Following on from yesterday’s meeting about the early administration of the KS1 (Key Stage 1) English grammar, punctuation and spelling test, I would like to make parents/carers aware of the following points:
At the end of Year 2, children will take tests in:
- English grammar, punctuation and spelling
- Reading
- Maths
Key Stage One Reading:
The new reading test for Year 2 pupils will involve two separate papers:
- Paper 1 consists of a selection of texts consisting of 400 to 700 words, with questions interspersed.
- Paper 2 comprises a reading booklet of a selection of passages consisting of 800 to 1100 words. Children will write their answers in a separate booklet.
Links to sample papers have been included at the end of this page.
Each paper is worth 50% of the marks, and should take around 30 minutes, but children will not be strictly timed, as the tests are not intended to assess children’s ability to work at speed. The texts in the reading papers will cover a range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, and will get progressively more difficult towards the end of the test. Teachers will have the option to stop the test at any point that they feel is appropriate for a particular child.
There will be a variety of question types:
- Multiple choice
- Ranking/ordering, e.g. ‘Number the events below to show in which order they happened in the story’
- Matching, e.g. ‘Match the character to the job that they do in the story’
- Labelling, e.g. ‘Label the text to show the title’
- Find and copy, e.g. ‘Find and copy one word that shows what the weather was like in the story’
- Short answer, e.g. ‘What does the bear eat?’
- Open-ended answer, e.g. ‘Why did Lucy write the letter to her grandmother? Give two reasons.
Key stage 1 grammar, spelling and punctuation
Children taking Key Stage 1 tests will sit two separate papers in grammar, spelling and punctuation:
- Paper 1: a 20-word spelling test taking approximately 15 minutes and worth 10 marks.
- Paper 2: a grammar, punctuation and vocabulary test, in two sections of around 10 minutes each (with a break between, if necessary), worth 20 marks. This will involve a mixture of selecting the right answers e.g. through multiple choice, and writing short answers.
The tests are set externally, but will be marked by teachers within the school. Instead of the old national curriculum levels, children will be given a standardised score – although this may not be communicated to parents. Teacher assessments will, as always, form an integral part of building up a picture of your child’s learning and achievements. In addition, your child will receive an overall result saying whether they have achieved the required standard in the tests. The Department for Education aims for 85% of children to reach the required standard.
Practice papers for the KS 1 2016 Tests:
The Department for Education has produced some sample papers for teachers, which you can look through to understand what kind of questions will be asked (click on the links below).
2016 sample KS1 English grammar, punctuation and spelling Paper 1: spelling
2016 sample KS1 English grammar, punctuation and spelling paper 2: questions
