Year 6 teachers and pupils will now have transitioned into the new academic year, and we know it won’t be long before plans steer towards preparing for this year’s SATs. No doubt many will be thinking back to the controversy surrounding the 2023 Reading SATs papers and (despite the Standards and Testing Agency reporting that the content was “set to an appropriate level of difficulty”), we recognise the challenges it provided for many.

In this blog, we hope to provide an easy-to-follow analysis of the reading SATs papers, but more importantly, further insight into teaching practices of reading, to develop classroom pedagogy further.

60 minutes, 3 texts and how many words?

This year, pupils were expected to read and analyse the following texts:

1. “A Noise in the Night” from Survival Squad: Night Riders.
2. “Bats Under the Bridge” from a New York Times article.
3. “A Howl at Dusk” from The Rise of Wolves by Kerr Thompson.
   You can find the full reading booklet for the test here.

The test required pupils to read a total of 2106 words across three texts. This is almost a third more than the 2022 paper, which included only 1,564 words. On average, pupils would only have had around 34 seconds to read and answer each question. This, however, should not tempt us to teach to the test and most certainly not under time constraints. Guided reading in a pressure cooker is only going to create undue stress and anxiety for our pupils. We know we need to create diverse opportunities within quality teaching to allow our pupils to comprehend the meaning of what they read, using a wide range of engaging texts.

Connecting content domains

The updated Reading Framework (2023) has provided some insight into the teaching of reading comprehension strategies. It advises that schools should not be limiting their learning objectives solely to the ‘content domains’ (appendix 10). It discusses the importance of drawing on and using a variety of these strategies, all of the time:

• activating and using background knowledge
• generating and asking questions
• making predictions
• visualising
• monitoring comprehension
• summarising
  We will elaborate on this later using example questions.

First, let’s break the vocabulary barrier

The HFL Education conceptual model shown here and the EEF’s Guidance, discusses the importance of explicit, quality teaching of reading with an awareness of vocabulary knowledge as a barrier. The 2023 paper was jam-packed with vocabulary that required background knowledge and varied lived experiences. It is often the foundation of any reading test and with word meaning questions (2d) on the rise from 10% in 2022 to 18% this year, it’s certainly an aspect to focus on. In paper 1 alone, children encountered words such as rustling, throbbing, grid, emerged, binoculars, rustlers.

So how do we prepare children for this task? 

You’ve guessed it…explicitly teach vocabulary.

Which words should we be teaching and when? 

Tier 2 words: challenging, ambitious words with characteristics of written language. Teach words that will potentially disrupt the overall comprehension of a text. See here for more.  Be sure to familiarise them with unknown words prior to reading to help lessen comprehension difficulties. However, when reading as a class or group, it would be best to do this when the word is encountered in the text. 

Life beyond definitions! 

Research shows that introducing a new word using its dictionary definition can be problematic. Let’s look at the word ‘rustling’ as an example:

Dictionary definition: 

1. the sound that paper or leaves make when they move.
2. the crime of stealing farm animals 

By depending on these definitions, children would need to first work out which definition links to the context of the text: is it a noise or stealing? They would then need to figure out which one is making the sound. Is it paper or leaves? For most children, this process will have already started to overwhelm them. It is more effective to provide children with the meaning of the word using every day, familiar language and also explore the essence of a word and how it is used. More strategies are shared in ‘Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction’ by  Beck, McKeown & Kucan. 

Here are some more word attack strategies you could begin to model within your reading lessons:

See Reading SATs strategies for the final stretch for more word attack strategies!
 

We can see how, since 2016, the SATs questions have also focused heavily on testing retrieval and inference:

Inference investigation!

It’s worth asking:
Do pupils know what ‘good readers’ do as they read? 
Do they know that when we read, we are visualising, making connections/comparisons and drawing on our own experiences? 
Do they know that words hold meaning, often deep enough for investigation?
Do they know that inference often includes looking for clues and evidence, and that there can often be more than one answer?
Do they know that we often need to depend on background knowledge, extra information or clues?

Let’s take a closer look….

In the first text, ‘A Noise in the Night’, pupils are provided with this information: 

There will be children who have never experienced camping, and certainly not on a farm. This strengthens the importance of ensuring that the texts we read (and re-read!) transport children to many different places – ones they may not have experienced in real life.

In previous tests, question 1 is usually a simple retrieval question, but here we have a 2-mark, inference question from the get-go.

To infer successfully and receive the full two marks, children will need to:

• re-read the text 
• connect with Priya and recognise the symptoms of/examples of nervousness
• draw on their own experiences of feeling nervous in similar situations
• only retrieve from the first paragraph
• retrieve two different pieces of evidence from the text

The more you know; the more you learn

Let’s dive into this non-fiction text:

Off the bat (pun intended!), children will hopefully have some background knowledge. Background knowledge supports comprehension, but it can be particularly critical when reading non-fiction texts. In this instance, pupils will hopefully work out that ‘Congress Avenue Bridge’ is a place in the USA. Later, they will also need to grapple with words: capital, city and state.  

