Finstall First School English Information Evening for Parents 2nd March 2017

What has changed in the English curriculum? • The revised National Curriculum for English places a much stronger emphasis on vocabulary development, grammar, punctuation and spelling • Expectations have been raised in each year group with many aspects having to be taught at least a year earlier than in the previous curriculum (for example, the use of commas and apostrophes is now taught in KS1) • Pupils are expected to recognise and use the grammatical terminology appropriate to their year group

Different Curriculum Expectations – Year 1 • Regular plural noun suffixes e.g. -s and -es • Suffixes and prefixes e.g. –ing, -ed, -er and un- • Connectives e.g. and • Capital letters, full stops, question marks and exclamation marks • Capital letters for names and for the personal pronoun I

Different Curriculum Expectations – Year 2 • Nouns using suffixes e.g. –ness, –er and by compounding e.g. whiteboard • Adjectives using suffixes e.g. –ful and -less • Adverbs by adding -ly • Subordination and coordination e.g. when, if, that, because and or, and, but • Expanded Noun Phrases e.g. the blue butterfly, plain flour, the man in the moon • Sentences with different forms e.g. statement, question, exclamative or command • Present/Past/Continuous tense • Capital letters, full stops, question marks, exclamation marks, commas and apostrophes.

Different Curriculum Expectations – Year 3 • Formation of nouns using a range of prefixes e.g. super–, anti–, auto– • Use of the forms “a” or “an” according to whether the next word begins with a vowel • Word families based on common words, showing how words are related in form and meaning e.g. solve, solution, solver, dissolve, insoluble • Expressing time, place and cause using conjunctions e.g. when, adverbs e.g. soon or prepositions e.g. before • Introduction to paragraphs, headings and sub-headings to aid presentation • Use of the present perfect form of verbs instead of the simple past e.g. He has gone out to play contrasted with He went out to play Inverted commas to punctuate direct speech

Different Curriculum Expectations – Year 4 • Plural and possessive –s • Standard English forms for verb inflections instead of local spoken forms e.g. we were instead of we was • Noun phrases expanded by the addition of modifying adjectives, nouns and preposition phrases e.g. the teacher expanded to: the strict maths teacher with curly hair • Fronted adverbials e.g. Later that day, I heard the bad news. • Use of inverted commas and other punctuation to indicate direct speech • Apostrophes to mark plural possession e.g. the girl’s name versus the girls’ name • Use of commas after fronted adverbials

Assessment • At the end of Year 6, children sit a very challenging test on English grammar, punctuation and spelling. • At the end of Year 2, children sit a similar test, which is “optional.” However, this provides useful evidence to support Teachers’ Assessments of Writing. Some examples of the types of questions your children will have to answer at the end of Year 2 are included in the following slides. • For your child to do well in these tests, they do not just have to be good at writing; they also need a technical understanding of how the English language works and they need to know the correct grammatical terminology.

What do we do at school to improve writing? • Grammar and punctuation are explicitly taught and practised in English lessons, and then applied in the children’s own writing. • Spelling patterns and general rules are taught and practised with weekly spelling tests (See progression in Spelling on School website). • Regular opportunities to write at length and ongoing teacher assessment of writing. • Children’s individual writing targets. • Writing skills applied across the Curriculum.

home to support your child? What can be done at home to support your child? Listen to your child read on a regular basis Make sure they have understood what they have read by questioning them about what they have read Check that your child has learnt their weekly spellings and can apply them in their writing Make use of the various tips, practice games and online tools to support your child such as those listed on the following pages and those that will be shared by the staff in their respective year groups at the end of this presentation.

www.oxfordowl.co.uk - This excellent website has loads of ideas for quick and easy ways to help your child with grammar, punctuation and spelling, plus games and activities you can play with your child to support their learning. It also has 250 free eBooks for you to share with your child as well as simple ideas, top tips, activities and games to help your child with their reading at home.

Letters and sounds website Phonics play Education city www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk - This is a fantastic website with a huge range of resources and games to make spelling, punctuation and grammar and literacy learning fun. • www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize