During the research and creation of our grammar videos, we've come across a number of differing opinions on certain grammatical terms. In particular, we felt the need to clarify exactly which words were classed as coordinating conjunctions and which would be accepted in the grammar test. We were surprised by what we found. As a teacher, you may well be used to telling your children the FANBOYS acronym for remembering coordinating conjunctions: F = forA = andN = norB = butO = orY = yetS = so Whilst this is a great acronym for improving writing, some would argue it's not actually an accurate representation of coordinating conjunctions. It would appear that, upon closer inspection, there are only three main coordinating conjunctions: 'and', 'but' and 'or'. Surprised? Well we certainly were, so we sought to clarify this directly with the Depart...

Whatever internal system you use for assessing writing, come May year 6 teachers will be using the Interim Teacher Assessment Framework to decide whether a child is 'Working towards', 'Working at', or 'Working at a greater depth'. Many teachers, like myself, may already be using this to assess writing, building up an evidence base of what each child can do to support end of year assessments. However, finding out what a child can't yet do is so much more useful. A great number of the statements focus on spelling and grammar. Whilst some may argue that this is unfair on children, since the GPS paper tests these skills, it is the card we're dealt. So what can we do about it? The Studyzone.tv grammar lessons have been made in such a way as to support children in developing their writing as well as preparing them for the GPS test. As a result, using t...

How do you teach grammar? Do you teach grammar? When I went to school, sure we were taught about capital letters and full stops and I guess someone must have spoken to me about verb tense agreement, or at least I thinked they didded! What I do know though is that I was never taught it in a formal way as is required now and I certainly never had to sit a grammar test. Schools are only a few years into the new grammar, punctuation and spelling (GPS) test so it's fair to assume that schools are still exploring the best ways of teaching these skills. Of course, close integration with reading and writing is the best approach, as it allows children to see and use grammatical terms in context, but the nature of the standalone GPS test also warrants standalone teaching of explicit skills. There are a number of ways this can be done. Oral Starters Just like a maths oral starter gets chi...