Writing at Key Stages 2, 3 and 4.
NATE recently republished a slightly abridged version of an article I did five years ago. It was work done with KS2 pupils but the principles, and the texts, are applicable at KS3 and the shorter writing task at GCSE. I am no longer an adviser at Blackpool, having retired and taken on work as a freelance.

IllumiNATE45: Roller Coaster Writing… or: how to write the exciting bits Glen Mascord’s writing lesson uses the roller coaster as a metaphorical structure to get students producing exciting writing. A version of this article was published in Issue 16 of NATE Classroom in 2012, and is available online to members of NATE, along with the entire archive of NATE magazines.
What’s the point? ​ We know roller coasters in Blackpool. We know the gradual, groaning ascent as cogs clank and chains creak, straining to tug coaches loaded with fearful, excited passengers up rusting metal tracks until they perch high above the surrounding buildings. We know the momentary pause. The building of anticipation. The stomach gripping view of coastline, roofs and white upturned faces way, way below. And the vertiginous, screaming drop as the car plummets earthward, hurtling violently down, shaking bones, distorting faces and wrenching high pitched squeals from white faced, white-knuckled passengers. We know the excitement but can we get it onto paper? That was the question I put to groups of Year 6 pupils. My aims were simple: in a very short space of time, approximately 20-30 minutes of interactive teaching, I wanted to get pupils to consider technique, to learn something they could use to good effect in their own writing. I was also keen to do something purposeful which would grip the young writers I was working with. I opted to look at something I had done before in much greater detail with older pupils: lessons on ‘how to write the exciting bits’ in a story. As most teachers recognise, pupils, boys in particular, often have wonderfully exciting scenarios in their heads which come out on paper as a string of ‘and thens’ which fail to communicate the thrill and passion of those events to the hapless marker, examiner or parent dutifully reading their efforts In the classroom The lesson had a simple structure, clear objectives, an example text to read, inspire and explore, and a clear and simple task with explicit success criteria which could be used in a plenary of peer and self-assessment orchestrated by the class teacher. The lesson objective was obvious: we were learning how to write a vivid description of an event to make it exciting for a reader. I discussed this with pupils, clarifying what ‘vivid’ meant, and suggested we consider the following areas as our success criteria: appropriate vocabulary, sentence variety, a clear structure and effective punctuation. 1. Vocabulary I concentrated on vocabulary to start with, simply asking them to jot down peaceful, gentle and calm words. Long vowels, soft sibilant ‘s’s and warm murmuring ‘m’s were volunteered, as were words they associated with peacefulness. We then collected violent and fast words, getting some onomatopoeic whizzing and banging. More time could have been spent on building word banks in advance, utilising thesauruses or the magpie-ing Pie Corbett advocates in Talk for Writing (materials for the Primary National Strategy now available via the National Archives). The roller-coaster metaphor worked well here as the pupils understood the slow, gradual ascent to the top and then came up with ‘plummeting’, ‘dropping’ and ‘falling’, as well as offering their experiences of such bone jangling rides. For gentler words, they offered ‘skating’ and ‘sliding’ as well as ‘humming’, ‘snoring’ and ‘strolling’. A classroom display presenting ‘word families’ or contrasts (slow/fast, heavy/light, violent/peaceful) might further develop pupils’ active vocabulary, surrounding them with the ‘wow words’ Big Writing (www.andrelleducation.com) advocates and including associations or comments on what makes them ‘wowful’ in context. 2. Structure The roller coaster also gave us a useful structure for the work, and pupils were told that the task was to produce three paragraphs: one representing the ascent and thus being calm and peaceful, perhaps building the tension; a second paragraph, the ‘descent’, should be fast and violent, while the third brought everything to a halt or dealt with the aftermath. Three part structures seemed to me to be useful and manageable, and were certainly advisable when addressing shorter writing tasks, for instance for short GCSE exam pieces. Simple frameworks are helpful if doing something complex. In a longer piece the ups and downs of the ride could be mapped out and the ambitious might go for verbal corkscrews, tunnels or other thrilling devices. 3. Models I brought along several short extracts. These were from novels targeting a teenage audience but accessible to those anticipating teendom in the near future. The brilliantly written opening to The Edge by Alan Gibbons (Orion Books, 2002) was favourite, though its themes were more secondary-oriented. Here, the hero and his mother flee an abusive boyfriend who wakes as they escape into the night. Gibbons creates tension as quiet creeping collapses into panicked flight. A crucial paragraph runs:
