Helping children to flex their comprehension muscles on the best texts we can find - those that not only delight, amaze, and intrigue but that align well with the challenge featured in the test – will ensure that the knowledge and skills pupils have honed throughout their primary years are applied confidently during the timed test. Getting the pitch right therefore is key.

Selecting fiction texts in line with ARE has been helped by the publication of HFL Education’s Assessing with Age-Related Texts (AART) document. This is a unique reading assessment resource illustrating what ‘age-relatedness’ looks like at the end of years 3-6, as children move beyond book bands and reading schemes. Many teachers are finding this resource invaluable in helping them to refine their understanding of what constitutes a well-pitched fiction text for year groups across KS2.

You can find further details, including a video that explores this document, as well as others exploring the wider HFL Education KS1-KS2 Reading Tooolkit.

This blog is designed to complement this existing resource by offering an insight into the challenge presented by differing types of non-fiction texts.

By analysing the non-fiction texts that have featured in KS2 Reading SATs past papers, teachers can begin to build up a holistic understanding of the level of challenge presented in the test. Armed with this knowledge, teachers can engage pupils with texts of comparable complexity in the lead up to the SATs providing them with ample practise of tackling similar challenge in advance of the test day.

The KS2 Reading SATs consists of 3 texts comprising a range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry – although not all appear every year and not in that order. The texts are designed to move from most accessible (text 1) to most challenging (text 3). Since 2016 (when the test became more demanding), the past papers have featured a non-fiction text in positions 1-3, thus enabling an exploration of each text to gain an understanding of the features that constitute increasing challenge, according to the Standards & Testing Agency.

What follows is an analysis of the non-fiction texts that have featured in SATs papers from 2016 to 2019. Teachers should use this analysis to cross reference with the texts they are exploring with their pupils in the run-up to the KS2 SATs. In order to prepare pupils effectively for the KS2 reading test, it is helpful if children have encountered and explored - to varying degrees as appropriate - texts that contain many, if not all, of the features identified.

The Giant Panda Bear (2018)

Text position 1 – most accessible pitch

Features of the text:

• fairly standard, prototypical text type - non chronological report;
• consistent use of simple present tense throughout;
• simple sub-headings clearly indicate the content of the paragraph, including the use of single-word headings e.g. ‘Appearance’, ‘Habitat’, ‘Diet’;
• short paragraphs – approx. 4-5 sentences per paragraph;
• majority of sentences begin with the noun relating to the main subject of the text e.g. ‘the panda’ or use of a pronoun (they) in its place;
• some limited use of fronted adverbials to start sentences e.g. ‘In the wild, their main diet is bamboo.’
• most sentences follow a predicable pattern e.g. noun + verb + complement (Giant pandas have…/ Panda bears are…/Newborn cubs weigh…)
• greater reliance on coordinating conjunctions rather than subordinating conjunctions (limited range of subordinating conjunctions used e.g. where, which, as because).

Swimming the English Channel (2017)

Text position 2 – middle challenge pitch

Features of the text:

• mixed text type: biography; recount; Q & As; report;
• large chunks of text with limited use of subheadings to introduce new topics/sections;
• increasing variety of sentence constructions: 55% percent of sentences begin with a noun: most other sentences begin with a fronted adverbial e.g. ‘Nearly twenty-seven hours later…’/’In fact…’/’It must be said…’;
• some use of figurative/literary language e.g. idioms, metaphor and simile (the lone swimmer);
• cohesion is created through synonymous references to the same subject, moving beyond the simple use of the main noun or pronoun e.g. the lone swimmer/the exhausted man.

Fact Sheet: About Bumblebees (2019)

Text position 2 – middle challenge pitch

Features of the text:

• mixed text type: report; persuasion; explanation;
• attempt at humouring the reader e.g. ‘Bumblebees will never interrupt your picnic or steal your sandwiches!’
• sub-headings break up the text but vary in construction e.g. questions; commands; noun phrases (Save our bees/ Did you know that bumblebees have smelly feet?/ Buzz Pollination);
• some use of figurative/literary language e.g. idioms, metaphor and simile (a lifeline/ Don’t bee confused)
• widening range of subordinating conjunctions used to extend sentences (e.g. because, that, which, so, when, if);
• cohesion is created through several synonymous references to the same subject, moving beyond the simple use of the main noun or pronoun e.g. bumblebees/fat, furry little creatures/hardworking pollinators.

The Way of the Dodo (2016)

Text position 3 – most challenging pitch

Features of the text:

• no sub-headings;
• use of a variety of sentence constructions: only 40% percent of sentences begin with a noun/pronoun;
• regular use of long, complex sentence constructions: 50% of sentences contain 3 or more clauses;
• limited use of coordinating conjunctions; reliance on use of subordinating conjunctions (45% coordinating conjunctions; 55% subordinating conjunctions)
• considerable use of literary language e.g. idioms, metaphor and simile (easy pickings/ slipped into the pages/ wiped out/ in a new light/ offered themselves up/ brought its fate upon itself);
• increased use of nominalisation (turning verbs or adjectives into nouns or noun phrases) used frequently throughout the piece e.g. disappearance, thirst, suffocation, discovery, indication.

In summary, the most accessible text is a prototypical example of a commonly encountered text type (non-chronological report). This is the sort of reading material often planned into the Year 2 curriculum (and regularly revisited thereafter), with pupils given multiple opportunities to read reports about various topics, often animals, and write their own reports about a topic of choice. The sub-headings aid the reader through their clarity and relevance to the information grouped beneath. Within the most accessible text, the sentence structure is mainly predictable and repeated and most often follows a standard pattern: noun +verb +complement. There is some limited use of fronting clauses/adverbials before the main clause. Sometimes a sentence will begin with a pronoun rather than a noun but due to the limited range of subjects referred to within the piece, it is relatively easy for the reader to keep track of the topic/subject in question.

More challenging non-fiction texts can be characterised by less regular use of subheadings to guide the reader. Where sub-headings are used, they may vary in format, style and purpose. These texts often present a hybrid of text types. Sentence structure begins to vary in more challenging non-fiction texts. Sentences often begin with a fronted adverbial, meaning that key info is delayed which has an impact on the reader’s ability to grasp the topic until they have got some way through the sentence and discovered the subject. Cohesion is created within and across paragraphs through the increased use of connecting adverbs, as well as the use of synonymous references to the main subject, or subjects, within the piece. Synonymous references to the subject are often through extended noun phrases rather than single words e.g. fat, furry little creatures. The most notable difference between the most accessible text and more challenging non-fiction examples is in the increased use of literary language, specifically the inclusion of figurative language, including idioms and metaphors. The world of fiction and non-fiction writing collide in more challenging texts. Humour can also feature - in the text examples outlined above, this is evident with the inclusion of a pun (‘Don’t bee confused!’)

In the most challenging non-fiction texts, the average sentence length increases in line with the regular use of multi-clause sentences; the reader moves from one long sentence to another long sentence with little respite. Most notably, literary language is used liberally throughout the most challenging non-fiction texts to create detail, depth and imagery for the reader. Sub-headings are often omitted and readers have to work hard to summarise as they read, teasing out factual detail from often quite lengthy noun phrases. Cohesion is created across a number of paragraphs with multiple subjects being referred to in multiple ways forcing the reader to keep track of several concepts across the piece. Nominalisation – the process of changing verbs to nouns - is also a more prominent feature of the most challenging text. This grammatical process is a feature of academic writing and makes the text appear more formal. The use of repeated nominalisation can tire the reader as they must unravel the meaning of a single word that would, in an easier text, be expressed as a more accessible verb chain, using, most probably, a more commonly encountered verb e.g.

Original version from the 2016 text ‘The Way of the Dodo’:

‘The very fact that the dodo was still alive and well on Mauritius 4,000 years after a drought that claimed the lives of thousands of animals is an indication (noun) of the bird’s ability (noun) to survive.’

Amended version removing nominalisation:

The very fact that the dodo was still alive and well on Mauritius 4,000 years after a drought that claimed the lives of thousands of animals indicates/shows/demonstrates/proves (verb) that the bird’s was able to (verb chain) survive…harsh conditions’

Although nominalisation does feature in the more accessible texts, it is used less frequently. Of particular note is that even though nominalisation often reduces word count (a verb chain is reduced to a single word/or fewer words e.g. ‘was able to’ becomes ‘ability to’) the average sentence length remains high in the most challenging text (see below); this reaffirms the challenge that readers face when tackling the hardest texts – each sentence contains a great deal of information meaning that there is a lot for the reader to work through and retain. In summary, it is the combination of more challenging grammatical features, alongside their frequency, paired with the lack of navigational features, such as headings, that creates the cumulative challenge in the hardest non-fiction text presented in the KS2 Reading SATs test.

Quick comparison guide:

The intention of this guidance document is to support teachers to gain a clearer insight into what constitutes challenge in the non-fiction texts that have appeared as part of the KS2 Reading SATs since 2016.

For further support in preparing pupils for the KS2 Reading SATs, please do explore our linked blogs:

Reflections from analysis of the 2019 KS2 reading SATs: part 1

Reflections from analysis of the 2019 KS2 reading SATs: part 2

Reflections from analysis of the 2019 KS2 reading SATs: part 3

Reflections from analysis of the 2019 KS2 reading SATs: part 4

The very short read for the time-pressed teacher

Now, more than ever, time is of the essence.  And in teaching that is really, really saying something.  Time is not exactly our most reliable or accommodating friend, especially when we have whiplash, what-day-of-the-week-is-it-now U Turns to contend with.   With this in mind, I am approaching this blog strategically. We could all do with as much strategic thinking as we can get at the moment. So, I am cutting to the chase and sharing the resource that underpins this blog upfront. 

You can read on if you choose to. Section two makes some recommendations of great individual stories, and also offers some suggestions for how to get the most out of others.  Section three goes a bit deeper and offers a rationale for prioritising the sharing of short stories, and considers the place of them across the primary phase, and as part of your reading provision/offer. But if you just want to take the book list and run, here it is, a specially updated list of really rather good short story collections for primary-aged children:  

Some titles are more mature than others – be it in terms of reading challenge or nature of content.  This is explicitly noted in the list.  Please preview prior to sharing in class.