Most of the questions in this section assess pupils’ ability to retrieve and record information. Easy, right? Perhaps not with this level of challenge: long, multi-clause sentences, figurative language and complex words and phrases.

Again, teaching children to break up the text into meaningful chunks and showing them how to read words in context will aid their ability to do so with ease and at a sufficient speed.

Positively prepared… or maybe not?

Many Year 6 teachers will have prepared their students by setting questions using recurring question stems from past papers.  E.g. “How can you tell that…” “What does this tell you about their character?” 

The unfamiliar wording of this question would certainly have caused some frowned brows… 

Children often hear the word ‘positive’ being used in many different contexts: “be positive/use a positive mindset” or, very possibly in a scientific context, too. The challenging job here is that children need to:

• understand that bats are usually viewed in a negative light (either from background knowledge or from the text itself)
• find two different messages that are deemed to be ‘positive’ in this context
• scan large amounts of text quickly

To answer questions like this successfully, pupils need to have experienced regular, well-planned, rich reading lessons, that allow them time to see and practise:

• reading and re-reading passages again and again (…and again)
• reading at length 
• returning to the text 
• exploring/discussing vocabulary purposefully and actively 
• taking part in rich, in-depth discussions with their peers and teachers

We must find time to guide pupils to connect with texts with this level of difficulty. Only then will they feel equipped to tackle them with resilience.

The End is Near…

It’s no surprise that the final question is worth 3-marks. But wait! “What does personality mean again?” A question that no doubt echoed across the classrooms of those children who made it to the end of the paper in time.

In this blog, we discuss strategies to support children to answer 3-mark questions, such as, ‘what’s your impression of…’. For many experienced Year 6 teachers, this very question is emblazoned across working walls and referred to constantly. However, to our surprise, this higher-level question was also phrased differently.

The National Curriculum states that children should “identify and discuss themes and conventions in and across a wide range of writing”. Although this question is asking for a character study, we can teach children to hunt for themes and conventions to support them to do this. Support children to dissect the text. Are there themes of love, courage, hatred, friendship, magic that they notice?

Read aloud and think aloud!

When we model reading aloud, we should model thinking aloud, too. This allows children to develop active thinking whilst reading. Embedding sentence stems such as “I wonder…”, “I see…” and “I think…” helps children to think deeply about these themes and conventions in relation to character behaviour/personality.

In his book ‘Reading Reconsidered’, Doug Lemov talks about the importance of Interactive Reading. He says we should teach children how to interact with the text by “underlining, marking up key points and summarising ideas in the margin.”  Elaborated thoughts can transform into brief text interactions during timed tests and other reading tasks. 
 

Eventually, pupils will be able to organise their ideas efficiently and analyse character behaviour with ease. Practise in groups and pairs until pupils develop the confidence to tackle independently and accurately: 

Are all of your pupils fully engaged?

As mentioned in the reading framework, ‘PISA data consistently shows that engagement in reading is strongly correlated with reading performance.’ With that said, here’s a few suggestions that you might want to consider:

• Start by carving out some precious time within the teaching day for children to explore and engage with texts in depth
• Find a way for each and every pupil to engage and interact deeply
• Build a community of readers, who not only read within your classroom, but outside too
• Take time to closely monitor children’s reading habits so that you can recommend books and share your personal favourites
• Facilitate opportunities for book talk and most of all, provide plenty of time to actually read

We hope that this blog provides a starting point to get you thinking about the ways in which you might interpret the findings of this year’s reading SATs paper outcomes and how these findings might be translated into effective guided reading practice. 

Most importantly, let us remember that the SATs are a short moment in time. The rich reading experiences we provide children can set them up for life. Let’s give them tools they will take with them wherever they go: a love of reading; a love of books.

Wellbeing in the workplace has been on the agenda for many years but has become more prevalent in recent years, especially since the pandemic.

So, what is wellbeing and how does it affect us in the workplace?

When we have good levels of wellbeing, we feel happy and can generally cope with the ‘everyday’, as well as feeling like we have a good balance in our life. We feel motivated and show resilience and we are able to ‘bounce back’ from small setbacks. 

In the Early Years, practitioners are often doing and thinking about a number of different things at any one time in an ever-increasingly demanding role. It is vital that staff are given the right emotional and practical support so they can effectively support the children and their families in their care.

As well as having a positive impact on staff and children, staff wellbeing can improve job satisfaction and performance, which in turn can lead to a reduction in staff turnover. It can also help to reduce staff absence which will support management of the school or setting budget.

• 50% of employees have experienced at least one characteristic of burn out due to greater job demands and expectations, lack of social interaction and lack of boundaries between work and home life. (Deloitte UK Mental Health Report (2022))
• Almost half of workers (46%) say they’ve worked in recent months despite not feeling physically or mentally well enough to perform their duties. (CIPD good work index (2022))

With these numbers on the increase, we need to be thinking carefully about how we can support mental health in our schools and settings for our Early Years workforce as well as the children and families we serve.