‘Go! says Mum. ‘We’ve got to go ... now!’ It’s like the floor is tilting, the walls closing in. Everything distorts. The world in which escape is possible is disintegrating and another world is rushing up to meet it. This is Chris’s world, the terror zone. But there is no way back. They’re running down the first flight of stairs. As they turn to descend to the ground floor they hear Chris’s voice from the flat. ‘Cath? Cathy!’
An extended simile, direct speech, short sentences, dramatic verbs, continuous present tense, vivid imagery, ellipsis and exclamation combine to create frantic disorientation, the excitement I hoped pupils could emulate when translating what was in their heads onto paper. I also used a section of an Anthony Horowitz tale, ‘The Man With The Yellow Face’ (in Horowitz Horror, Orchard Books 2005). My focus was on a short description of a train crash. I’d used it before, with Gillian Clarke’s poem ‘On The Train’ (1999, see www.gillianclarke.co.uk/home.htm) and with non-fiction accounts of train crashes, but here it was a model for the roller-coaster writing I wanted these primary school pupils to produce and it had the desired three-part structure. Pupils, familiar with Horowitz from Alex Rider and The Power of Five novels, didn’t know this story. After briefly summarising the situation (boy on a train with aunt and uncle after mysterious, scary experience at the station), I read aloud, as expressively as I could, taking a deep breath before launching into paragraph two:
I didn’t even know anything was wrong until it had happened. We were travelling fast, whizzing through green fields and clumps of woodland when I felt a slight lurch as if invisible arms had reached down and pulled me out of my seat. That was all there was at first, a sort of mechanical hiccup. But then I had the strange sensation that the train was flying. It was like a plane at the end of the runway, the front of the train separating from the ground. It could only have lasted a couple of seconds but in my memory those seconds seem to stretch out for ever. I remember my uncle’s head turning, the question forming itself on his face. And my aunt, perhaps realising what was happening before we did, opening her mouth to scream. I remember the other passengers; I carry snapshots of them in my head. A mother with two small daughters, both with ribbons in their hair. A man with a moustache, his pen hovering over The Times crossword. A boy of about my own age, listening to a Walkman. The train was almost full. There was hardly an empty seat in sight. And then the smash of the impact, the world spinning upside down, windows shattering, coats and suitcases tumbling down, sheets of paper whipping into my face, thousands of tiny fragments of glass swarming into me, the deafening scream of tearing metal, the sparks and the smoke and the flames leaping up, cold air rushing in and then the horrible rolling and shuddering that was like the very worst sort of fairground ride only this time the terror wasn’t going to stop, this time it was all for real. Silence. They always say there’s silence after an accident and they’re right. I was on my back with something pressing down on me. I could only see out of one eye. Something dripped on to my face. Blood. Then the screams began
Pupils were engrossed and wanted to talk about the passage. They picked up the contrast between the first and second paragraphs and examined the verbs, seeing a marked difference between the speedy but gentle ‘travelling, whizzing, separating, flying, stretch, realising and carry’ and the violent ‘smash, spinning, shattering, tumbling, tearing, whipping, shuddering, rushing’. They also noticed sentence length, especially the snapshot sentences of paragraph one (a photographic image is significant in the story) and the dizzying long sentence that is paragraph two. The sudden halt, in a single word paragraph, did not pass them by. They talked of the imagery, the simile, the use of ‘And’ to start a sentence, and the gradualness of the build-up using freeze-frames and ‘slow motion’.
4. Generating ideas Pupils, excited by the writing, enthusiastic to talk about ideas and experiences, were eager to begin the task. I suggested possible scenarios: a fight begins; bullies advance; big dipper accelerates; something dangerous is getting closer; someone is about to create a spark in a gas-filled room.... Many had their own ideas with one class intending to incorporate the extract writing into an adventure tale they were concocting. We could have role-played the scenarios, exploring emotions, sights, sounds, smells, feelings and taste of the experience but there wasn’t time and pupils were keen to get ideas down and shape them. Merging our own word collection with those from the passage, we set to work.
And finally …
Feedback was positive, with pupils later commenting on the memorable roller-coaster lesson. The writing was good, with boys in particular producing their best work yet. Grammatical terminology seemed productive, going beyond trope-spotting to pinpointing writing. One boy remarked on the task, ‘Great, we can write about something we like!’ so at least one happy customer enjoyed the ride.
Glenn Mascord is an English adviser with Blackpool LEA.