The medium length read: some recommendations and suggestions

For readers of all ages, Janet and Allan Ahlberg are giants in the field of (short) storytelling. Good stories, well told. Simple. As. That.  I must thank Jo Bowers, Principal Lecturer in Primary Ed and Associate Dean at Cardiff Metropolitan University, for introducing me to The Clothes Horse, their wonderfully inventive collection.  My personal favourite from the book is the ridiculously charming Life Savings.  I think the learning opportunities, in terms of follow up discussion and thoughtfulness, will speak for themselves. You'll be left with a priceless image to hang onto every time you see some unexpectedly childish behaviour from those allegedly old enough to know better.   The collection is small, but perfectly formed. Now the less positive news. As far as I can tell, it is not currently in print, so I had some reservations about sharing it.  But it is too good not to. You can buy it used – get in there quick. (Quicker!) You can also join me in mounting a campaign to get it back in print.    Allow your young readers/listeners to soak up the storytelling voice that runs through each story, much as it does across their other works.

For readers in lower key stage 2, I would highly recommend Wild Stories by Colin Thompson.  This is another book that is not always available through the most convenient channels.  Please don't give up if you only see an expensive option.  You should be able to order this as an import.  It is a collection of gems. Quirky and beautifully written, it is a series of linked stories  set in a neglected garden as it turns wild following its owner’s departure. There is so much to recommend about this book, and its varied offering of poems and short stories, but one aspect that really struck me was the ways by which we come to have a real sense of place.  I probably don’t need to explicitly state the grammar elements that support this, so I won’t.  They take up enough space elsewhere, but if you are looking for some rich examples of how time, place, mood and atmosphere are conjured into being, look no further.  My personal favourite selection is Sid the Mosquito, as well as the book’s opening sections. 

Our Reading Fluency Project team have previously shared their own recommended shorter reads – just right for a session devoted to developing prosodic or performance reading. You can catch up with these here:

KS1 selections 

KS2 selections 

And most recently, KS3

From this later blog, Spells for home by Stephanie Burgis from The Book of Hope: words and pictures to comfort, inspire and entertain, has one particular story recommended for use to develop phrased, expressive reading. You can find an online edition of The Book of Hopes.

Once Upon a Place, is probably my personal favourite of the collections, though it faces some stiff competition.  It may be a personal bias in that it gathers a bevy of Irish writers, but it might just be  because it is brilliant, with a range of story genres (and poetry) for readers in Upper KS2.  To seal the deal, PJ Lynch’s beautifully crafted illustrations appear throughout.   The opening story, Gren’s Ghost gets things going nicely. Colleagues have shared it to very good response and effect in years 5 and 6.  Just to be clear though, despite the fact that I am about to refer to another ghost story from this book, it offers a range of genres. I might just mention the poem Bus Stop - I have taught this in several year 5 classes now and the discussion has blown me away each time.  One or two phrases or concepts need a little bit of live scaffolding, then watch the ripples of insight radiate wider and wider. 

My personal recommendation from Once Upon A Place works well with complementary books and other texts. Stream Time by Oisín McGann is another ghost story of a kind – a most unusual kind.  Read this for a fresh spin on a tale of the undead, packed with voice and framed in the most unusual way. You will certainly want to explore and discuss the choices that inform its narration. Having shared the story, consider opening up the ideas and themes of the story by sharing the more recent The Haunted Lake, an appropriately haunting picturebook that also benefits from the artwork of P J Lynch. Here though, Lynch also provides the words – and there are plenty of them forming an entrancing, hypnotic tale.  This is a short story vividly drawn in both word and picture. Draw out the thematic links and points at which the two stories reflect one another and then note the ways in which they differ. You will quickly see the ways in which the Haunted Lake shares murky waters with Stream Time. Given the themes that we have now opened up, go deeper still by moving onto David Almond and Levi Pinfold’s The Dam. It’s a brilliant book. Consider in particular the fabled “flooded” homesteads that surround The Dam and how this concept is mirrored overtly in The Haunted Lake.   Weaving these thematic threads across a series of rich reading episodes will deepen thinking as it develops conceptual, thematic and emotional understanding.

Nikki Gamble’s Story Shop contains  – amongst many other gems – Ray Bradbury’s brilliant All Summer in a Day. This story – like all others – is very much more than a grammar exemplar.  It offers up stunning writing, challenges children’s preconceptions of what good writing actually looks like, and then the ending thoroughly messes with their moral compasses. Another great story shared here is Nule by the uncannily good and much-missed Jan Mark.  Mark deserves her own paragraph and more but let me just finish this paragraph with a clear warning: no matter your age, no matter your capacity for rationality, do not read Nule if you have a certain type of bannister and you are about to settle down for the night.

Remaining with Jan Mark, last year a fantastic – and in places challenging – collection of her stories was gathered.  The One that Got Away is a joy of razor sharp characterisation, acute dialogue, and some very effective stings-in-the-tails.  Nule appears here too. However, the final selling point I want to highlight is just how enjoyable and thought-provoking some of Mark’s stories are for teachers. The One That Got Away is three pages of educational bliss. But it’s The Choice is Yours that I really want to recommend.  Bit-by-bit, exchange-after-exchange, a small heartbreak builds. It’s a back-and-forth kind of story with one unfortunate child trapped in a to-and-fro between adult agendas.  Characterisation is forensic across line-by-line perfection.  And the ending is quietly, mundanely devastating. 

The longer read: rhyme and reason

Why do I think short stories are worthy of consideration as a strand of your reading provision and a thread woven across or around your curriculum for literature? If we are short of time, it makes sense to shorten the reads.  And I don’t just mean the immediate here-and-now of time and task management, and the contextual pressures of  our responses during lockdown.  Each child that we teach has one reading journey unique to them.  Some will be brim-full of all kinds of genres, styles, concepts, characters and all those wonderful words that conjure them into a mental life.  Some might be reliant on the reading journey that we map out.  There’s little more rewarding than the shared journey through a good novel - I remember this from my own childhood (Antonia Barber’s The Ghosts in particular, thank you Mrs Jessop) and from reading aloud to my class (Coraline was collective reading at its best – not for the delicate).  But then there are only so many novels that we can get through across the year that we have a particular class of children.  Novellas can help to extend the range of reading encountered in our story time sessions and there have been some crackers in recent years (perhaps another blog). Short stories can extend this range further still, and so much of the finest writing comes distilled.

For now, this sharing of great stories might be a short blast delivered through online read aloud sessions. However, I’d ask you to consider, if you haven’t already, whether there is a space in your (more usual) curriculum to offer a provision or spine of high quality, short stories. A good short story will likely have benefits for all readers across the years, across the phases. They provide a singular, contained, and complete reading experience, and the effect may well be profound in terms of developing a sense of narrative structures. Still the benefits run far deeper than that.  Stories are so important in learning, in the acquisition, reshaping, and expression of all kinds of knowledge.  A story that subtly makes use of stylistic features can influence writing without you highlighting it.  Carve out space for your reader-writers to read/mull/absorb and the benefits will most likely come to the fore in due course.  This does not all have to happen within the confines of the classroom and amidst the pressures of the timetable.  Reading a powerful, thought-provoking story at home will likely go down far better than usual home-reading routines for our more reluctant readers.

Done well, short stories are a tightly effective form, just like poetry, and they are perfect when time is short.  I think they have a major, sometimes underdeveloped, part to play in schools. I’ve written elsewhere about the powerful contribution that short stories have to make. In that blog I shared a quote from Graham Greene I like the central point of the quote, though his choice of pronoun needs some thought, so here it is:

“With a novel, which takes perhaps years to write, the author is not the same man he was at the end of the book as he was at the beginning. It is not only that his characters have developed–he has developed with them, and this nearly always gives a sense of roughness to the work: a novel can seldom have the sense of perfection which you find in Chekhov’s story, The Lady with the Dog.”

Graham Greene

This perfection or, to go to the Latin roots, this completeness is one selling point.  The satisfaction of knowing how things turn out – or even sometimes the frustration of when things either don’t turn out how we hoped or turn out in ways that ask us to fill in some gaps. This – as much as a laugh, a scare, or a moment of sadness - is writing that affects and so is writing for effect exemplified in the most powerful way.  Another selling point is that with a well-designed spine of short stories, mapped across the years, as a minimum entitlement, we can ensure that we offer up a diverse range of styles, forms and voices. Enriched readers are all the more likely to be rich writers. To quote Debra Myhill, we further enhance the potential to write with a consciousness of “infinite possibilities” only here we not only mean in terms of word , phrase or clause level choices, but also whole text level awareness of the possibilities of writing to change how we think, feel, and how we perceive the world around us.  Which, when we think about it, describes teaching. Sharing well-chosen, well-delivered short stories, amongst all the other things I have offered, is good teaching.  And it’s as simple – and brilliantly complex – as that.

A postscript on developing writing that meets the GDS standard

Way back in 2018, I wrote a blog that was focused on setting up a new series of blogs to support the development of writing that could be judged as satisfying the GDS standard set out for Year 6. It aimed to do so through means that we might consider timelessly good English teaching, rather than any kind of statutory hoop-jumping or feature cramming.  Instead it was going to look at some key ingredients that I believed were most likely to support the development of what we might consider to be good writing, and  - because you are teachers working in a particular system with a considerable dash of accountability – would also support in meeting this specific marker of writing attainment.

This blog on short stories reflects part of the intended blog (under the first heading below) relating to reading mileage.  I think reading mileage is often thought about in terms of either overall volume of words or books consumed, and perhaps not so often the range and diversity of styles and voices we encounter. The unique destinations that those miles lead us to, through, and beyond.   A good short story spine offers a whistle stop tour to all manner of new and exciting places. Just remember to send us a postcard. 

To wrap up, I’ve included an outline of the proposed blogs as a renewed commitment to completing the series, for when the times are right.

Here are the intended focus areas:

Reading mileage: distance and destinations the provision of a rich, broad and deep reading diet.

The importance of oracy This has always been critically important but I am hopeful that recent books by Robin Alexander and Isabel Beck, Margaret Mckeown, and Cheryl Sandora will relight the fuse for dialogic practice. The skilled management of classroom dialogue about written language can be extremely powerful in enhancing both reading and writing, as well as talk itself.

The Writer's Workshop: crafting and redrafting – the move to reduce written marking and to explore the potential of more immediate feedback has opened a new window for the processes associated with writing conferencing as described by Donald Graves and others back in the eighties.

