As grammar is being discussed, this is the new Yr 6 SPAG test

[katmanwho]

AIBU to use Google to answer half of them!!

Good luck

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/439299/Sample_ks2_EnglishGPS_paper1_questions.pdf

[RealHuman]

It's the technical terminology that gets me. If you're studying linguistics, yes, you need to know this stuff. For the rest of us, if you're academic enough to do well on this test when drilled in the terminology, you're likely to have picked up enough from your reading and writing to be able to know, from the implicit rules you've learnt, when a sentence is right or wrong in formal written English. My grammar is generally not bad (apart from a tendency to write long, overcomplicated sentences), but there's no way I'm thinking in terms of dangling participles and subjunctive moods and modifiers and conjunctions when I'm writing. It just feels right or it feels wrong. You can't create good writing if you're thinking about noun phrases and dependent clauses.

[BetweenTwoLungs]

Fith I'm sorry but I don't feel like hours per week spent on this in primary is worth it just to make the MFL teacher's life easier. I have an A* at French GCSE and I wasn't taught any of this stuff.

[BetweenTwoLungs]

Everything RealHuman said.

[HPsauciness]

I also agree that for the brighter students, it's not 'hard', it's just a question of explaining it, then drilling them on it, same as times tables really. I'm pretty sure I could learn this stuff to pass a test quite quickly.

For the students who are not in this category, I can imagine it being a nightmare.

It is not necessary knowledge though, to me, unless you are going to promote multiple languages in secondary as your primary aim of that stage. If that's where they want to take it, it would make sense. Otherwise it does not, I don't possess this knowledge, neither do any of my cohort, and we all have good professional well-paid jobs which apparently don't require it, even those of us who write for a living.

[Feenie]

I see no one has mentioned the abomination that is the KS1 SPAG test yet - and here too writers will be deemed as not at the expected standard unless they can use joined, neat handwriting and can spell. Some of these children are just 6.

Also worth mentioning are the remakes in Dec Y7 for children who 'fail' - starting in 2017. Unsure if failure to reach the standard that they haven't decided on yet in SPAG will merit a retake though., or just Reading/Maths.

[katmanwho]

I knew how to identify past, present and future tenses. I knew noun, subject, pronoun etc. In other word, I had enough grammar knowledge to start MFL. I don't think we ever got to complex tenses until much later in secondary life.

I don't think a child just starting MFL needs to know what a subordinating conjunction is.

[TwoLeftSocks]

Do you know of there are any example papers for the KS1 tests yet Feenie?

[Millais]

Real human, exactly!

[TwoLeftSocks]

What actually is a subordinating conjunction?

[icklekid]

twoleftsocks yep was also coming on to say if you think year 6 is bad feel sorry for year 2 sample papers
What annoys me most is that they don't have to do any writing and their English score will be 50% spelling test (with some very tricky spelling patterns) and 50% spag. What encouragement is that for creative writing?

[BetweenTwoLungs]

Key stage 1 paper -

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/439447/Sample_ks1_EnglishGPS_paper2_questions.pdf

[BetweenTwoLungs]

A subordinating conjunction is a word used to join two clauses that is not one of the co-ordinating conjunctions (for, and , nor, but, or, yet, so). So 'because' 'even though' 'although' 'as' etc.

[Feenie]

Yes, there are. Link below. All children have to sit all six tests, regardless of their ability. We make stop them if they become upset

www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum-assessments-2016-sample-materials

[Feenie]

May stop them

[MrsTedMosby]

I asked my DSs who are now year 7 so did their SATS last year. They didn't have a clue About "subjunctive forms" and "subordinate clauses" yet both got level 5 and both are top group in English at secondary - one is in the G&T group.
It just shows its learning to test - they haven't retained the information, nor have they used it in year 7.

I also didn't learn anything bar nouns, adjectives, verbs etc and I have never had any problems with reading, writing etc.

My youngest has motor skills problems and his handwriting is barely legible. As he also has ADD he has trouble concentrating. Pulling him out of school for year 6 is looking like a viable option - I really can't see him coping with two terms of constant revising for pointless tests.

[cornflakegirl]

Our local good primary has high FSM, high SEN, high EAL. I want as many of the kids as possible to go to leave the school with their English and Maths being good enough to enable them to do well at secondary. This test doesn't help.

I remember when I was doing French A level, and I did a French exchange visit. My exchange partner's 4yo sister used a verb in the subjunctive - and I was astounded, because I'd only recently learned the subjunctive. Knowing what it is called is neither necessary nor sufficient to use it accurately.

[Feenie]

They won't have seen the new tests - Y2 and Y6 were taught the old curriculum up to July 2015 because they couldn't get the new tests ready in time.

[TwoLeftSocks]

Thank you for the links, I have one in Yr1 and one in Yr5 so I think I'm going to have to get swotting. That and some advance self esteem work.

And thank you for the grammar explanation. I seem to have got through life pretty well without knowing the distinction but I guess sometime considers them to be important.

[Feenie]

Yep, someone who thinks a 1950s grammar school education is still relevant today.

[IfItsGoodEnough4ShirleyBassey]

I was at school in the 70s and 80s and there's about 10 points worth of stuff on there containing terminology I wasn't taught even in O level MFL (past progressive? ). That doesn't necessarily mean that it's objectively tricky though, or that it's not worth teaching nowadays. I think that the poster up thread who wasn't taught what active and passive voice meant or what a pronoun was received an objectively substandard education.

What it comes down to is what the grading boundaries are. Clearly not everybody is going to be able to identify relative noun clauses in the past progressive or whatever, because this is a test given to all children, and the pass mark is not 100%. If you can get a level 4 by scoring 90% on the practical stuff and 50% on the theoretical stuff then that might be fine.

[FairyDustDreamer]

I have a child in year 2 and in year 6.
Poor little guineapigs!!!
I am not doing extra at home and so far, school not going mad enough for it to impact on home. Maybe will change as winter turns to spring.....

[Feenie]

They haven't decided what the pass mark is - and won't until all papers are in. And it will be a case of has met the standard/ hasn't met the standard. That's it.

[katmanwho]

If a child does not get all this stuff at KS2, what happens at KS3?

Is SPAG still taught in depth - given all the other stuff to cover and the limited amount of time for English in KS3?

[FithColumnist]

Between and here I agree with you: this kind of stuff should be embedded from the very beginning. Suddenly cramming all this SPAG and metalanguage in Y6 just because the government has come up with a new gimmick initiative is not only a misprioritisation of teaching time and essentially a guarantee that the pupils will have forgotten it all the minute they finish the test, but also counterproductive.

In my opinion, if the DfE is going to insist that children be able to do this then they should set out what they want to be taught and then start doing the tests after six years, so that it is truly embedded. But since long-term planning is foreign to a five-year fixed term parliament who want voters to see change now, this will never happen.

[TeenAndTween]

Katman

If a child does not get all this stuff at KS2, what happens at KS3? Is SPAG still taught in depth - given all the other stuff to cover and the limited amount of time for English in KS3?

Just what I've been wondering. DD2 is really struggling with the harder SPaG stuff. If it's not going to be built on in secondary then I will focus efforts on helping her elsewhere.

Maybe I'll contact the HoD at the secondary to ask ...