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 these videos to support children in plugging individual writing gaps is a great way forward.

Below we've taken some statements from the Interim Teacher Assessment Framework and mapped them to specific Studyzone.tv grammar lessons that teach the required skill. Why not get your students to watch a video for early work, or at home, ready to apply the skill in their next Big Write? Alternatively, if you're running a guided writing session, use the video as a conversation starter.

Here's the list, plus you can download an annotated version of the Interim Teacher Assessment Framework that contain these links here.

 

Working towards the expected standard
using different verb forms mostly accurately	Lesson 211 - verb tenses
using co-ordinating and subordinating conjunctions	Lesson 227 - coordinating conjunctions
	Lesson 228 - subordinating conjunctions
using capital letters, full stops, question marks, exclamation marks, commas for lists and apostrophes for contraction mostly correctly	Lesson 281 - capital letters
	Lesson 282 - full stops
	Lesson 285 - question marks
	Lesson 291 - commas for lists
	Lesson 288 - exclamation marks
	Lesson 302 - apostrophes for contraction

 

Working at the expected standard
using a range of cohesive devices, including adverbials, within and across sentences and paragraphs	Lesson 244 - adverbials challenge
using passive and modal verbs mostly appropriately	Lesson 276 - passive sentences
	Lesson 221 - modal verbs
using a wide range of clause structures, sometimes varying their position within the sentence	Lesson 266 - embedded clauses
using adverbs, preposition phrases and expanded noun phrases e ectively to add detail, quali cation and precision	Lesson 235 - adverbs to modify verbs
	Lesson 245 - prepositions
	Lesson 272 - expanded noun phrases
using inverted commas, commas for clarity, and punctuation for parenthesis mostly correctly, and making some correct use of semi-colons, dashes, colons and hyphens	Lesson 296 - inverted commas
	Lesson 294 - commas for clarity
	Lesson 305 - punctuation for parenthesis
	Lesson 312 - semicolons
	Lesson 311 - dashes
	Lesson 309 - colons

 

Working at greater depth within the expected standard
using the full range of punctuation taught at key stage 2, including colons and semi-colons to mark the boundary between independent clauses, mostly correctly.	Lesson 313 - semicolons between clauses

If you're starting to assess against the Interim Teacher Assessment Framework, why not download a copy of our annotated version which maps Studyzone lesson numbers to specific skills, helping you plug individual gaps before May.

 

Our grammar curriculum includes over 5 hours of short, focused videos that teach specific skills. Mapped to the new SATs testing framework, they're an ideal tool for revision in year 6 as well for teaching age appropriate skills across primary schools. Find out more here.