Time is (it) on your side (?): making space to read, think and write – this speaks for itself;  time will always be our enemy so forging connections across various modes of literacy instruction will support us in maximising the learning gains from our time/effort input.

Different voices; different lives – here we will consider how we can develop voice and register drawing upon concepts, models and practices that are currently perhaps not as well-known as they should be.

Cohesion - wherever (and whenever) we go - here we will look at the central importance of cohesion, and how a well-developed grasp of chronological writing supports not only clarity in writing, but the ability to reshape, reform and - where appropriate, and where we dare - bend and distort our writing for particular effect.  I will no doubt mention verbs at some point. Graves will get a look in once more.  As will Barrs and Cork's The Reader in the Writer.  They're all rather handy.

Schools “shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality“.

Schools shall not "promote the teaching… of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship“.

How do those statements make you feel? Do you think that is reasonable?

In 1967, homosexuality was legalized in England and Wales. To me, this is shocking in itself – that homosexuality wasn’t legal until well after both of my parents had been born. You’d have thought this would be a turning point in history. In some respects it was, but progress is never straight-forward.

In 1988, Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government enacted Section 28 (also sometimes referred to as Clause 28) to ‘prohibit the promotion of homosexuality by local authorities’. The statements at the beginning of this blog come from that piece of legislation. This meant that by law, teachers were not allowed to teach or talk about homosexual relationships.

At the time, Margaret Thatcher said: "Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay. All of those children are being cheated of a sound start in life."

I would argue, that for those children who did grow up to be gay, this piece of legislation is what cheated them out of a sound start in life.

Shockingly, this legislation remained law until 2003. For me, and thousands like me, who went to school during this time and were gay, it meant that we could never be ourselves. We weren’t valid in society. We were second-class citizens. Although I didn’t really know I was gay until my mid-teens (because I didn’t have the vocabulary or knowledge to be able to articulate who I was due to lack of education), I always knew I was different somehow and I was ashamed. I spent the majority of my childhood feeling different from everyone else and feeling ashamed of who I was. I remember wishing that I could just be ‘normal’. Throughout my school life, I was bullied at various times and by the time I reached secondary school, I figured it was easier to keep quiet and keep my head down. To try not to stand out and to try and stay away from the majority of my peers who I perceived as threats at the time. I was still met with jeers and taunts regularly. Being called ‘gay’ as an insult was commonplace and it was accepted. This was life. This was normal. I wasn’t.

Even after Section 28 had been repealed, it left a legacy. In my second year of teaching, I remember being summoned to the Head’s office. He had been informed – by anxious parents – that there were rumours in the playground that I was gay. He stated that he had no problem with this at all, but advised me, very firmly, to keep my private life and my professional life separate. This issue was then never spoken of again. This was 2011 – eight years after section 28 had finally been repealed.

In retrospect, I’m angry. I’m livid. Throughout my life I was made to feel as if I were an embarrassment. I was made to feel like I was abnormal and, worst of all, I felt alone. However, I was also lucky: I had and still have a very loving and supportive family. I had good friends at school – without whom life could have been far worse. In fact, I probably owe far more to my friends and family then I could ever know. But what happened to the children who were not as lucky as me? I am sure that there were thousands of children during those years who were totally alienated from society, who felt abnormal, who felt ashamed and who felt alone. All this – in large part - from one piece of legislation which, in my opinion, caused more destruction than we can possibly imagine.

So you may be wondering, why raise this now? This is in the past – shouldn’t we focus on the future?

Well, yes, but the impact of Section 28, I would argue, still lives on. According to the Stonewall School Report of 2017:

• 45% of LGB students are bullied at school, including 64% of trans students
• 61% of LGBT+ young people have self-harmed
• 45% of young trans people have attempted to take their own life
• 53% of LGBT+ students say there isn’t an adult at school they feel they can talk to

Read the full report: The experiences of lesbian, gay, bi and trans young people in Britain’s schools in 2017

Although, undoubtedly, things are improving since the dark days of the 1980’s and 1990’s, it is clear that bullying is still commonplace and there is still far more we need to do – as educators – to support our young people. That may be an obvious statement to make and one which – I hope – the majority of people would agree with. However, we mustn’t underestimate the impact of section 28 on those who are now educators and identify as LGBTQ+ – people like me. We are the people who suffered its effects both during and beyond this time, and perhaps, for many of us, it left a greater mark than we would like to acknowledge.

Although, in many schools now (though not all), teachers are encouraged to be open and to be role-models, that is still a big step to take. When I was working in my last school, I was open with staff but I never came out to the children. I had a rule with myself for some time that if I was ever asked by a child directly, I would be honest, but no-one ever did. When I think back, that’s hardly surprising really – I’m not sure many primary aged children would ever ask their teacher outright whether they were gay. I often had children ask me whether I was married or whether I had a girlfriend and I never used that as an opportunity to open that discussion. Why? Because I was afraid. I wasn’t particularly afraid of what the children would say – I find most of them to be very open minded and accepting. Mostly I was afraid of parental reaction – they can be more of an unknown quantity. Do you remember the protests that originated in Birmingham in 2019 because of the No Outsiders project started by Andrew Moffat?

Read more about the Birmingham LGBT teaching row: How did it unfold?

To me, this shows that we still have work to do. If nothing else, this made me think that I have to get out of my comfort zone, stand up and be counted. There seems to be a much bigger swing towards the inclusion of LGBTQ+ people within the curriculum now from Early Years right the way through the education system. There are many more books which depict LGBT characters and the government have made it a requirement to teach about same-sex relationships in the new RSE curriculum. Finally, nearly 20 years since section 28 has been repealed, we are beginning to actively teach about LGBT+ people and validate the contribution they have made to society for generations. My hope is that with this increased visibility, more educators – like me – will feel able to stand up, be visible and become those role-models which we never had when we were at school. We now have the chance to usualise LGBTQ+ people and if we do that, surely we will have a much more tolerant and respectful society in the future. Books like ‘Big gay adventures in education’, edited by Daniel Tomlinson-Gray are of such huge help and comfort to people like myself – to know that we aren’t alone. However, as Daniel says in his chapter, ‘we need heterosexual allies if we are ever to reach a place where all LGBT+ young people can feel safe and included in their school communities’.

Section 28 has left an indelible mark on education. A shameful stain which has cost lives. However, things are changing and we all need to be brave. We need to bring about this change faster so that all young people feel safe and validated. No child should feel alone or abnormal because of who they are.

Despite a greater focus on spelling in schools, some children are still at risk of not making the expected standard because of gaps in their spelling knowledge. It seems that some pupils still struggle to retain and apply what has been taught, especially the content of the Y5/6 spelling expectations. Often, these children do not have the firm foundations of the previous year groups’ spelling content on which to build. Additionally, they do not seem to see any analogies between words, or patterns that appear across words, but instead, they view each word as a new and unique entity. Conversely, we can all think of children who just know how to spell a word after first exposure to it - they even seem able to spell words they have never met before.  One might question whether these children are visual learners with a phenomenal memory for individual words or whether they have actually got a very efficient scheme for sorting, grouping and storing words in their long term memory. With thousands of words to assimilate and remember, perhaps all children need to be taught the most efficient way to organise their spelling knowledge ready for access ‘on demand’.

In order to support children with this knowledge organisation, it is imperative that spelling lessons are not simply given over to practising sets of words, as is often the case. Instead, time must be prioritised to teach the patterns, conventions and rules so that children can apply this knowledge to new words.  Once an original GPC (grapheme phoneme correspondence) has been learned for the 44 sounds in the English language, learners will be shown alternative ways to represent these sounds in spelling.  New learning should build on prior learning. For example, children have learnt ‘ee’ for feel but now learn that some words are spelt with ‘ea’ like cream.  Attention should be drawn to patterns and analogies so that children can best predict which version to use. For example, ea often follows an r or t or precedes an m e.g. scream, dream, team or tease.

Likewise, connections to existing knowledge should be supported by reminding children of what they already know. For example, if children are secure with the Y1 knowledge that the digraph ‘oy’ is found at the end of syllables such as boy or toy but that the same phoneme is spelt ‘oi’ when in the middle of a syllable like join and boil, they can also spell annoy or destroy as well as embroiled or boiler. If a child can articulate this knowledge, there is a good chance that s/he can apply it to unfamiliar words and have a better chance of spelling them correctly. It is feasible that children who are confident spellers are creating a schema in their minds: new learning is assimilated and stored within the appropriate section. If a child is supported to remember the pattern or convention pertaining to a section, they have fewer facts to remember than if they are trying to remember each word individually. However, frequent recall of that pattern is essential to build this into the long term memory and facilitate recall.

Connection building should not stop with KS1 phonics. At a glance, the Y5/6 spelling list seems to be a random collection of unconnected words. They could be grouped according to theme, or grouped broadly into spelling patterns such as ‘words containing silent letters’, or simply given to children in batches of ten or so words at a time, for them to practise and learn. But can they be linked to prior learning in order to add to a child’s internalised spelling schema?

Let’s take the first word on the list: accommodation. If you give children this word to learn, they may well remember it for a test on Friday. If you teach children a mnemonic for this such as ‘there is room for two c’s and two m’s in accommodation’ then they may well be able to recall the correct spelling of this word when they need it. But how often will they need it? Will the mnemonic be forgotten or muddled by the time the word is next employed? If however, you teach children that a consonant is generally doubled if it appears immediately after a short vowel (such as the short a and first o in accommodation) then a pupil will not only know how to spell this word, but over twenty more that use this convention in the Y5/6 list alone, as well as hundreds of others that they use in their day to day writing.

The ‘doubling after a short vowel’ convention is a handy trick to have up your sleeve.  It’s also one that many primary pupils seem oblivious to, as I tend to see lack of doubling (and sometimes doubling where it is not required) as a common spelling issue across key stage 2. The words affected range from two syllable words ending in -y such as happy or in –le such as middle, to adding suffixes for words such as dropped or swimming, all the way through to multi-syllabic words such as disappeared or opportunity. When questioned, many children are unable to articulate the ‘rule’ of doubling and yet this is something that is taught in reception (less, puff, ill) and Y1 (puppy/ jelly vs baby/ lady) and then again in Y2 (where you need to be able to decide whether to double up in jungle or puddle, jumping or skipping). It stands to reason that regular revisiting of this convention would consolidate prior knowledge and give children a much firmer foundation on which to add the Year 5/6 statutory words that follow.

