Ensuring effective transition from primary English · teacher-assessment-exemplification-ks2-english-writing. Exemplification of Greater Depth in writing at KS2: Frankie’s collection.

@HIASEnglish

Ensuring effective transition

from primary English

What secondary school leaders need to know

Jo Kenyon and Owen Tromans

Hampshire Teaching and Learning Advisers

School

curriculum

National

curriculum

Text-driven English teaching sequence

towards written outcomes

Reading teaching (often distinct but linked)

Phonics and spelling

English structures in our primary

schools

What can continuity and

progression look like in primary

English?

• Text types are introduced and returned to carefully –

what is the difference between a set of instructions

written in Year 2 and Year 4?

• Strong links are made between reading and the wider

curriculum, reinforcing, and drawing upon, pupil

knowledge.

• The sequenced introduction of grammar content allows

for pupils to develop as writers, making grammatical

choices for purpose and effect and building on existing

knowledge.

• Themes in texts allow pupils to return to ‘big ideas’ in

different year groups, building a shared reading history.

Theme – Journeys

D

Age-related expectations:

Working at the Expected Standard

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/2018-

teacher-assessment-exemplification-ks2-english-writing

Exemplification of Greater

Depth in writing at KS2:

Frankie’s collection

Some perceptions

of KS2 outcomes

If they can do all that, why don’t they use capital letters

and full stops correctly?

Primary school teachers basically do the pupils’ work

for them

You can’t trust those test results

Outcomes in primary don’t mean the same

as they do in secondary

They only write stories in primary –that’s not what we

need

How far do these

common ideas about KS2

chime with what you hear

in your own schools?

Written outcome

Stimulate and generate Capture, sift and sort Create, refine, evaluate

Rich text stimulus

Planning a learning journey towards a clear outcome

Evaluate

Continue to teach skills and behaviours of a writer

Additions, revisions,

proof reading

PublishPossible ‘drop in’ write,

applying prior learning into a new and meaningful context

Word level

Shared reading ‘reading as a reader’

Hook / immersion

Spoken language

Skills needed for final outcome

Genre and form

Planning

Shared reading ‘reading as a writer’

Embedded GPaS

Apprentice writes

Teacher modelling

Additions, revisions, proof reading skills

Exploring WAGOLLs

Initial

predictions

following

discussion

Glossary to

clarify

unfamiliar

vocabulary

Annotation of

WAGOLL after

purpose,

audience and

form of journey

has been made

clear

‘Explain,

Change, Create’

task focused on

figurative

language

Grammar in context -

rehearsing the use of

commas to clarify

meaning

Planning

Draft letter

Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve

The summer break is a factor for every age group, including the adults

The writing gap between primary

and secondary school

Learning to write accurately and effectively

Writing accurately and effectively to express learning

Challenging

academic

curriculum

Focus on

subject

disciplinary

content

Increased

expectation

of formal and

critical

writing

Writing is

often used to

capture

learning

Different

approaches

to writing in

different

subjects

…most of the writing pupils do is an exercise in

missed opportunities. And almost none of this

writing is valued in any way other than that it

indicates whether or not they’ve understood what

you were teaching…

We’re participating in a conspiracy that says: “It

doesn’t matter how you write.”

David Didau, The Secret of Literacy, 2014

Everyday expectations?

• Based on the KS2 standards, consider what expectations the

school should agree for all students across the range of subjects

• How should all teachers ensure that students meet these

standards consistently?

• Keep it very simple!

– Articulate expectations – a short list

– Reminders before and during writing

– Give sufficient time to write

– Proof reading after writing

– Value the writing itself

National assessment of reading

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

key stage 1key stage 2key stage 4

themes andconventions

language for effect

inference

comprehension

Forms of assessment

Critical writing is not a clear window into

children’s thinking

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-ND

The reading gap between primary

and secondary school

Learning to read for

comprehensionReading

comprehension for learning

Challenging

academic

curriculum

Focus on

subject

disciplinary

content

Increased

reading

demands of

texts in use

Teachers

may have

limited

literacy

training

Different

approaches

to reading in

different

subjects

Progression from KS2 to KS3 in reading

KS2

Phonemic awareness and

phonics

Comprehension focus

Vocabulary and content

instructionFluency

Reading for pleasure

(pedagogy)

KS3

Reading for information

Disciplinary reading

Analytical and critical focus

Literary and world heritage

Reading for pleasure (time)

Is it too late to learn to read?

• Last year, 120,000 disadvantaged students left primary

school below the expected standard for reading

• As a society, we strongly equate the ability to read with

intelligence

• The majority of secondary school teachers do not know

how to teach students to read

High expectations for all

• Address the unconscious motivation for teachers

to reduce reading demands in lessons

• Reading as an element of all lessons within the

context of the subject

• Provide scaffolding to enable student to access

the reading required for the curriculum

Scarborough’s Reading Rope

Increasingly strategic

Increasingly automatic

Why does reading fluency matter?

Fluency is the bridge between decoding and

comprehension… Fluent oral readers should be able

to read orally with speed, accuracy and appropriate

expression. The National Reading Panel report

cautions, “If text is read in a laborious and inefficient

manner, it will be difficult for the child to remember

what has been read and to relate the ideas expressed

in the text to his or her background knowledge.”

(Fisher, Frey, Hattie, Teaching Literacy in the Visible Learning

Classroom, 2017)

Use active reading strategies for

comprehension across the school

Predicting Clarifying Questioning

Summarising Inferring

Employ a disciplinary approach to

reading

• What does a competent reader do in each subject area?

• How is this modelled?

• How are students supported to practise?

• What opportunities are offered for students to apply their

reading like a scientist/historian etc?

The importance of continuity and

progression

Secure, shared understanding of progression and

the curriculum is crucial to establishing the

appropriate pitch for teaching at any age; teachers

need to understand what has been learned

previously and where pupils need to get to in order

to ensure that their own teaching is appropriately

challenging and builds on prior learning. This is

particularly important for disadvantaged pupils, as

evidence suggests that these pupils are often less

able to cope with points of transition and as a result

can fall behind. (Tackling Educational Disadvantage:

Building Blocks for Excellence, HIAS

publication 2018)

Getting from here to there

• Working forwards from KS2 yields far greater results than working backwards

from KS4 - much more effective in establishing the appropriate level of

challenge, particularly in writing

• Bringing primary pedagogy forward into the KS3 classroom supports transition

• A distinctive difference between KS3 and KS4 in English should emphasise

crafting, drafting, editing and polishing writing

• KS3 reading needs to privilege deep and broad understanding of texts –

comprehension and inference

• Consider how to assess what students can do and have learned, rather than

shaping learning to an assessment that might not be age appropriate

Line management of English

• How well does the English team understand the standards and

expectations of KS2, and the ways that these are achieved within

feeder primary schools?

• What forms of assessment are used at KS3? How do these

identify what students know and can do? Do assessments set

students up to succeed?

• How well do schools share information about students’

achievements and learning gaps?

• If students have not achieved the expected standards at KS2,

what happens next?

• How does curriculum content and subject-specific pedagogy build

forward from KS2?