Many efforts are put in to support staff wellbeing from ‘mental health days’ to chocolate in the staffroom, but do these types of gesture really have a positive impact on staff wellbeing? A new term increasingly being used is ‘wellbeing washing’. Wellbeing washing is when an organisation publicly displays support for mental health initiatives but lacks adequate mental wellbeing support (clarowellbeing.com). No leader or manager is intentionally doing the wrong thing, but getting to the root cause of staff stress and worries is key to effective wellbeing support. 

What can leaders and managers do?

Here are some effective ideas to support good mental health and wellbeing:

• Working with staff to create policies and guidelines
• Regular and effective supervisions
• Provide mental health and wellbeing training
• Provide access to mental health services and support
• Create a strong organisational culture which promotes open communication, empathy and understanding, and ensure leaders set the example of taking work-life balance seriously
• Seek feedback from staff, and use it to make positive changes

Key definitions

Presenteeism

Attending work despite illness and so not performing at full ability.

Absenteeism

Days absent from work in relation to mental health issues.

Burnout

Burnout is a syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions: feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and reduced professional efficacy.

Wellbeing washing

Wellbeing washing is when an organisation publicly displays support for mental health initiatives but lacks adequate mental wellbeing support.

In our line of work, we come across maths anxiety in all generations but it can start young and so we are always on the lookout for ways in which we can sneak the maths in unseen. When we were writing Essential Foundations for Counting, we found opportunities everywhere from creating patterns to subitising in a picnic and building the very foundations of counting and number (Fuson, 1988; Gelman & Gallistel, 1978).

So what about our older children? One of the mathematical skills children often find threatening is that of estimation. How many times have I asked children to estimate a value, only to find they go away, calculate it accurately and then make the estimate something sensible? We chuckle about it of course but it does reveal the old maths fear that “I might get it wrong”. Well this is something we pursue because we believe it is a life skill so where better to rehearse it than in the real world? There’s loads of different ways this can be fun and can challenge our Year 6 pupils too.

How about:

If you’re lucky enough to have woodland or even just a tree or two nearby, have you thought about the potential for deepening children’s understanding of angles?

It started with this challenge for Year 5 from the Home Maths slides but this got me thinking . . .

. . . where are the angles in that?

Collect sticks as you go and let’s investigate further.  

Place a leaf on each of the angles that measure 120˚ or less.

Or perhaps twig puzzles:

• I have 5 sides and 5 vertices. The sizes of my internal angles are not the same. Who am I?
• I have 2 right angles. Make me! The options are endless and very creative.

Yes. The more I think about it, the more I reckon it’s just a habit that we see the maths in the outdoors for our youngest children and forget about those opportunities just sitting there for our older ones. This is going to be fun as we all get to explore them a little bit more. If you go down to the woods today, be sure of a maths surprise!

Bibliography:

Fuson, K. C. (1988). Children's counting and concepts of number. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Gelman, R., & Gallistel, C.R. (1978). The child's understanding of number. Cambridge: Harvard University.

In my previous blog, Deepening understanding from Reception into KS1 and KS2 – the CPA approach for Equal Difference, I tracked the strategy of Equal Difference from its starting point in EYFS to its application in upper key stage 2. The focus was on how manipulatives could be used effectively to support in its acquisition. More specifically, I explored the point at which a shift in the type of manipulative used could enable deeper conceptual understanding and thus move the learning on. In this blog, I will provide a further example of this, but in a different context.

Multiplication Tables Check

The National Curriculum stipulates that pupils are fluent in all times tables facts up to 12 x 12 by the end of Year 4. These facts are then tested in the Multiplication Tables Check (MTC) - a national online test that takes place during the summer term. Helping pupils recall their multiplication facts continues to be a focus for many schools for this reason, but more importantly because we know that if pupils can automatically recall their times tables, it frees up working memory to be able to tackle more complex calculations as they move into upper key stage 2 and beyond.

Explicit times tables teaching

Before I provide a worked example in this context, it is important to highlight that times tables need to be explicitly taught in order for them to be learnt. Research conducted by the Institute for Effective Education in 2019 found that there was no optimal balance between procedural and conceptual strategies for achieveing fluency in times tables, but that there must be opportunity for both throughout the curriculum.

In this example, I will focus on the conceptual element of teaching times tables through the use of manipulatives, with the understanding that there is also a place for more procedural strategies such as low-stakes testing and flashcards alongside. In her blog, Putting your school in the driving seat for the Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check, Rachael Brown exemplifies this further.

An approach for teaching times tables conceptually

When starting to count in multiples, pupils will often begin with a linear model such as a beadstring to reinforce the equal groups, usually around the end of Year 1 or Year 2 for the 2x, 5x and 10x table facts.