Clearly, to know whether to double a consonant or not is an essential piece of knowledge and that is why these conventions are introduced in KS1. The same must be said of spelling statements pertaining to the various –le endings or the addition of suffixes. However, many spelling schemes seem to ignore (or at best give scant notice to) the very first statement in each national curriculum spelling appendix, which clearly states that children should revise work done in previous years. At the head of the Y3/4 programme of study for example, it advises: Revision of work from years 1 and 2. Pay special attention to the rules for adding suffixes. In general, most schemes focus on age related expectations, assuming prior teaching has been retained for good. However, if you have a child in Y6 who is still spelling hopeful with a double l or families with a y, then the chances are that he or she has forgotten all about the Y2 programme of study from four years ago. Hence my initial point about tracking back to build on prior learning and providing opportunities for spaced recall of that learning. Indeed, for some children, the Y2 programme of study may have eluded them altogether. Many of the suffixes such as –ment, -less or –ness are requirements for children working at the greater depth standard, so there is a good chance that some children may have been working on earlier spelling priorities or trying to secure early phonics at the time, and have never really been taught these conventions.

The 2019 GPS paper has once again had a heavy focus on words from the Y3/4 programme of study, thus reinforcing the idea that prior learning needs to be revisited. However, if children have gaps in spelling knowledge pertaining to the Y2 programme of study, then even tracking back to Y3/4 may not be enough.  There are few words that rely solely on one KS2 spelling pattern. For example, although the word thoughtful was included with reference to the Y5/6 spelling words containing the letter string –ough, children will also need to know the Y2 teaching of adding the suffix –ful. Similarly, the mark scheme refers to the Y3/4 suffix knowledge –ous for the word generous but children will also need to know about the soft g (/dʒ/) from Y2.  As the Y2 spelling programme of study seems to form the bedrock of spelling in KS2, it is wise to allow time to revisit it as much as possible during the first term of each year. For a full analysis of the 2019 spelling paper, please see the attached document:

To conclude, a systematic shoring up of the foundations of spelling knowledge, aided by strategies to secure retention will help children with gaps in their spelling. The first step is the identification of the gaps to enable tracking back to prior learning. The following ‘track back’ documents from HFL Education are designed to show teachers how the spelling statements link and build, thus aiding planning and differentiation. Click on the respective image for further information:

You have likely stumbled upon or explored Barak Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction. If not, we would recommend reading this superb article which was the first to comprehensively bring these principles to mainstream educators. It will undoubtedly resonate, and many of you will be saying to yourself, as we did, ‘I’m sure I already do plenty of this in my day to day classroom practice.’ It’s reassuring then, to know that these principles of instruction are built upon robust research:

‘research on how the mind acquires and uses information, the instructional procedures that are used by the most successful teachers, and the procedures invented by researchers to help students learn difficult tasks’.

When teaching reading and writing across the primary phase, we will find ourselves calling upon each of these 10 principles at various points within lessons and across sequences of lessons. Spelling does often come to mind though, when considering which aspect of the English curriculum relies more heavily on memory. When creating the ESSENTIALspelling scheme for Y2-Y6, we wanted to create something which explicitly drew upon what we now knew about effective instruction and learning, reflecting the insights of Rosenshine, and others. We wanted to come away from teaching children to memorise lists of words for spelling tests, and move towards teaching children to internalise and understand our spelling system, enabling them to build words from a knowledge of how to do so, rather than attempting to draw from a memorised list.

We wanted children to be able to apply this knowledge into their independent writing. Rosenshine states that, “Education involves helping a novice to develop strong, readily accessible background knowledge. It’s important that background knowledge be readily accessible, and this occurs when knowledge is well-rehearsed and tied to other knowledge.”

Tom Sherrington’s ‘Rosenshine’s Principles in Action’ is an extremely helpful publication, in which he explores each of the principles, providing useful examples. He states that ‘We organise information into schemata. Typically, new information is only stored if we can connect it to knowledge that we already have.’ So children need to access prior learning, not just for its own sake, but with the express intent of building upon that knowledge as a secure foundation.

For spelling instruction to be successful then, this idea must be harnessed; we must remind children of all that they know about a particular convention or phoneme, and build on that knowledge. For instance, when teaching children that the /dʒ/ phoneme is sometimes spelt dge in words like fudge, and dodge, we must first remind them that they already know that j spells /dʒ/ in jam and sometimes /dʒ/ is spelt with a g in words like giant and giraffe. Now we are carefully and deliberately building up a schema in the minds of the children, which will stick. Starting new learning from a point of drawing on existing knowledge also grows self-awareness, self-esteem and independence. ‘I knew more than I realised!’

We will explore how each of Rosenshine’s Principles might be considered and applies when teaching spelling and its place in the widely used spelling sequence of Review, Teach, Practice and Apply, as illustrated in the screenshot of one of our ESSENTIALspelling plans here:

1. Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning: daily review can strengthen previous learning and can lead to fluent recall

Recall and review of previous learning can take various forms. A short sharp daily activity to memorise common exception words or high-frequency words that are commonly misspelt in our pupils’ books will grow automaticity and fluency with these words, which will eventually free up working memory.

The National Curriculum 2014 spelling programme of study will be familiar to us all, but far too many spelling schemes do not appear to take account of the statement underneath each and every year group heading: Revision of work from … Therefore, schools and teachers dive into the programme of study for their year group without taking stock of what may need to be revised from the previous year groups. There is little point in teaching a child to spell ‘committee’ correctly, when we see ‘untill’ appearing in their independent writing repeatedly. It is important to pick the correct battles with that revision; we would suggest revisiting higher-stakes learning (words which appear most often in the English language and which are so often misspelt).

In year 3, for example, this revision might begin with the long vowel phonemes from key stage one. As they move into key stage two, children are often still selecting the correct phoneme, but choosing to represent it with the wrong grapheme. For instance, they might spell the word ‘flake’ flaik, or flayk. This is phonetically plausible but not orthographically correct. Using the ‘best bet’ approach can help with this common error. We could tell children that -ay is the best bet for the long at the end of a word, rarely in the middle; the split a_e is often found where the final sound in the word is a k. This is knowledge that they may well have been taught, but not retained. If we acknowledge that it is unreasonable for children to spelling patterns, rules or conventions from previous weeks, terms or years, then the principle of reviewing prior learning becomes an obvious necessity. Once we have embedded this into spelling instruction, we can at once assess children’s understanding and support children to bring spelling knowledge from their short term to long-term memory.

2. Present new material in short steps with student practice after each step: our working memory can only process a few bits of information at once

When introducing a new aspect of spelling, ensure children have a chance to digest key information that will help them build words in that pattern and allow them to try out your teaching points. For example in Y5 or 6, I might explain to children that they will be learning to add the suffix that sounds like ‘shul’ and means ‘relating to’. I might offer some words that end this way such as social, facial, residential and partial, and discuss the vocabulary with the class. Already that is quite a lot of information to process. So perhaps at this stage it might be better to practise linking words to meaning and getting used to reading and recognising these words before moving on. I would probably going on to explain how we might decide whether to spell the suffix as cial or tial. I need to look at the letter that precedes the suffix. What do children notice about the words social, facial, special or artificial? Hopefully, children will spot that these words have a vowel letter followed by the suffix cial. At this point, I might invite children to predict the endings for cru- and offi- and try to spell each word. Now I might add a new nugget of information and tell them that if the root of the word ends with a vowel letter, we normally add –cial and if the root ends with a consonant, we add tial. Alternatively, I might bring in a little of principle three:

3. Ask a large number of questions and check the responses of all students

Here are a couple of questions relating to the above teaching sequence that might check understanding and encourage children to fire up connections in their minds to make the next step:

If the suffix is spelt –cial after a vowel letter, when do you think we might use the spelling –tial?

Can you tell me what the general rule for adding –tial might be?

Teachers are well versed in strategies to ensure all children are participating. A carefully structured question during a spelling sequence will offer valuable opportunities for assessment for learning. In this sequence, questions could include terminology checks such as:

• tell your partner what you understand by the terms root word, suffix, vowel and consonant
• on your whiteboard, record the word that you think means: ‘relating to the face’ and show me. Now show me the word that means ‘to do with society’.
• I will call out a word. Give me a thumbs up if you think it ends –cial and thumbs down if it ends with –tial.
• after three, I’d like you all to tell me which type of letter normally comes before the suffix –cial.
• can you summarise the two spelling conventions that you have learnt today?

Of course, every rule has words that break it and so convention is perhaps a more forgiving term when it comes to spelling. This sequence is no exception so another question you can ask students is: here are some words that don’t follow this pattern (such as financial), how might we remember this spelling? This kind of open-ended question opens up the floor to allow for children’s learning preferences to support them. Some might prefer to come up with a word mnemonic such as financial = cash and currency. Some might prefer visual prompts including colour blocking the suffix. Others yet might spot that there is a root word in there that also ends in a c- finance- and this is indeed another convention that holds true to other apparent ‘rule breakers’ such as the word commercial.

4. Provide models

This is an often-ignored teaching strategy when it comes to spelling instruction, but when included in the lesson can have a huge impact on children’s independence. Just as we might provide a running commentary as we construct a grammatically correct sentence, or explain our processing as we edit a piece of writing, we can offer children a model to apply to the construction of new words. Take the process of removing the final e from a root word before adding the suffix–ed. Articulating what you are thinking as you remove the e to avoid two es will enlighten the children who have missed the process behind the magical transformation of bake to baking for example. Furthermore, a visual model to accompany the commentary, provides a worked example that the children can emulate as they move to practise their own word building.

This form of cognitive support becomes vital as children attempt more complex spellings. Demonstrating how to break multisyllabic words up in order to spell them syllable by syllable, for example is a game-changer for less confident spellers. Rather than recording the word poisonous in one chunk, show children how you might begin by creating the first syllable pois, recognising that the diagraph oi appears in the middle of syllables, then we can add the next syllable ‘on’ and finally we add the suffix –ous which is regular in spelling. Pois/on/ous. Now model checking each syllable before moving on.

