Thorp Primary SchoolUKS2

Years 5 and 6

Welcome NotesWe have put together this booklet to enable you to clearly see

the Government’s requirements in this area of English and it also

gives you suggestions for fun activities at home that will help

your child’s understanding and progression.

Mrs Phillips and Mrs Buckley

Introduction

The DfE has introduced SPaG because they want to make

sure all children leave primary school confident in spelling,

punctuation and grammar. The tests at the end of KS1 and

KS2 will ensure that “primary schools place a stronger focus

on the teaching of these skills.”

How does my child benefit from the teaching of GPS?

The ability to write and communicate are key life skills.

In the long term, your child will be able to use these skills

throughout their education and employment and their

adult life.

Years 5 & 6Possible Activities

Try some of these activities to

help your child...

Grammar and PunctuationTreasure Hunt Question Time

Y5 and Y6 need to learn to Find as many different punctuation

or sentence types as possible.

Use books, websites; TV guides

and magazines; recipes and

instructions; newspapers; leaflets

and brochures. Give points and

prizes as rewards.

All primary age children enjoy

listening to stories and poems

being read aloud- whilst reading,

point out or question your child on

different word and sentence types.

Word Hunter Food Game

Learn new vocabulary through

books. Encourage your child to

record the new words, phrases

and punctuation you have found

together in their home/school

book - your child’s class teacher

will be thrilled!

Keep adding adjectives to your

favourite food. e.g. The ham

pizza; the ham and cheese pizza;

the delicious, ham and cheese

pizza, the hot, delicious, ham and

cheese pizza, etc. Don’t forget the

commas in a list!

Adverb Charades Walking Games

Choose an adverb e.g. slowly,

awkwardly, stupidly, shyly, sleepily.

Go on a family walk and find

examples of apostrophes in the

wrong place e.g. MOT’s ,CD’s,

banana’s for sale.The rest of the family give you

actions (verbs) to perform e.g. eat

a meal, get out of bed, hoover,

etc. Awesome Sentences

Add more interesting phrases in to

boring sentences. e.g “The cat ran

across the road.” becomes “The

cute, colourful cat capered across

the busy road like a rocket.”

You perform the actions using your

secret adverb- the family have to

guess the adverb.

• Recognise formal speech and writing, including subjunctive forms

• Use passive verbs to affect the presentation of information in a sentence

• Use the perfect form of verbs to mark relationships of time and cause

• Use expanded noun phrases to convey complicated information concisely

• Use modal verbs or adverbs to indicate degrees of possibility

• Use relative clauses • Use commas to clarify meaning or avoid

ambiguity in writing • Use hyphens to avoid ambiguity• Use brackets, dashes or commas to indicate

parenthesis • Use semi-colons, colons or dashes to mark

boundaries between independent clauses • Use a colon to introduce a list • Punctuate bullet points consistently

Year 5 and 6

Spelling

Y5 and Y6 need to learn to

Activities

Try some of these activities to

help your child...

Always complete spelling

homework and go on Spelling

Shed daily.The trick in upper KS2 is to learn about families of words. Understanding root words helps children to understand more complicated suffixes and prefixes. Help your child to understand homophones (egaisle/isle). We look at word endings in –cious and –tious, -ance and –ence, -able and ible. The i before e except after c rule still applies but we have to be aware of plenty of exceptions (protein, caffeine and seize). We also look at the letter string – ough and silent letters in words.

Grammatical

Term

Meaning Example

Active and

Passive VoiceThe active voice of a verb tells us that

someone (or something) does the action in a

sentence.

The passive voice of a verb tells us that

someone (or something) has an action done

to them.

James watered the flowers.

The puppy chewed the shoe.

The flowers were watered by James.

The shoe was chewed by the puppy.

Bullet Points We use bullet points to break up

complicated information to make it easier to

read. All bullet points need to be consistently

punctuated.

Some of the seven wonders of the world are:

● Stonehenge

● The Great Wall of China

● The Roman Coliseum

Colons A colon is used to introduce a list, between

two clauses and before a quote.