Pupils can count the beads in ones or move across groups to discover each new fact and write them down to create a list. At this stage, the linear model is important as it links with what they currently understand about counting sequentially and number lines. A bead string is particularly helpful for the fives and tens, due to the red and white colours of the beads that change after each multiple of 10. 
 

Following this practical approach to discovering the multiples, the bead string can be lined up against a number line to show the connection between the representations. Pupils could discuss what’s the same and what’s different

Only including the multiples within the times table will model that the unit has changed. 1 marked space on the line no longer represents 1 – you have created 1 group.

The number line image can be replicated by a counting stick to provide opportunity for rehearsal through chanting and counting and so building the fluency of counting the multiples in sequential order.

At this stage in the progression, it is important to shift the representation away from a linear model, so that pupils can learn to recall the facts out of order, without needing to count from 0 each time.

A sensible option would be to use unifix cubes.

Ask pupils to group the unifix into equal groups and reinforce the connection between the group of 5 unifix and the 5 on the number line. 

Making explicit connections

Once lined up to replicate the number line, the groups of unifix can then be moved one at a time to create an array. This stage is really important for the children to witness because all too often, they experience counting in multiples on the number line and then the array is introduced separately, but the link between the two has not been explicit enough for them to make the connection

Making connections across the curriculum

Using the array, pupils are able to make all sorts of connections across the curriculum to explore concepts such as:

Division 

Commutativity

Distributivity

Without the careful shift of resource at this point, some pupils may find it difficult to make connections and so factual recall would not be as strong.

Introducing new times tables and making connections

Each time a new times table is introduced, allowing pupils time to explore and build the times table on a beadstring can enable children to spot patterns and to make connections to times tables they already know.

For example, when building the 8x table, children may notice (or teachers may draw attention to the fact that):

• All of the multiples are even
• In each group of 8, there’s ‘double 4’
• In each group of 8, there’s ‘double 2 and double again’

Physically seeing what’s happening as a times table builds will support with strategy development going forward and children’s ability to use known facts to work out any they cannot yet recall.

The idea of children discovering the facts for themselves before they begin to rehearse must be repeated every time, but not necessarily in the same way. Kate Kellner-Dilks demonstrates further strategies for teaching times tables in her blog, Starting from the beginning: how to learn times tables.

CPA opportunities across the maths curriculum

Teaching through the Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract (CPA) approach has become second nature to primary teachers. To enhance this pedagogy further, it is important that teachers consider when to change the choice of manipulative to move learning on.

Careful consideration should be given to which model is best suited for the job – linear, part/whole, array – there are many options.

The decision about whether the resource will show all ones, or begin to unitise and ‘group’ the ones completely, depends on what the teacher is aiming to get from the lesson, and more importantly, where they want to end up.

Ultimately, the CPA approach is so much more than just offering a resource as a ‘crutch’ to help a child reach an answer.

When used well, it is the difference between a child achieving deep conceptual understanding of mathematics… or not.

Is this a key focus in your school?  

Join us this November at the Hertfordshire Development Centre in Stevenage for Practical ways to assess, scaffold and secure maths learning in your classroom; applying Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction.

The HFL Education Primary Maths team can work with you in school to develop the teaching and learning of multiplication facts through The Multiplication Package.

Find out more about the HFL Education Curriculum Impact Packages: 

To keep up to date: Join our Primary Subject Leaders’ mailing list
To subscribe to our blogs: Get our blogs straight to your inbox

References

Avis, M. (2019). Improving times table fluency. York, England: Institute for Effective Education.

The Greek myths lie at the heart of some universal truths about humanity. These stories have transcended the passage of time and the Greek legend of Pygmalion is inextricably linked to the education arena. As the Ovid legend goes, Pygmalion, a sculptor, carved a statue of a woman so exquisite and lifelike that he fell hopelessly in love with it. His intense adoration and fervent prayers to the goddess Aphrodite brought the statue to life. Pygmalion married the statue turned woman and, unusually in Greek mythology, they lived happily ever after. This enchanting myth serves as a testament to the imaginative prowess of ancient civilizations but also holds a profound lesson about the power of belief and expectation. 

At HFL Education we have been thinking about what impact generative AI might have on schools. With the emergence of generative AI, we all now have the opportunity to be Pygmalion, and sculpt creations that in the past might have required more knowledge and proficiency. Platforms such as Dall-E allow us to create pictures and photographs irrespective of our creative expertise (all the art in this post was created by a Generative AI).

Interestingly, the Pygmalion correlation is often applied negatively in the realm of education. We talk about teachers having lower expectations for some groups of students than for others, rather than the power of teachers’ high expectations. This inverse relationship is sometimes referred to as the Golem effect. The Golem, initially a helpful character from Jewish folklore, becomes increasingly destructive due to the negative perceptions and beliefs of people who surround him. Both phenomena become particularly pronounced when considering the role of teacher expectations in shaping student performance. 