5. Guide student practice

Effective questioning is crucial for assessing student understanding during all stages of teaching, including while children are engaged in independent practice. A gentle hand on the tiller will guide and steer children towards a successful outcome and ensure the practice element of a spelling session is a worthwhile part of the learning sequence. As we stated earlier, breaking out of instruction mode to allow children to rehearse each new step is a valuable way of drip-feeding information in manageable chunks to avoid over-burdening the working memory. It also provides the children with a safe supported space in which to try out new skills and received instant feedback. They say ‘practice makes perfect’ but it can also serve to reinforce misconceptions. Keep in mind this maxim: ‘practice makes permanent’. If a child spells a word or set of words incorrectly during independent practice, they may well cement their errors and find it difficult to undo this mis-learning. Consider those high frequency words that appear throughout a piece of writing. A child whose spelling of ‘thay’ or ‘whith’ is left unchecked over the course of a lesson, a week or even a year, will have a lot of muscle memory to overturn before the correct spelling becomes habitual. Monitoring independent writing is a crucial part of guiding student practice: provide children with systematic feedback and support them to make corrections. When it comes to spelling, intervening can prevent the need for intervention.

6. Check for student understanding

By now, you’ll be seeing how these principles overlap and work harmoniously to ensure strong learning outcomes. We’ve discussed how the review part of a spelling sequence will be invaluable for reigniting past learning, firing up connections and assessing children’s understanding before they build the next layer of learning. Reviewing previous learning doesn’t mean, “Who can remember what we did last week or yesterday,” but is more about establishing what prior knowledge might be useful to today’s learning. Spelling accurately relies on so ensuring each piece of the puzzle fits together and thereby requires regular checking mechanisms along the way. Having established baseline understanding during the review part of a lesson, are the children still with you as you teach each next new step? Have you conferred with them whilst they move off for independent practice? And then as they begin to apply their knowledge and transfer skills, what level of understanding do they have now? Dictation is a useful way of checking whether the children have taken away a principle for spelling many words rather than a memory trick for one word. Going back to the example at the beginning of this blog, perhaps you have taught them that the grapheme dge appears at the end of a syllable and after a single vowel making a short vowel sound. You modelled words like fridge and budge. Can the children now apply that learning to spell bridge and fudge? What about badge or badger? Could children perhaps make up their own short sentences including any of the words they have been learning? The true testament of understanding is whether the pupil can explain what they now know about when to use this spelling pattern: discussion of learning is a fabulous way to check the child’s level of understanding. At this point, any misconceptions can be swiftly addressed and you can make a decision about where to take the learning next.

7. Obtain a high success rate during instruction

Rosenshine suggests that children need to achieve a high success rate during guided and independent practice, in order to have greater success when moving to application in a wider context: about 80% seems to show the correct balance between securing learning and being challenged. Instruction is not about trying to catch children out or providing tricky problem solving material, but instead requires stepping up the difficulty in small increments to ensure mastery of the taught material. If spelling practice does not have a high success rate, children could be reinforcing transcription errors, which they will apply in their independent writing. Furthermore, children who have fully grasped the teaching content will be better able to self-regulate and iron out any errors because they know why they went wrong. If teachers check children’s understanding along the way and adjust their content up or down to keep in line with this, then logically children’s success rate will be high.

8. Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks

Spelling is traditionally a discretely taught subject with a one size fits all approach. If children are deemed to be struggling with age-related spellings then they are often withdrawn from the lesson for an intervention rather than given ways to access the learning. Scaffolding in spelling can take a variety of forms to help the children access the learning:

1. prompts such as: How could we break this word up into smaller chunks to help us spell it? What is the rule for adding this suffix to a word? Is there a rhyme that helps us to recall this word? What other words do you know that sound like this? What do we need to check when we’ve spelt a word like this?
2. verbal modelling to help the children think through the process- the ‘expert’ might say: “When I write the plural of jelly I need to remember to take of the y and replace it with the letter i before adding es. Can you try that with the word welly?”
3. physical scaffolds such as phoneme frames or the use of sound buttons under a word to help map it out, phoneme by phoneme. If the child struggles to transcribe words clearly, magnetic or foam letters can be arranged in the phoneme frame, thus reducing cognitive load needed for the task.
4. reduce cognitive load by stripping back to one rule at a time. Instead of practising all the different rules for adding the suffix –ly, the child will focus on adding –ly to a word with no change to the root. Reduce cognitive load further by stripping back to root word to accommodate the child’s current level of confidence: add –ly to quick/ slow/ loud/soft rather than to word like natural or silent. If the child needs an even greater scaffold, that repetition with the change of one variable (such as the onset or rime of a single syllable word) can provide the support to get them started. For example: If I write the word spell rain, can you spell train, brain, main, drain, Spain?
5. scaffolds could involve the ‘expert’ providing the unknown part of the word and allowing the child to building from there. For example, if the roots danger-, poison-, enorm-, jeal- are provided, can the child add the suffix –ous and then record the complete word in each case?
6. paired practice takes no resourcing and is an effective way to scaffold learning.

As long as we don’t build too high, too fast, scaffolding provides the support a child needs to access the learning. This support can be withdrawn gradually as mastery of each step ensues.

9. Require and monitor independent practice

Rosenshine tells us ‘Students need extensive, successful, independent practice in order for skills and knowledge to become automatic’. In our experience, practice is often the aspect of spelling instruction which teachers and parents are often most comfortable with. How to make this meaningful and enjoyable then? We would like teachers, and in turn – parents, to be able to employ strategies beyond list making. When introducing a new convention, or reviewing a taught sound, we would suggest practising little and often, until it feels like overlearning in order for that target knowledge to be automatic. It also needs to be on the back of clear instruction. Children need first to understand how and why the word is built in the way that it is, and which other words fit that same convention, before practising it over and over. In our extensive scheme ESSENTIALspelling, we employ games and activities within the sequence, after the review and teaching aspects, such as bingo, use of the best bet approach, sorting sets of words, creating lists and tables, sentence writing, pattern exploration, and memory games for example. The activity will complement the learning to have the best impact. For instance, common exception words will suit a Kim’s Game type of game, whilst a revision of a long-vowel phoneme and its corresponding graphemes will suit a best-bet approach.

10. Weekly and monthly review to develop well-connected and automatic knowledge

Weekly and / or monthly review is something that we often see associated with spelling instruction. Again, there easy tweaks that can be made to increase not only the enjoyment of spelling testing, but also the efficacy of it. Dictations are known to be helpful in supporting children to see the words that they have been exploring in context, rather than in isolation. Asking children, in pairs, to look through their independent writing for errors and test each other back and forth, a word at a time and supporting each other with corrections can be most helpful to identify and fix common errors. Dropping previously taught words, perhaps common exception words, into dictations over time will support their retention. Pre-testing a spelling rule or convention with a list of words at the start of a sequence will not only provide valuable AfL, but will also allow a post-sequence test to give a clear indication of progress for each individual child. You could score the difference between their pre and post-test, rather than their score out of 10.

HFL Education's complete spelling scheme ESSENTIALspelling provides comprehensive lesson plans for Years 2-6 and is available to purchase.

ESSENTIALspelling draws on the principles outlined above. Revision of the previous year’s learning takes place at the start of each year, and in each sequence, prior knowledge is accessed and built upon. Differentiation and activities are built in, along with assessment and reflection opportunities.

Every teacher will tell you that teaching time is precious – too often we feel that there is just not enough of it to cover everything that we want our children to know. Therefore, any tricks on how teaching time can be maximised must surely be welcomed; especially when these tricks relate to the massive task that is teaching the spellings on the year 5/6 word lists.

Firstly, let’s remind ourselves of the expectation as outlined in the KS2 writing TAF for EXS:

The pupil can spell correctly most words from the year 5 / year 6 spelling list, and use a dictionary to check the spelling of uncommon or more ambitious vocabulary.

The important word to note here is ‘most’. We do not expect the children to be able to spell all of the words – and indeed, we might find ourselves questioning when they would find it necessary to be able to spell some of the more unusual words on those lists. Still, there are many words on the list that I’m sure we would agree it would be helpful for an upper KS2 pupil to master in order to have the language needed to write for a range of purposes and audiences. For example, it would be amiss to focus on teaching the children the skills of persuasive writing without supporting them to master the spelling of the word ‘persuade’. Likewise, a study of ancient civilisations would seem to be a little wanting if the opportunity to teach the spelling of the word ‘ancient’ were missed. Indeed, a broad and balanced curriculum is an excellent access point for teaching many of the words on the Y5/6 list.

There are other opportunist access points to be aware of; many of the words in the Y5/6 incorporate spelling patterns taught in the main body of the PoS. To offer just one example, the spelling pattern ‘ous’ features in the following words from the list: marvellous and mischievous. Therefore, when you are revisiting this Y3/4 spelling statement in Y5/6, make sure that you throw these words into the mix.

Beyond this, what else can you do to ensure that you are maximising your teaching time in this area?  Morphology may provide an answer. A fairly light understanding of morphology can support a year 5/6 teacher to see that there are words within the list that offer more scope for teaching an understanding of spelling than others. It is these words that we need to tease out and exploit. My message here is simple: in order to get more mileage out of your spelling teaching, move away from seeing words in isolation. Instead, see them as doorways into wider word learning.

Let’s take an example:

‘Accommodate’ is a good example of a word that, through close study, will open up opportunities to encounter more words (and master the spelling of them).

The word ‘accommodate’ contains some easily recognisable affixes, namely, the prefixes ‘ac’ and ‘com’, and the suffix, ‘ate’. Strip these away and you are left with the root word ‘mode’ (in the example ‘accommodate’, the ‘e’ is omitted when the vowel suffix is added). As an avid reader and general word-enthusiast, I can think off the top of my head of many words that contain that very same root word. If I weren’t the wordy type, I may still be able to muster up a few examples, or I may turn to a fantastic website to help me: membean (click on ‘root trees’. Here you can type in a root word, or find it in the list, and then bring up a list of words featuring this root word). Most importantly however, I would want to ensure that the word I am focusing on offers enough new words for exploration that are within the children’s potential range and scope for use.

‘Accommodate’ once again comes up trumps because it shares its root with words such as, modesty, modern, immodest, moderation – all of which I can imagine being of some use and interest to year 5/6 writers.

