If I were a betting woman, I’d have had money on the inclusion of a poem in this year’s test. Alas I’m not, but I do maintain a certain degree of smugness having reminded my teaching network to include poetry in their pre-SAT preparations. Grannie by Vernon Scannell presented as an accessible poem and was sourced from the excellent The Works 4, edited by Pie Corbett and Gaby Morgan. That the STA are sourcing test materials from such high-quality publications gives me hope for future tests. It also suggests that well-curated high-quality published resources should be informing our day-to-day English teaching. That leaves us to examine the second extract – the poem ‘ Grannie’. A closer look at the content domains tested in this extract (9/17 marks inference based) shows that this narrative poem was tested in a similar style to a straight-forward fiction text. This in itself raises implications for teachers of all year groups – how much narrative poetry is read by and explored/discussed in Key Stage 2?

Great idea to use Greek Gods ON. A very effective ending with a variety of adverbials. I really like your choice of vocabulary. Prize Box :) Vocabulary questions are included in every unit, with many of these focusing on phrases as well as the meaning of single words. We began to play and talk about the good old times with her father, we laughed all night and there was a few sad moments but I think I can safely say we had a lovely evening. For the third year running, inferring information from the text (2d) was the most tested aspect of the Reading Content Domain. There were two 2d marks available for The Giant Panda Bear, nine for Grannie and eleven for Albion’s Dream. Just like last year, the majority of these 2d marks came from the third text. And unsurprisingly, the least 2d questions were asked of the non-fiction text. Retrieving information (2b) was the second most tested aspect of the Reading Content Domain with nine marks available for The Giant Panda Bear, three marks for Grannie and one mark for Albion’s Dream. Vocabulary has now contributed to 20% of the available marks in the KS2 reading SAT for the past three years. The marks were fairly evenly distributed across the three texts with three for The Giant Panda, four for Grannie and three for Albion’s Dream.

You only needed to see them training this week. They were boiling and angry. That is what gives us a chance."

Please don't die Edward, I can't loose you, and your mother!" It was my dad's voice. I opened my eyes. "D-dad? Is this heaven? Am I dead?" My dad looked so relieved, and gave me such a tight hug. Some further interesting linguistic patterns in the questions emerge upon further scrutiny. This year, six questions used the stem ‘ according the text…’. In the case of five of these, they were retrieval (2b) questions, whilst the remaining question asked pupils to make comparisons within the text (2h). This is a particularly useful prompt to explore with pupils. On the one hand it is a signpost telling them to retrieve information from the text (even in the case of the 2h question they needed to find relevant information to make their comparisons), and on the other hand it is a reminder to refer to the text and not what they think they know based on their prior knowledge of the topic. Excellent use of adventurous vocabulary RMc :) and lots of effective verbs. great work. Prize Box!! The GPS tests comprise of two tests. Paper 1 is a grammar, punctuation and vocabulary test lasting 45 minutes with 50 marks available. Paper 2 comprises of a 20-word spelling test lasting approximately 15 minutes.

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I clutched the box as tight as I could. I held it so hard I thought it was going to break. "Sorry, Em, I found this and I deserve to know what is in it." I said, my voice stammering a bit. I didn't know what else to say. I took a deep breath as Em started to slowly, come towards me. Closer, closer. I ran behind her and held the box to my chest. I ran as fast as I could, down the old oak stairs, as it came to the last step.. I heard Em screaming at the top of the stairs "EDWARD!! PLEASE! Listen, give it here now. You'll regret it so much if you don't." That scared me. I stopped, hesitated for a moment and thought, what could possibly be in there that I could regret so much? Em slowly came down the stairs. I ran to the door and shut it I still had the precious box in my hand. I hid it in the old rotten stables under the hay full of old smelly horse poo I knew she wouldn't be able to find it but soon enough she did. I heard the sound of the broken door burst wide open from the top floor. She ran down the stairs and managed to find me in the rusty wheelbarrow next to the pile of broken things. There is no surprise that 4/17 marks (3 questions) available in this middle text tested content domain 2a – give/explain the meaning of words in context. Questions 16 and 20 were presented in the familiar ‘ Find a copy a word/group of words’ style question stem. However, question 22 demanded a deeper thought process as it was a 2-mark vocabulary question. Give it to me Edward, please." she said her voice shaking, "Listen, I've been hiding that box my whole life because I didn't want other people to get in trouble like I did. Have you looked inside of it?" she asked with such fierce I could not look her in the eyes. My throat had gone dry and bead of sweat had appeared on my forehead. For the 2018 Key Stage 2 tests, it was decided that the Reading paper would again take place on the Tuesday following a successful trial in 2017. The 2018 SATs took place under exam conditions and were marked externally.

Whilst preparing my own year 6 class for the KS2 reading test, I always use the analogy of, ‘ Year 6, you never know what starter, main course and dessert you will be served up this year when you open the reading booklet!’ referring to the choice of 3 extracts! That is certainly true. Ocr tesseract 4.1.1 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9546 Ocr_module_version 0.0.10 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-2000158 Openlibrary_edition So what was the make-up of the 2018 KS2 reading test? Did it mirror some of the trends that we have identified over the last few years since the new suite of tests were presented to us? Here is a break-down of how the content domains were tested across the three extracts: KS2 SATs were taken in Maths, Reading and GaPS under formal exam conditions. These papers were marked externally whilst separate teacher assessments in Writing and Science were marked by their teachers.

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A Key Stage 2 Science sampling test was not created in 2013 as it was decided a new biennial pupil-level sampling system would be introduced in 2014. Approximately 9500 children will be randomly selected (based on 5 children from 1900 schools). C hildren will sit the test within a two week window from Monday 2nd June 2014 and it will consist of three separate papers, each taking no longer than 25 minutes to complete. No individual school or child will be subsequently identified. I keep saying this, and people will only believe it when we do win a game, but we remain really positive. Questions are framed using the language of the tests so there are plenty of ‘ what impression’ and ‘ what suggests’ style questions. I took the box to the barn to investigate it further. When I opened it, I noticed that the figures were all of Greek Gods. The figures were carved with such detail I could make out Zeus the God of all Gods from the lightning bolt in his hand. Poseidon God of the Sea and Rivers from the rivers of water surrounding him. Hermes the messenger of Gods who leads the soles of the dead to heaven by the bodies of the dead around him. Hades the God of the Underworld by his three headed dog Cerberus. Athena the God of War and Wisdom from the shield and spear and Aphrodite the God of beauty and love by doves surrounding her.

Excellent blog EJC! Effective use of speech to convey character and good verb choices. I enjoyed it!!! Prize Box!The 2018 KS2 SATs were authored, produced and managed by the STA (Standards and Testing Agency) under the authorisation of the DfE (Department for Education). The 2018 KS2 SATs were authored, produced and managed by the STA. If a child's score was 110 or over, they had exceeded the expected standard and were judged as working at greater depth. I wrote Albion's Dream in six months; Red Die took me 18 years (!), Shadowborne also went through many revisions. These made the dice trilogy, ghost stories in which the present is haunted by the past. Treetime was written for younger children and led to my fruitful relationship with the Istanbul publishers Yapi Kredi, who have published some of my stories directly into Turkish. Treetime is in its 20th edition in Turkey. My new book is a collection of short stories called Borrowed Voices, in which the only ghosts are literary.