In the 1960s, Rosenthal conducted a study in which he told student researchers that one group of rats had superior intelligence to another. Remarkably, the students’ perceptions of the rats’ abilities led to a self-fulfilling prophecy. The ‘superior’ rats exhibited improved performance, not because of any innate traits but because the students treated them with greater care, attention and positive reinforcement. 

This profound insight into the power of expectations didn’t remain confined to the world of rodents. Subsequent research by Rosenthal et al extended these findings to the realm of human education. In the school experiment, teachers were informed that certain students were intellectually gifted, irrespective of their actual abilities. Mirroring the rat trial, the students who were perceived as gifted, displayed heightened performance levels, affirming the astonishing impact of teacher expectations on academic achievement.

In 2005, a further series of studies delved deeper into the Pygmalion effect within educational settings. These investigations, which synthesized decades of research, confirmed the enduring relevance of the phenomenon. In the UK a study by Strand (2014) explored the relationship between teacher expectations and students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The research illuminated how teachers' perceptions of students' capabilities could either hinder or facilitate their academic growth. When educators maintained positive expectations and offered targeted support, students from disadvantaged backgrounds surpassed expectations.

The dawn of generative AI seems to herald an era in which, much like Pygmalion, the opportunity to bring forth our deepest desires seems more possible, but this is accompanied by the knowledge that our greatest fears may also be unleashed. As we navigate our way through the uncharted waters of AI in education, it might be that the Pygmalion effect is a potential benefit for some groups of students who have in the past been disadvantaged by Golem.  This seems most likely in the realm of personalised learning, on platforms such as Seneca which already exist in many of our schools. An AI powered system could analyse each student’s learning style, pace and misconceptions creating tailored exercises and resources to meet the student’s specific challenges. Best of all, this individualised approach is not influenced by subjective human beliefs about a student’s abilities. Or in other words an AI doesn’t roll its eyes when it has to explain a concept for the third time. Understanding more about AI, the potential and the pitfalls, is imperative for all of us working in education so we can make more informed decisions. In our quest for greater equity in education, AI and the power of expectation certainly seems to be an avenue worth exploring. 

We have teamed up with the AI experts at Educate Ventures Research and school leaders to better understand how we can harness AI to unlock the potential in our classrooms. Join us on this transformative journey where we will explore the potential benefits and hazards of AI.

This blog post was written with the help of generative AI.

References 

1. Ovid. "Metamorphoses." Translation by A. D. Melville. Oxford University Press, 2008.
2. Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher Expectation and Pupils' Intellectual Development. The Urban Review, 3(1), 16-20.
3. Rosenthal, R., & Rubin, D. B. (1978). Interpersonal expectancy effects: The first 345 studies. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1(3), 377-415.
4. Hattie, J., & Yates, G. C. (2014). Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn. Routledge.
5. Strand, S. (2014). Revisiting ‘Pygmalion’: The relationship between students’ engagement with school and their educational outcomes. Educational Studies, 40(2), 169-185.
6. Jussim, L., & Harber, K. D. (2005). Teacher expectations and self-fulfilling prophecies: Knowns and unknowns, resolved and unresolved controversies. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9(2), 131-155.

We have often heard the old saying that ‘the only constant in life is change’, so it should come as no surprise that we are starting this academic year with big changes to Key Stage 1 assessment and how we will calculate progress over the primary phases.

The headline is that end of Key Stage 1 assessment is no longer statutory and that the Reception Baseline Assessment will take its place as the basis for cohort level primary progress calculations. (The first results we will see from these calculations will be in 2028 when the first RBA cohort reach the end of Key Stage 2. We currently have no details on how this calculation model will work.)

What this means for Year 2 teachers

The removal of the word ‘statutory’ releases schools from the legal requirements regarding assessing children’s attainment at the end of KS1. Schools will no longer have to:

• assess pupils using SATs tests
• form teacher assessment judgements using the teacher assessment frameworks (TAFs)
• be externally moderated (unannounced Phonics Screening Check monitoring visits will still happen)
• report an end of KS1 standard to parents (although, schools still must report a phonics result if a child took the PSC in Year 2)
• report end of KS1 data to the local authority/HFL (there will not be any requests for optional/voluntary reporting of data from us).

So, what now?

Is this going to be a new dawn – a brave new world of assessment – or will we carry on pretty much the same as before just without the Standards and Testing Agency (STA) looming overhead? 

Well, if schools wanted do, it would be perfectly possible to do the latter. STA are going to continue to produce SATs tests in reading, maths and grammar, punctuation, and spelling (GPS). These will be for optional use. Paper copies of these tests will automatically be sent into schools (based on pupil numbers from the school census) unless schools opt not to receive any tests by declining them on the Primary Assessment Gateway. New tests will be created each year to the same specification as previously (this means that some schools will still need to be selected for the trialling of assessment materials) ensuring that the tests may (in STA’s own words), ‘continue to inform classroom practice and help schools understand where pupils need additional support as they transition into KS2’. There will also be the scaled score conversion released at the same time as usual. Guidance for administering the optional tests will also be updated and released this term. The recommendation will be that if schools choose to use the tests, they use them in May to ensure that the scaled score conversions are meaningful. Of course, schools don’t have to follow this recommendation at all.