So, after modelling to the children how to strip back the focus word to its root (hopefully the children will be able to spot the affixes with ease – perhaps by referring to the prefix/suffix wall charts that I advocated the use of in a previous blog – Chop, Change, Double), I would draw their attention to the spelling and meaning of the root word (transport/means/manner). I would then record this root word several times in a linear fashion on the board e.g.

mode

mode

mode

mode

Next, I would provide child-appropriate definitions (or clues) for words that share the same root word, trying to emphasis the semantic thread that ties the words together e.g.

Clue:

If you behaved in a manner that wasn’t particularly boastful, or over-confident, you might be described as _____ (modest)

Clue:

If a house were decorated in a very fashionable manner, it might be described as ________ (modern)

When the children offer the correct word, I would model tacking the correct affixes to the root, making amendments e.g. removing the ‘e’/doubling the final consonant when adding vowel suffixes.

When we have completed the list, I would encourage the children to offer their observations. This might involve comments about common suffixes or prefixes; I would urge the children to speculate on the meaning of the root word – can this meaning be threaded across all the words in the list? Can they add any words to the list that share the same root and may share a similar meaning?

If you happen to be using a word that changes the pronunciation of the root word across its various manifestations, then all the better. This can help the children to take an important leap in their understanding of spelling conventions: that words with common meanings often share common spelling patterns (this is an important step in supporting children to make spelling decisions based not only on what words sounds like, but what they mean).

A good example from the list to exemplify this point is the word ‘average’. The root word is ‘ver’, meaning ‘truth’. Other words sharing similar meanings, and using the same root (and that may hold some relevance to our young writers and readers), are ‘verify’ and ‘verdict’. In each case, the root is pronounced differently. A child well-versed in this type of exploration might be able to articulate that despite the different pronunciation, the spelling of the root remains the same, as all the words share the same meaning, which is about getting to the truth of the matter. And so, we stumble upon a revelation of the English spelling system: meaning, and fidelity to the root word, often trumps phonetic compliance when it comes to the agreed spelling of many of our polysyllabic words.

This approach supports with word and spelling acquisition in several ways: firstly, it helps the children to see the underlying building blocks of polysyllabic words (beyond compound words, most polysyllabic words are made up of commonly encountered affixes, all of which are very predictable in their spelling); secondly, it helps to reinforce the skill of applying suffixes (a skill that cannot be practised enough in my experience!); thirdly – and perhaps most importantly – it helps to nurture an inquisitiveness about words and spelling patterns, that will ultimately set them upon a path of spelling enquiry, rather than spelling learning drudgery.

After working in this way to explore several juicy words from the Y5/6 spelling list, you may see that children begin to struggle to see words at face value. Instead, they become drawn to words within the words. My litmus test for this burgeoning inquisitiveness is when you present the children with a fairly innocuous word from the spelling list: secretary, and the children instantly see that there are hidden depths to explore. No longer do they see a list of arbitrary letters, instead they see a ‘secret’, and they want to know more!

Other words from the Y5/6 word list that you might choose to explore:

convenience (search root word ‘ven’)

apparent (search root word ‘par’)

according (search root word ‘cord’)

KS2 Spelling: all spelling statements are equal, but some spelling statements are more equal than others.

With twenty-eight spelling statements to cover across KS2, where should our focus be? In addition to the year group statements, the National Curriculum (2014) clearly states that previous learning must also be revised at the beginning of each programme of study. How can we cover it all? Do we give the previously taught statements enough of our time? Furthermore, one might think that all the year group statements should be given an equal weighting. However, after careful analysis of both the SPAG papers (sample to 2018); the WTS, EXS and GDS exemplification materials for writing, and consideration of children’s independent writing, we have begun to think otherwise. 

The SOS spelling team have mapped out which statements need a high, medium and low focus in Y3/4, Y5/6 and across KS2 depending on the frequency of their use in the above analysis, and day to day usage in the English language. Click on the links below for a shortcut to documents outlining priority areas for children working at age-related expectations in spelling at each phase of KS2. Spelling priority area documents are downloadable below for Y3/4, Y5/6 and the whole of KS2:

For now, we hope you find these tables useful. 

Do we encourage young children to draw pictures when engaging with the CPA approach? Are these pictures important?

I am a great believer in the importance of using Bruner’s Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract approach to support the conceptual development of mathematics with pupils of all ages. 

With our younger pupils, it is also important that the children get time to explore and play with a wide range of resources. 

But do we give young children enough time, space and encouragement to develop the pictorial aspect of CPA and is this necessary?

My short answers are no and yes.

No, I don’t feel we encourage or appreciate the importance of pictures in mathematics and yes, this is necessary.

Like all areas of development, children’s mark making is an essential skill that we must learn because mark making can be refined and developed into writing and drawing, both of which are a way of recording our explorations, thoughts, and interpretations about the world around us.

The new statutory Early Years framework for mathematics doesn’t explicitly mention mark making or recording. It does however state that:

“By providing frequent and varied opportunities to build and apply this understanding, children will develop a secure base of knowledge and vocabulary from which mastery of mathematics is built.”

I would argue that varied opportunities need to include opportunities for children to record their thoughts and reasoning through mark making. In both the Birth to 5 Matters and Development Matters they make explicit reference to mark making:

• experiment with their own symbols and marks as well as numerals.
  (Development Matters, page 89)

• discuss the different ways children might record quantities (for example, scores in games), such as tallies, dots and using numeral cards.
  (Development Matters, page 94)

• explores using a range of their own marks and signs to which they ascribe mathematical meanings.

• value and support children to use own graphics when problem solving
  (Birth to 5 Matters Range 5, page 99)

• begins to explore and work out mathematical problems, using signs and strategies of their own choice, including (when appropriate) standard numerals, tallies and “+” or “-“

• talk to children about the marks and signs they use to represent and communicate their thinking. As appropriate, model and discuss informal and standard ways (e.g. using arrows, plus and minus signs).
  (Birth to 5 Matters Range 6, page 102)

I feel this is a positive move as the focus on the numeral does seem to have decreased, especially in the Birth to 5 Matters document. I am not saying that the numerals aren’t important; they are, but they are a highly abstract representation of value, and it is the values they represent that we need young children to master. Linking illustrations of the values eventually to the numerals, will help to ensure that children know the ‘three-ness’ of three, for example. 

Statements from Range 6 that encourage mark making that exposes mathematical thinking, I am especially pleased to see. It is the talk that accompanies the marks children make that can give a true insight into their mathematical thinking and depth of understanding. As Worthington and Carruthers (2003, pg 83) say:

“When adults really listen and observe the marks children make, they will see beyond the scribbles and understand the child’s intended meaning.”

We need to provide opportunities and encouragement to enable mark making in a way that is open to the child and ensure it is given the reverence it deserves.

Let’s look at some examples of children’s drawing of two:

Before completing these pictures, the children had been exploring ‘two’ – observing pairs of objects in their environment and subitising two. All the children have presented two (the digit was written by the teacher) and all demonstrated a good understanding.

Initially, from the pictures, you could argue that the drawings in Fig. 1 don’t clearly show two but from the conversation with the child, they explained their collections. The two ‘faces’ in the top right are their mum and dad; dad has a beard – the additional marks. The other two faces were the child and their brother.

The picture underneath the family (that initially looks like five circles) is actually the side view of their favourite car. The child explained that they knew cars had four wheels but when viewed from the side, you only saw two – half of the wheels; that’s why it was a side view of the car.

The child who completed the collections in Fig. 2 was very methodical and even though some of the pairs of objects look very similar, they explained each set.

Finally, in Fig. 3, this child’s drawing is probably the most realistic but again, it is the conversation we had that demonstrated to me that this child’s understanding of two was deeper than the others because they demonstrated that you could have units of two that could be repeated – this is the start of understanding multiplication – but it was the most basic of their drawings that demonstrated this understanding.

When I asked the child to explain the ‘two’ in the XOXO part of their drawing, they told me that it was a pattern and there were two bits in the pattern (XO) that were then repeated. They went on to explain they had done that with the flowers as well; two flowers in each of the two vases.

From looking at the pictures, without talking to the children, I would have probably said that the child who draw the pictures in Fig. 3 knew the most about two, and the child who draw the pictures in Fig. 1 knew the least. This might be true but from the conversations with the children, the child who drew the side view of the car not only demonstrated their understanding of the value two but also indicated that they understood half.

For me, this example highlights several points:

• opportunities to have less structured and pictorial recording occasions are important
• when children are recording, take the time to talk to them about what they are representing
• don’t be influenced by the level of development of the mark making

Less structured recording opportunities

Many recorded maths opportunities rely heavily on worksheets; blank paper is available, but work done on this is rarely kept or valued. From questionnaires completed as part of the research carried out by Worthington and Carruthers (2003), only 16% of teachers referred to children making their own mathematical marks and recordings in maths lessons and in child-initiated play, and in another article by Worthington and Carruthers (2005), they say:

“without opportunities to explore their own mathematical thinking in their own ways and through their own choices of visual representation, children are prevented from developing their own understanding of the written symbols of mathematics.” (pg 5)

So how do we ensure opportunities for pupils to create their own marks and jottings and incorporate the practical resources and ensure that pupil’s maths books are presentable and that they help show the children’s progression through the learning?

Let’s consider the use of concrete resources to support maths learning.

I would never suggest not using a range of practical resources, but we have to ensure that pupils don’t become over-reliant on them or use them purely procedurally and therefore don’t make the link between the actions they carry out with the resources and the abstract calculations they are completing.

Clements and Sarama (2014) say that children must be moved along the learning trajectory and if they are reliant on manipulatives to do arithmetic in grade 2, they will continue to be reliant in grade 4 (page 319).

In the summary of Chapter 3 of the EEF guidance report: Improving mathematics in early years and key stage 1 about manipulatives and representations to develop understanding, it recommends:

That children understand the links between the manipulatives and the mathematical ideas they represent

I am seeing more and more children knowing what the resources represent, for example a base-10 rod is a ten, but they don’t know how it can be used and manipulated to support calculation.

There is a clear rationale for using particular resources to teach a specific concept

Pupils and teachers aren’t always clear about how or why a resource is helpful to support learning a concept and the use of resources become part of a process and don’t help to develop conceptual understanding.