You will need the following ingredients:

Flour

Sugar

Milk

I knew what I had to do: confess my crimes.

Remember the saying:”Look before you leap.”

Dashes A dash is used for parenthesis at the

beginning, in the middle or at the end of a

sentence.

A toad’s skin is dry and bumpy - not like the frog’s smooth, wet skin.

The film was very informative - I learnt a great deal.

Grammatical

Term

Meaning Example

Determiners A determiner goes before a noun or noun

phrase and indicates which specific noun you

are referring to eg a, an, the, some, three,

my

Your dog is enormous.

These pupils live near to the school.

Hyphens A hyphen is used to link two words so that

the word or phrase makes sense.

Mother-in-law

The friendly-looking monster

The red-faced boy stole Mrs Trunchbull’s cake.

Modal Verbs Modal verbs indicate the degree of

possibility eg might, should, could.

I might go shopping this afternoon.

Jenny will go to the park.

I must do my homework tonight.

Parenthesis Parenthesis is adding extra information to a sentence using brackets, dashes or commas. The sentence should still make sense without

the parenthesis.

You, to put it mildly, are annoying me.

Mount Everest (8828 metres) is the highest mountain in the world.

Playing in Fred’s garden -which is huge - is all good fun.

Grammatical

Term

Meaning Example

Relative Clause Relative clauses begin with who, which,

where, when, whose, that or an omitted

relative clause.

Here is a the boy who lives near school.

[who refers back to boy]

The prize that I won was a book.

[that refers back to boy]

The prize I won was a book.

[the pronoun that is omitted]

Tom broke the game, which annoyed Ali.

[which refers back to the whole clause]

Relative

PronounThere are 5 common relative pronouns

which include who, whose, whom, which,

and that.

Here is the boy who lives near school.

Tom broke the game, which annoyed Ali.

Semi Colons Semi colons are used instead of a conjunction to join two simple sentences.

Her dress was dirty; she had no shoes on.

The weather is awful; we won’t go to the park.

The door swung open; a masked figure strode in.

Subject and

ObjectIn a sentence, the subject is the thing or

person who is carrying out an action. The

object is the thing or person who it is

affecting.

The girl threw a conker.

The girl is the subject and a conker is the object.

Sally hugged her friend Mildred.

Sally is the subject and Mildred is the object.

Grammatical

Term

Meaning Example

Synonyms and

AntonymsA synonym is a word that has a similar

meaning to another word whilst an antonym

is a word that means the opposite.

Ask - Inquire (synonym)

Big - Vast (synonym)

Gentle - Rough (antonym)

Maximum - Minimum (antonym)

accommodate communicate equipment individual physical sincerely

accompany community equipped interfere privilege soldier

according competition especially interrupt profession stomach

aggressive conscience exaggerate language programme suggest

amateur conscious excellent leisure pronunciation symbol

ancient controversy existence lightning queue system

apparent convenience explanation marvellous recognize temperature

appreciate correspond familiar mischievous recommend thorough

attached criticise foreign muscle relevant twelfth

available curiosity forty necessary restaurant variety

average definite frequently neighbour rhyme vegetable

awkward desperate government nuisance rhythm vehicle

bargain develop guarantee occupy sacrifice yacht

bruise dictionary harass occur secretary

category disastrous hindrance opportunity shoulder

cemetery embarrass identity parliament signature

committee environment immediate persuade sincere

Year 5 and 6 Statutory Spelling List

accident(ally) circle famous island peculiar sentence

actual(ly) complete favourite knowledge perhaps separate

address consider February learn popular special

answer continue forward(s) length position straight

appear decide fruit library possess(ion) strange

arrive describe grammar material possible strength

believe different group medicine potatoes suppose

bicycle difficult guard mention pressure surprise

breath disappear guide minute probably therefore

breathe early heard natural promise though/although

build earth heart naughty purpose thought

busy/business eight/eighth height notice quarter through

calendar enough history occasion(ally) question various

caught exercise imagine often recent weight

centre experience increase opposite regular woman/women

century experiment important ordinary reign

certain extreme interest particular remember

Year 3 and 4 Statutory Spelling List