants In Danger (@peinkoffer) / Sausages Are Incredibly Delicious (@nohandsup)

Separate: I want to separate myself from a rat! (@jam272)

Speech: (@missnolan91)

There/their: (@missnolan91 and @thinkpix_suze)

Too/to: (@thinkpix_suze)

Researching the teaching of reading

This is my current view:

As you may know, I’m really interested in the teaching of reading and how to improve it. Our school teach reading through a carousel method, but I’ve managed to trial a few different ways over the few years I’ve been teaching. I still haven’t found anything that I’ve thought has really worked (although some ways are clearly better than others), so I’ve taken it upon myself to do some research (that word makes me all hot and sweaty just typing it. I haven’t done any proper research since my uni days!).