Encourage children to represent problems their own way

This links back to what we have been talking about. Often, pupil’s books that I see do have mathematical representations in and some pupils I speak to can explain the model (i.e. the process of creating it) but they don’t necessarily understand what it is representing.

I encourage teachers to provide opportunities for pupils to represent their thinking in their own ways, ensuring that those marks / drawings / representations are given the same gravitas as all other recordings. I would also encourage them to be permanent. What I mean by this is not on a white board or a scrap piece of paper. If they have permanence, they have importance.

I appreciate that doing this is difficult, both in the early years and in KS1. There is a fine balance between keeping everything and handling recordings in a way that are manageable and purposeful, especially as expectations increase for recording working within KS1.

I sadly don’t have a definitive answer about how to do this (Siobhan King has some great suggestions in her blog, Year 1 can’t record, can they?) but I do believe that records of pupils’ mathematical activities need to illustrate learning or thinking, and often what is recorded doesn’t always show that and what does show this, the jottings and marks, are not kept and seen as unimportant.

I know as an upper KS2 teacher, the battles I had with pupils to get them to show their working and if they did do working, it was always on a white board or rubbed out. They didn’t see their jottings as important; if anything, they saw them as a failing because they weren’t always ‘proper’ maths in their eyes. Perhaps if we were to encourage and celebrate mathematical mark making more when children are younger, they would be more confident and prouder of their less-formal recordings when they are older. 

Developing understanding of pupils’ mark making

In the example described above, I have already highlighted the difference a conversation with the child can make to the adult’s understanding of the child’s mathematical thinking.

How can we understand pupil’s mark making better?

My first love is art, not mathematics, and I had the privilege of doing a joint degree in Primary Education and Art at Exeter University which included modules on art education and children’s drawing development. In my lecturers’ Linda Green and Robin Mitchell’s book (1997) – that I dug out of the loft – they summarise research into drawing development and describe stages of drawing as follows:

• scribbling stage (age 2 to 4 years) – random marks that can represent events and movements
• pre-schematic stage (ages 4 to 7 years) – emergence of repeated shapes which stand for something
• schematic stage (7 to 9 years) – schemas that describe form are developed
• Gang Stage (9 to 12 years) – drawing realism

At a similar time that children’s drawing development was being explained, Hughes (1986) was researching how 3–7-year-olds recorded quantities and the operations of addition and subtraction. He noticed that despite being taught numerals and operational symbols and equations when given a problem, children didn’t use these, and he classified the children’s responses under four headings:

1. idiosyncratic – responses didn’t seem related to the number of objects present
2. pictographic – representations related to the appearance of what was in front of them as well as the numerosity
3. iconic – representations showing 1:1 correspondence with the number of objects, unrelated to the appearance of the objects.
4. symbolic – using conventional symbols to represent each quantity.

Looking back at the drawings in Fig. 1, 2 and 3, the children are at different stages in their drawing development.

The child who drew Fig. 1 is entering the pre-schematic stage; the repeated shapes represent things with some recognisable features. The child who drew Fig. 2 is within the pre-schematic stage and the child who drew Fig. 3 is in the schematic stage. Using Hughe’s classifications, Fig. 1 and Fig. 3 would be classed as pictorial and arguably some of the marks within Fig. 2 would be classed as iconic – the pairs of dots that look similar represented different objects.

Let’s look at another example of a child’s recorded thinking and consider both the stages of drawing development and Hughe’s classifications.

First, the stages of drawing…

This picture (Fig. 4) is clearly of flowers and conkers – repeated shapes have been used to create the images, so this child is moving from the pre-schematic stage to the schematic stage.

Now Hughe’s classifications…

It is pictographic – the child has drawn a picture of the flowers and conkers; they haven’t drawn symbols or images that represent the real objects. In addition to the pictures, I can also see some numerals; there is clearly 0 and 1 together and there are 10 conkers – this is an attempt to show the amount of conkers with numerals. There is another mark that could represent the number of flowers. So, this child is beginning to use symbolic marks as well.

And finally, Fig. 5…

For this task, the children were asked to draw the instructions to programme a route for a Bee-bot to follow; arrows have been used to symbolise the instructions. This child has possibly taken cues for the symbols from the Bee-bot but the symbols they have used give clear guidance for the reader to follow. It would be symbolic using Hughe’s classification but thinking about drawing development, it is a simple drawing and arguably isn’t a picture. However, what it is communicating is clear.

Does the quality and accuracy of a child’s mark making correlate to their mathematical knowledge and understanding?

To be honest, looking at pictures using the drawing development stages and looking at them using Hughe’s classifications, you are looking at them through two completely different lenses. When looking at children’s drawings, how realistic the drawings are should not influence our expectations of the thinking behind what the marks are representing – we mustn’t have conscious or unconscious bias.

Just because the drawing is more developed, doesn’t necessarily mean the mathematical thinking and reasoning is more developed.

If we think about Hughe’s classification, if the marks are classified as symbolic, you could argue that the mathematical thinking and understanding is more complex because the person using the symbols to express values or operations knows and understands this complex shorthand.

We have numerals and symbols like 9, +, ÷, < to represent values, operations, and comparisons because it is quicker and easier. A large part of maths learning is about becoming efficient and working out the best way to solve a problem or calculate an equation. Lots of the teaching of maths is helping children to understand and use this shorthand but we must give children time and space to make the connections between the real objects / problems, and how they can be represented.

I would argue that a critical part of this complex cognitive process should include giving children the time and space to develop their own ways of representing the real objects / problem. It will most likely be inefficient, time consuming and possibly unclear but as I mentioned previously, Worthington and Carruthers (2005, page 5) say;

“Without opportunities to explore their own mathematical thinking in their own ways and through their own choices of visual representation, children are prevented from developing their own understanding of the written symbols of mathematics.”

Once children have had an opportunity to explore with their own visual representation, it is our job to help them develop those thoughts and representations to become more efficient and this will involve using numerals and symbols. However, we must make time and space for these opportunities and not over-scaffold children’s mathematical thinking with worksheets or prescribed representations, or else maths will become what ‘painting by numbers’ is to art. It might create a lovely picture but can be completed without thought or understanding and isn’t retained or remembered.

Let’s celebrate and make opportunity for children to represent their mathematical thinking as creatively and purposefully – for the child – as possible. Taking the time to talk about what their pictures represent to them and using that information to help us understand the child’s thinking, is so that we can move their learning on successfully. This will enable them to make that difficult progression through the concrete, celebrating the pictorial, to the abstract with meaning and understanding.

I hope you agree with me that the pictures are important.

References:

Clements, D and Sarama, J (2014) Learning and teaching early math: the learning trajectories approach, Routledge

Davenall, J., Dowker, A., Williams, H. J., Gripton, C., and Gifford, S. (2021) Developing mathematical graphic in the early years 

DfE (revised July 2021) Development Matters

DfE (updated Sept 2021) Early years foundation stage statutory framework

Early years coalition (2021) Birth to 5 matters www.birthto5matters.org.uk

Green, L. and Mitchell, R. (1997) Art 7-11 developing primary teaching skills, Routledge

Hughes, M. (1986) Children and Number: Difficulties in Learning Mathematics. Oxford: Blackwell

Worthington, M and Carruthers, E (2003) Children’s mathematics: making marks, making meaning, Paul Chapman publishing

Worthington, M and Carruthers, E (2005)The art of children’s mathematics: the power of visual representation (PDF) The Art of Children's Mathematics: the Power of Visual Representation (researchgate.net)

Why is reading stories with children so important?

Storytelling is a fundamental element of being human, with childhood storytelling being the most prolific form, as it has been for generations.  Stories were shared verbally long before the invention of the printing press after which the accessibility to written stories for all elements of society became the norm. 

It is well understood that reading to children is vitally important, supporting the acquisition of language alongside social and emotional development.

So I thought I’d take some time to look a little more deeply into exactly why, scientifically, this is so.

Goldilocks and The Three Bears

My research into this took me to a blog from National Public Radio (NPR), written by Anya Kamenetz, an educational correspondent for the NPR and author of several educational books.  She refers to a study that was presented to the Paediatric Academic Society in Canada in 2018.  This research concerned the ‘Goldilocks Effect’ -   such an apt name for research into reading with children in the Early Years.  This research was led by Dr John Hutton.  He describes differing types of storytelling as being rather like the porridge that Goldilocks stumbled across in the home of The Three Bears.    The delivery of storytelling might be too hot for some, too cold for others but also, if we take care, might be ‘just right’ for many!  This is described in more depth following Dr Hutton’s work at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital where some children aged four years were observed in an MRI scanner whilst being engaged in various styles of story sharing.  This allowed their brain activity to be closely observed during the story sessions.  The story sharing sessions included an audio-only version of a story, an illustrated storybook with audio and a cartoon version of a story.  For those children engaged in an audio-only story, this appeared to be ‘too cold’, the language networks in their brains were active but there were definitely fewer brain connections being made overall.  These children seemed to be ‘straining’ to understand the story.  For those children who had animation only stories, there was much activity in the visual/audio perception centres of the brain but little was happening between other areas.  The research team deduced that whilst the children’s understanding of language was helping them to keep up with the story that was being told, the animated pictures did the donkey work for the child, children’s ‘comprehension of the story’ was at its worst during this activity.

However, the illustrated book with an audio accompaniment being given simultaneously had the porridge that was ‘just right’!  The children were paying attention to the words within a framework of understanding supported by the illustration.  The most important factor of this ‘porridge’ is that the connections between all parts of the brain were heightened to include ‘visual perception, language, imagery and default mode’.  For children who are aged 3-5 years, the last two areas generally mature at a later stage so these would not be developed at all by animation alone.  Now, you may be wondering what the ‘default mode network’ (DMN) of the brain is?  So was I! So I did some more research that I found to be very interesting indeed!  Scientific evidence is still being gathered to support the DMN theory but this is becoming more robust as time goes on. It is an element of the brain that is most active when the brain is at rest and deactivates when the brain is involved in a task.  Sections of the brain included in the DMN are areas that are involved with internal thought, memory, recognising thoughts and feelings in others, and the ‘posterior cingulate’ which is involved in the integration of internal thoughts.  Scientists seem to have concluded that the DMN is used to enable us to daydream and retrieve memories.  So you can see how this would impact on (and be impacted by) storytelling, using the imagination and making connections with personal experience to name but a few.

