KS2 English

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English teaching aims to promote a love of reading through and varied selection of texts from a wide range of genres. The reading is selected to be increasingly challenging and develop independent reading skills. To support this, students are taught contexts to texts so they consider the influences of the era, and the writer’s intention. Children are encouraged to establish a love of writing creatively with technical accuracy, fluency and flair. Learners consolidate and build upon their knowledge and understanding of grammatical terminology, and apply this within their writing.

In addition to this, pupils are given opportunities to express themselves through spoken language, and develop confidence in presenting well planned and structured work. Pupils are provided with the opportunity to debate a range of topics, building on social skills and broadening their verbal communication abilities. This lays the foundation for the next phase in their education, establishing and embedding key techniques necessary for the study of GCSE.

Please click here to view the KS2 English handbook.

To view our KS2 English Learning Journey please click here.

Please click here to see the Statutory spellings for Years 3-6 to enable you to practise at home.

Assessment

Reading

In KS2, children are assessed in a variety of ways. Throughout each book studied, in core English lessons, there are lessons which focus on reading comprehension skills. Children also have weekly guided reading lessons. Work produced in these core lessons and guided reading lessons help to inform teacher assessed reading grades. Alongside this, children sit termly summative assessments. In Year 5, the children are given NTS tests, and in Year 6, previous SATs papers are used. Teachers use the scores from these, alongside work in their core English and guided reading lessons, to give a reading grade.

Writing

Children are given separate grades for writing. This is based upon a variety of pieces of writing across each term. Throughout each term, children complete many pieces writing of different types, supported by their class teacher using the IPEELL structure. They also complete a ‘cold write’ each term, which is done completely independently. In Year 6, staff then use the end of KS2 teacher assessment framework for writing to mark work and give teacher assessed grades. In Year 5, the teacher assessment framework has been amended to fit the Year 5 expectations, and this is used to mark work and inform teacher assessed grades.