In a similar vein the existing TAFs will remain available on GOV.UK for optional use to support teacher assessment judgements. They remain a ‘secure fit’ document and would be about looking at a child’s performance in the test (reading and maths) alongside the assessment evidence collected/seen in everyday classroom practice and independent work. 

Schools may choose to continue using the STA materials indefinitely or just for this year as they transition to something else. From an Assessment Team perspective, we are pretty agnostic about how a school chooses to proceed. There are clearly benefits to using the STA resources, not least that they are free and of a reliable standard (tests created professionally to ensure effectiveness and reduce bias etc). In the financial climate that schools find themselves in, it would seem prudent to use what is freely available rather than buying into other, often expensive, products. However, some schools may already subscribe to these sorts of products for other year-groups, and so expanding their use to Year 2 could make sense for internal tracking.

With regards to the TAFs, it may be that schools feel that they give a good summary of key curriculum milestones for the end of KS1 and that they are clearly understood by Y2 and 3 teachers, easing transition and creating a clear starting point for KS2. If this is the case, it really could make sense to stick with them at least until a similarly clear set of criteria can be shared in their place. This could also be useful for where schools would like to be able to moderate together and maintain a shared language, whether with HFL, or as part of more locally arranged clusters.  However, it may be that schools would prefer to develop their own assessment criteria, based on their own curriculum, or purchase commercially developed criteria.  Provided these are clear and appropriately ambitious, they could be just as useful as the TAFs. 

Of course, it would be possible to proceed without any specific assessment materials at all (STA tests or other products) – after all, there is no requirement to assess specifically at the end of KS1 and surely, by following the national curriculum, we would be covering what we ‘need’ to and then with effective formative assessment and responsive teaching, teachers could be keeping track of what is secure and where gaps are. Alongside effective cross-year moderation, transition could be supported perfectly adequately. 

Saying that, we know that most schools would want some form of summative assessment to enable a form of tracking of progress as a child moves from one year-group and key stage to another. This could of course be through good teacher assessment in any form. If a school was thinking of changing to a different method of assessment, we would encourage a consideration of some key points and principles: 

• assessment should be meaningful – what assessment information is truly useful at the end of a key stage and what would support transition?
• assessment activities or tasks should be relevant to the curriculum content that has been taught – especially worth bearing in mind if purchasing assessment materials – do they fit your curriculum?
• assessment should be age-appropriate and sensitive to the needs of the child – relying on summative tests can be trickier with all, but especially young children, where teacher assessment based on a range of evidence gathered over time can create a more holistic picture
• assessment data should be honest, accurate and reliable – particularly important given that this needs to be a picture of a child’s attainment and also areas of development as they move into Year 3
• assessment data is more likely to be honest and reliable when it is used purely for informing next steps in learning or identifying key priorities, not for performance management of individuals.

When it comes to reporting to parents, ‘normal’ non-statutory year-group rules would apply. Schools would need to report general information about a child’s progress in each area of the national curriculum, but there would be no obligation to report a particular standard.  This certainly gives a nice opportunity for us to reflect on current reporting styles within our schools. Many schools go far beyond the legal requirements and include ‘standards’ (e.g., ‘EXS’, ‘ARE’, or other level-alternatives) for all year-groups and sometimes all subjects. In terms of what is useful for parents, I often wonder how much sense the labels/standards we share really make if parents aren’t familiar with what they mean, but this may be a thought possibly worth exploring in a future blog.

With the removal of any requirements regarding reporting data to the local authority and any external moderations, schools may feel that it could be tricky to validate or confirm their assessment judgements or compare their assessment outcomes to those of other schools/national picture. For schools where KS1 assessment formed a big part of their data, such as infant or first/lower schools, this may be felt particularly strongly, although based on conversations with all-through primary schools, it seems they too have an appetite for some way to reliably and comparatively assess this end of key stage. 

Given this, we will still be offering schools the option to book Year 2 moderations, where we can continue to use professional discussion to confirm assessment judgements. These could be in the summer term, as they have been previously, or indeed take a more formative form and take place earlier, e.g. in the spring term, to inform next steps in teaching. They could even be transition-focussed with Year 2 and 3 teachers involved in the dialogue. And of course, we will still be offering our Year 2 clusters, just as we will for all other year-groups (details can be found in our brochure).

We also have training available for using the optional materials from the Standards and Testing Agency that can be booked here, but also have plenty of support available for developing responsive teaching if schools wanted to shift away from focussing more on summative assessment. 