So as you can understand from this research, reading aloud to our children from an illustrated storybook is giving them the gift of exercising their brain and so much more is happening than we can actually see.  Of course, this research was all undertaken within the confines of an MRI scanner, which most certainly excludes the additional emotional impact of warmth and physical closeness during the sharing of a story book. 

But it might not be as simple as ‘just reading’

Something else that was not taken into account directly through the research was the dialogic elements of reading.  This is not a word I’ve come across very regularly throughout my own teaching career but something I’ve heard mentioned more frequently in recent times.  Dialogic reading, with our youngest children supports their understanding and expansion of aural language, as the adult helps the child to become a storyteller. It is very much about the adult reading with the child rather than to them.  The adult takes the role of the listener, the questioner, the audience for the child.  The ‘Reading Rockets’ website, tells us about the PEER sequence when sharing stories with children dialogically.  The acronym stands for Prompting the child to talk about the book, Evaluating the response of the child, Expanding – reply by rewording and adding information and then Repeating the prompt to ensure the child has understood.  An example of this could be when reading the aforementioned Goldilocks and the Three Bears…

Prompt from Adult: What’s this? (pointing to the Daddy bear’s chair)

Child: Chair

Adult: Yes, (Evaluating) it’s a big chair that belongs to Daddy Bear (Expanding).  Can you say ‘Big Chair for Daddy Bear?’ (Repeats)

It is not recommended that that this happens on the very first reading of a book, but can take place on subsequent readings.  The child must have the opportunity to just ‘drink in’ and absorb the story, simply enjoy the storytelling for its own worth, when first introduced to a book.  Dialogic reading supports children in so many different ways, through developing skills in Communication and Language and oral language in particular.  Children become more engaged with story books through these high quality interactions, adults are able to check a child’s understanding and discover where further support might be needed.

The key is to find really good story books where the illustrations are rich and closely follow the text.  All the better if they are about something that interests the child or is a firm favourite that is chosen often. 

Making reading fun!

In these times of social distancing and school closure, we have to find ways in which we can create opportunities to engage our children in high quality story sessions.  Sharing stories online would model high quality reading of books to the adults who are caring for the children, disseminating good practice that will hopefully reach far beyond the current situation we have all found ourselves in.  It’s so important that we keep children interested in books, keep them wanting to engage with reading whilst they aren’t having their daily dose or two (or three or four!) of story times with their friends in school.  We can provide this online and also help parents to understand the importance of sharing story books, explaining the importance of sharing real books and not limiting the book-sharing to animated or other online book formats.

• provide an online story session through your school’s website or another electronic communication system that you have available. 
• encourage adults to sit with the children whilst you read the story, helping them to answer questions and extending language
• set up a process to enable the children to choose the book for the next day as practitioners often do for self-registration.  This might retain a sense of normality in our socially distant lives
• let the parents know in advance which books you will be sharing on which days.  Parents can then read them beforehand with their children.  The children will delight in knowing the story, anticipating what is coming next, the comfort of the familiarity and finding new things to look at or talk about. 
• invite parents to make puppets for the characters, props and environments to support the storytelling in the children’s own homes
• choose some books that might support PSED, in particular emotional wellbeing – see some suggestions below

Some great examples are The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas published by Templar Publishing, The Huge bag of Worries by Virginia Ironside published by Hachette Children’s Group and How do you Feel by Anthony Browne published by Candlewick. 

What comes to mind when you think of family? Asking children this question could throw up all sorts, including amusing anecdotes and plenty of sentimentality. No doubt, in a classroom full of children, there will be a broad range of reflections on families, which bring to light similarities, as well as differences. A sensitive exploration of these variations will allow you to embrace diversity and champion tolerance and respect within your classroom.

On the 15th May each year, International Day of Families is celebrated around the world. It’s a great opportunity to explore and celebrate the importance of family, in all its wonderful and diverse forms. As is so often the case, children’s literature offers up plenty of beautiful books to support rich class discussion. These books make a great starting point for deeper conversations. As Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop stated, books can act as “Windows, Mirrors and Sliding Glass Doors”, as children make sense of themselves, their experience, and the world around them. In this blog, the Primary English team share a few beautiful books about families, and ideas of how you could use them in the classroom.  

Book and author: Dragon Loves Penguin by Debi Gliori 

Recommended by: Kirsten Snook 

Recommended age group: Primary 

Reason for recommendation: Adoption; looking different from the rest of the family; anti-bullying  

Suggested activity: Write a school report on the character of Penguin – which of Penguin’s qualities are becoming strong? How does their teacher know?  

Book and author: Julian at the Wedding by Jessica Love  

Recommended by: Kathy Roe 

Recommended age group: EYFS and KS1 

Reason for recommendation: Beautifully illustrated, with very little text. A celebration of love, belonging and acceptance. A story set at a wedding of two brides. 

Suggested activity: Innovate text for the wordless pages, including thought and speech bubbles for the characters.   

Book and author: Love Makes a Family by Sophie Beer 

Recommended by: Amanda Webb 

Recommended age group: EYFS and KS1 

Reason for recommendation: A book which highlights the one thing that makes a family a family, and that is love. Diverse representation of loving families written in a repetitive form.  

Suggested activity: Who is in your family? Create a collage of our families.  What does your family do together?  Create a class poem following the repetitive form of the book ‘Love is...’.   

Book and author: Pirate Mums by Jodie Lancet-Grant and Lydia Corry 

Recommended by: Michelle Nicholson 

Recommended age group: KS1  

Reason for recommendation: This is a fabulous story to share with KS1 on World Family Day (or even International Talk Like a Pirate Day, which is on September 19th this year). Many of us will have wished, at times, that our parents weren’t so embarrassing, or our families were more like other people’s. Billy’s mums are pirates, and he doesn’t want them to come on the school trip. But the other children don’t seem to mind their unconventionality and slowly Billy begins to embrace the quirks of pirate life. 

Suggested activity: Write about a special skill or unusual hobby that someone in their family has and how it makes them feel proud. Compose ‘thank you’ letters to Billy’s mums for saving them on the school trip. Or, they could just sit back and enjoy this cleverly written, empathetic story while you ‘do the voices’… 

Book and author: In Every House on Every Street by Jess Hitchman and Lili La Baleine 

Recommended by: Kayleigh Valentini 

Recommended age group: Primary/KS1 

Reason for recommendation: Written in rhyme, this is a warm celebration of homes and the diverse families that make them.  

Suggested activity: Explore the intricate illustrations of the different families in each house. (Gatefold) Can you see any families like yours? Behind every door, there is a different story to tell. Add a page to the book by writing a rhyming poem about what happens in a special room in your house. What does home mean to you?  

Book and author: Where the Forest Meets the Sea by Jeannie Baker 

Recommended by: Alison Dawkins 

Recommended age group: Primary 

Reason for recommendation: A child’s growing independence is explored within the security of a day out with his dad. Stunning illustrations created from collages of natural materials.  

Suggested activity: Discuss and/or write about ‘days out’ with family. What do children do? What do adults do?  Use collected, natural materials to make background collages.  

Book and author: The Missing Piece by Jordan Stephens and Beth Suzanna 
Recommended by: Juliet McCullion 
Recommended age group: Primary 
Reason for recommendation: An exploration of community, family and friendship. 
Suggested activity: Explore the different family homes that Sunny visits and the descriptions of what they look and smell like. Discuss own homes and what makes them special. Design a page that explains what their family house would look, feel and smell like if Sunny visited. 

Book and author: Picture Perfect by Serena Patel and Louise Forshaw 

Recommended by: Ellen Counter 

Recommended age group: KS2 

Reason for recommendation: Diverse representation of family life (British Gujarati). Focus on themes of love and belonging, all families being different. 

Suggested activity: Compile a class compendium of family home languages – how many languages do family members speak?  What are your favourite home-cooked meals? (p.44) Gather stories from parents/ grandparents (p. 46) and create class book of family stories/ biographies. 

Book and author: Silence Is Not An Option: You Can Impact The World For Change by Stuart Lawrence  

Recommended by: Theresa Clements 

Reason for recommendation: An excellent read for upper KS2 teachers to share with their pupils.  

Suggested Activity: Read Chapter 1 – ‘You Are Your Own Superhero’. Within Chapter 1, on page 29, we find a sub-headed section - ‘The Superhero of Your Family’. Here is the opening paragraph: 

‘The things that your family say and do have an effect on you. These effects can be both positive and negative but everything you experience is a lesson. Some of you may have a family that expects only the highest of achievements from you and you feel incredibly pressured. Some of you may have a family that is not so pressured and you sort of feel there isn’t any expectation at all’  

Explore the term ‘expectation’ with the children. Provide an example of some expectations that you have of them. Can they add to this list? Can the children articulate their ideas of expectations that they have of you and/or others? Are there other people who have expectations of them? This should provide enough context for the children to discuss any family expectations they have or experience if they desire. Further discuss why having expectations of themselves is important. Provide some examples for the children to contribute towards. Create a celebratory display. 

Book and author: The Light in Everything* by Katya Balen, cover illustration by Sydney Smith 

Recommended by: Juliet McCullion 

Recommended age group: UKS2 

Reason for recommendation: A sensitive and searing exploration of blended family life, told from the perspective of two children. *There are themes of loss and abuse in this book. 

Suggested activity: Discuss the theme of hope, and how Tom and Zofia make a very important wish for their family, using the origami cranes. Ask children to write a wish for their family on a piece of paper, before folding it into an origami crane of their own following the instructions in the back of the book.  

Book and author: My Granny is a Queen by Madeleine Cook and Rebecca Ashdown

Recommended by: Rickella Griffiths

Recommended age group: KS1/Primary

Reason for recommendation: A beautiful, heart-warming book celebrating grandmothers across the world. 

Suggested activity: Explore the wonderful illustrations and delightful descriptions. Discuss the similarities and differences. Compose individual descriptions of grandmothers and create a class book to celebrate the special queen in the family.

Book and author: Grandad’s Camper by Harry Woodgate

Recommended by: Jane Andrews

Recommended age group: KS1

Enjoy exploring everything that makes our families different and the same this International Day of Families. We would love to see the work and/or displays that are produced. Do tag us in any photographs on Twitter @HertsEnglish.