Year 6 Grammar & Spelling Test - Information for parents

Please find information about the new Grammar & Punctuation test below. A link to the website is included if you wish to find the sample materials yourself.
Click here for link to site

We will ensure that all the Year 6 children are properly prepared for this in the New Year. The VCOP work that the children already do in the Literacy is a great grounding for this type of assessment.

A new statutory test of English grammar, punctuation and spelling will be introduced for children at the end of Key Stage 2 from May 2013. This implements an important recommendation of Lord Bew’s independent review that writing composition should be subject to teacher assessment only, with the more 'technical' aspects of English - such as punctuation and spelling - assessed via an externally marked test.

The introduction of this new test reflects the Government’s beliefs that children should have mastered these important aspects of English by the time they leave primary school, and that appropriate recognition should be given to good use of English throughout their schooling.
About the test

The Standards and Testing Agency (STA) is currently developing the test. It will publish a report towards the end of 2012 that demonstrates how well the test meets Ofqual’s assessment criteria for validity, reliability, comparability, minimising bias and manageability.

The test will assess levels 3-5 of the current statutory Key Stage 2 English National Curriculum programme of study for English. A separate level 6 test will be available for schools that wish to enter children who are expected to be working above level 5 in May 2013. The level 6 test will sample additional content from the Key Stage 3 programme of study for English.

Both the level 3-5 test and level 6 tests will assess children’s abilities in the following technical aspects of English:
grammar;
punctuation;
spelling;
vocabulary; and
handwriting (subject to final decisions following the results of the technical pre-test).

The sample materials document that can be downloaded from this page gives information about:
the specific areas of the programmes of study that the level 3-5 and level 6 tests will assess;
what the tests will cover within the National Curriculum level descriptors; and
the format of the tests.

It also provides some illustrative examples of the types of tasks and questions children will encounter.