At this point it would be remiss of me to not mention that our fabulous Primary Maths and English teams have developed resources to support assessment for KS1 (and beyond). For maths, you may want to explore the Essentials diagnostic assessment resources or the end of KS1 maths assessment toolkit (available within PA+). For English, the KS1&2 Reading Toolkit is very useful indeed, as is the KS1&2 Writing Toolkit (also available within the PA+ subscription). 

If this has got all things assessment and moderation on your mind, it could be a good time for me to flag up the start of our familiar moderation cluster cycle. We are getting going with Year 6 clusters after the October half-term. There will be in-person sessions around the county as well as a couple of remote options.

Hopefully this blog has offered some useful information and thinking points for this shift in how we will be assessing Year 2. As usual, if you want to get in touch to chat or have any queries, please do – hfl.assessment@hfleducation.org

In the recent ‘Poetry in Primary Schools’ 2023 report, published by the CLPE and Macmillan, based on a survey of nearly 500 teachers, “only 38% of those felt confident about planning units of work focussed on poetry. Many cited that they felt they didn’t have enough knowledge about poetry or experience of teaching it to do so. There was a significant link to a lack of training and development in this area of literacy” (CLPE/ Macmillan, 2023).  With National Poetry Day just around the corner, this blog aims to provide some support and advice for teachers to ease any anxiety and instead experience the joy of using poetry in the classroom.

Michael Rosen states in his excellent What is Poetry? (2016) that: “Poetry belongs to all of us; everyone can read poems, make up poems or share poems with others.”  We might tend to shy away from poetry if we feel it is too demanding or difficult for children to access, but removing any notion that a reaction to a poem is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ can alleviate that concern.  One of the greatest things about writing poetry is that, depending on the form you are using, there doesn’t have to be any rules.  Of course, there are often a lot of clever things going on in a poem (see ‘poetic devices’ below, for example) but poetry is where we can encounter or write about the things that are important, fun, silly or difficult about life without worrying about the norm of writing conventions. For children, many of whom are very anxious about getting things ‘wrong’ in their reading and writing, this can be entirely freeing and empowering.

There are a few useful routes into enjoying and responding to poetry, some of which we shall highlight below.

Listening to, reading and re-reading poetry

Something to always bear in mind when reading any poem – it needs to be read aloud.  And once that has happened, it needs to be read again (and again, etc).  Sounds, rhythm and phrasing are especially important in poetry, so hearing any poem read aloud is likely to have been the intention of the poet.  Reading poems is a brilliant way to practise fluency – for example, through echo reading, paired or assisted reading and choral reading.  To quote Michael Rosen again, “Every time I’ve ever read a poem – even one of my own – reading it more than once starts to open doors for me.  It’s as if I walk into another room and find a bit more of it each time.  That’s because poems often say things in strange ways.  Reading them several times means that they become less strange” (2016, p. 85-86).

Building to a performance of the poem really helps to motivate children to read it aloud repeatedly.  Seeing poets performing poetry ‘can offer children a unique sense of feeling and engagement with a poem’ (CLPE, 2020, p. 45).  The CLPE’s website and the Children’s Poetry Archive have a wealth of videos and audio recordings that can be used in the classroom. 

We should be offering poetry within the classroom (see section below, ‘Choosing Poetry’) as something that children will choose to pick up and read for themselves.  We should aim to read poetry aloud regularly just to enjoy and hear the language at play, informally chatting about what we might think about it and our responses to it.  We might be tempted to delve straight into an analysis of a poem but try to resist this in favour of allowing children the time to consider their own reactions and emotive responses first.

There will also be occasions when you, as a teacher, will want to go into greater depth with reading poetry in a more structured way.  Here is an example of how you might do this (suitable for end of KS1 upwards), using Doug Lemov et al’s ‘Reading Reconsidered’ development of layered reading.  The old adage ‘the more you look, the more you find’ is entirely relevant to reading poetry.  Between every re-read, it is crucial to ask children to share their thoughts and generate discussion with the class about their understanding of the poem – based on what they know from a literal reading (e.g. What does that word mean?  What is happening here?) but also what they think the poem or the poet could be saying to us, as readers.  We can say to children, “I’m not sure – what do you think?” with genuine uncertainty and curiosity, as we start to probe a poem for potential hidden meanings or themes.  In this way, we can become used to asking the children questions that we, the teachers, do not know the answers to.

Layered reading of poetry – a Y3 example  

The Sound Collector © Roger McGough

Here is an example of a child’s annotations of the poem ‘The Sound Collector’ by Roger McGough. You can watch Roger reading his poem online. The three boxes that the child has drawn (and ticked) on the page are used as a reminder that they needed to actively re-read the poem (not just skim or listen to it) and tick the box for each reading.

The power of repeated reading here is in the magic that lies in the idea that we adjust our thinking about a text the more we read it.  What often starts as a very literal reading of a poem becomes a deeper discussion, where children are genuinely curious to know and understand how their peers may come to different interpretations of the same text.  This needs to be made explicit for children – we cannot read something in a vacuum; we bring to our reading the wealth of our own knowledge and experience, which are unique to us as individual readers.  

Choosing poetry:

As Charlotte Hacking states, “So how do you become a good teacher of poetry?  You read it, you respond to it, you even have a go at writing it.  But to want to do this, you have to find poetry that speaks to you, that excites you, that inspires you, and then you do the same for your children.” (‘The Power of a Rich Reading Classroom’, 2020, p.43) Children need to identify poetry as being accessible to them, interesting, fun and engaging and about the things that mean something to them.  With that in mind, children in primary school need to encounter a range of diverse poets and poetry – and here are some suggestions of poets and/or texts that we have enjoyed, plus useful resources.

Recommended poets and poetry texts (by no means an exhaustive list!):

Recommended websites to explore poetry further:

Poetry for Primary Schools — Just Imagine  (a brilliant range of suggested poetry texts from EYFS – Year 6 from Nikki Gamble)

Poetry | Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (clpe.org.uk)

National Poetry Day - the UK’s biggest mass-participation celebration of poetry

Children's Poetry Archive - Listen to the world's best children's poetry read out loud.

Poetry By Heart

Poetry Prompts | BookTrust

References:

‘Poetry in Primary Schools’ 2023 Report: Poetry in Primary Schools 2023 | Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (clpe.org.uk)

‘What is Poetry?  The Essential Guide to Reading & Writing Poems’ by Michael Rosen (2016: Walker Books)

‘The Power of a Rich Reading Classroom’ by the CLPE (2020: Corwin)

‘Reading Reconsidered:  A Practical Guide to Rigorous Literacy Instruction’ by Doug Lemov, Colleen Driggs & Erica Woolway (2016: Jossey-Bass)
 

In Spring 2023, Creswick Primary’s nursery welcomed some new arrivals in class through the ‘Eggucation’ hatching experience. 

The children were excited to arrive at school after the weekend to find seven very different looking eggs in a small incubator in the classroom. The awe and wonder as they tried to imagine what might be inside created an instant buzz in the classroom. We drew on the children’s prior knowledge about animals and life cycles to make predictions. The children made close observations in the coming days using a range of new scientific vocabulary to describe what they could see happening. 

Our hatching experience

We were lucky enough to see 6 of the 7 eggs hatches, each chick a different colour and size! This was a wonderful opportunity to talk about similarities and differences.

As the chicks grew, the children were able to help clean and care for them, putting into practise their knowledge of what an animal needs to survive and opened discussions around where and how they would live as they grew and left us.

Participating in a hatching experience opened up so many opportunities to build upon skills in other areas as well: the children drew detailed pictures of what they observed; explored mark making when writing labels; developed independence skills as they cleaned, fed and watered the chicks; and developed their personal, social and emotional skills as they cared and handled the chicks.

This engaging experience offered many opportunities to develop the children’s understanding of the world and gave them foundational knowledge to support them in both Understanding the World in Reception and Animals, including Humans in Year 1.

Our reluctant writers were writing and drawing, and our quieter children were talking! 

A learning opportunity for the whole school

Not only was the hatching experience great for understanding the world in Early Years but children from across the school visited the class and great links were made to science learning in many year groups. The opportunity to explore the different types of chicks we had hatched was a real-life opportunity for our Year 6 classes to explore inheritance; our Year 2 to experience life cycles in action and our Year 1 children to compare the baby chicks to their adult. 

Things to consider

When we first discussed the idea of taking part in a hatching experience as a team, some of the staff were reluctant and worried about how ethical the process was. Therefore, we did some research and chose a company that prides themselves on being an ethical school hatching service.

1. All eggs came from a rare breed as part of a conservation programme.
2. All eggs and the chicks remained property of the company and were returned to their farm at the end of the process.

3. We shared this process with our parents, and it became a teaching point for the children, plus we had the pleasure of hatching some very unusual looking chicks and were very excited that one of our eggs was blue!
    

   

    

4. We had to ensure there was a space for the chicks where the children could see them, but we also gave them the space and quiet they needed. We had them for two weeks and the chicks were taken home by a member of staff over the weekend, this was part of our agreement with the company.
5. All resources (feed and bedding) were provided by the company but there was an expectation that we signed a contract to replace anything that might get damaged. The children were very respectful and listened carefully to rules and boundaries put in place to ensure the experience was successful for all involved.

In summary, it is definitely something we will be doing again! This experience not only enhanced our science curriculum but also allowed our children the opportunity to experience nature and see what they had been learning about in a real-life context.

For information on Health and safety related to hatching chicks, please see CLEAPSS guide P003 Incubating and hatching chicks.

Voices from the Classroom

Our new blog series, Voices from the Classroom, allows primary science teachers to share particularly effective practical experiences they have had with their classes. It’s a great way to showcase what your school is doing and written guidance and examples are available for those of you wishing to participate.

If this is something you would be interested in participating in, please e-mail Charlotte Jackson charlotte.jackson@hfleducation.org