I have now enabled comments should anyone wish to say anything. More blog items shortly. Happy New Year.

this popped up as an idea for a poem while kicking a ball about in our garden with my son. A chicken which had appeared from nowhere and had decided to live in the garden (which it did for several weeks), tried to join in. we agreed that you can't play football with a chicken and wrote this.

 Are footballing chickens sicker than parrots?

Oh you can’t play football with a chicken,

Unless you use the chicken as a ball.

But if it is your pet, it can’t be volleyed through the net

As the chicken will not take to it at all.

You can’t play football with a chicken,

Even if you try to play it on the wing.

You might get a clever pass that skids across the grass

But don’t expect a cross to bend or swing.

You can’t play football with a chicken,

Even if it tries a shot in off the post.

It may be a great layer but it’s not a proper player

And would be better served up as a roast

You can’t play football with a chicken,

Even if you play it in defence.

It might give opponents a few knocks as they head into the box

But its contribution will not be immense.

You can’t play football with a chicken,

Even if you play it at left back.

It’s really not quick-witted, is too easily committed

And the little clucker won’t be joining an attack

You can’t play football with a chicken,

Even if you make it captain of the team.

It can’t even do the talk, you just get a little squawk

And the chicken would be stuffed and not supreme.

You can’t play football with a chicken

Even if it shows a lot of pluck.

It’s utterly absurd to play football with a bird

Whether it’s a cockerel or a pheasant or a duck.

You can’t play football with a chicken

Even if you teach it fancy tricks

You might get swerving and some flicking but not much heading or much kicking,

And no ball is going to fly through the sticks.

You can’t play football with a chicken,

And an attempt should be given a straight red.

4-3-3 or 4-2-4, you are never going to score

It’s a foul idea so knock it on the head.

Reading the runes or why the dodo was a no-no.

Reading KS2

There was a lot of concern expressed on the day of the KS2 reading test for 2016, with many teachers reporting how upset pupils were at the texts and the questions. The results that emerged two months later seemed to indicate that the anxieties were justified, with reading attainment dipping below writing, maths and SPAG  and huge variation existing between schools. The subsequent self-analysis and self-laceration in which schools and year 6 teachers have indulged has led to several questions about why many pupils performed so badly and some answers have been forthcoming, with successful schools talking about how they emphasise reading throughout the key stage 2 and  have taught exam technique – including answering on only two of the texts and ducking any 3 mark questions. More reading and more explicit teaching of inference and of vocabulary have been mentioned as possible solutions to the difficulties many erstwhile successful schools find themselves in. A scrutiny of the information available in Raiseonline seems to support these suggestions.

Schools can access their own results on Raiseonline, including a breakdown of how pupils performed on individual questions. Some companies are offering to provide this sort of analysis at a price but it is easy enough to do yourselves and you can get down to individual pupil level. National data is also available and it is of some interest.

The paper consisted of three texts: a piece of Swallows and Amazons type fiction created in-house; a bizarre tale of giraffe-riding African savannah; and a non-fiction piece on the dodo (most children I came across pronounced this’ doodoo’, obediently following their synthetic phonics training).

Although the first text seemed to me to so culturally loaded that I assumed many children would have looked at it, sighed and moved on, on average  97.6% of pupils attempted each question, slightly less than the 98.6% average for text 2 and many more than the 64.4% average for text 3.  The low number for attempts on text 3 questions may be a result of tiredness or weak time-management by pupils, might reflect some gaming of the system and concentration on the ostensibly easier texts or suggest that non-fiction poses problems for children and approaches to it are not taught as thoroughly as they are for fiction. Non-fiction may also figure less in reading-for-pleasure initiatives and offer up vocabulary, sentence structures and content that are unfamiliar. I would certainly advise investigating any patterns of question-answering in your school before making any sweeping changes to practice. The reluctance to answer on non-fiction  certainly needs addressing I think and it pops up again when looking at what pupils got right and wrong.

The data also provides a count of how girls and boys responded and the differences between FSM and non-FSM pupils but my quick glance suggests the differences were pretty insignificant – presumably because of the rigorous trialling that STA carries out in advance of the papers being set (something that may also explain the patterns of question popularity and correctness in what was always meant to be a ‘stepped’ paper). SEN and Non-SEN comparisons show  variation but this may be as expected.

In addition to giving us a count of which questions were attempted, the data gives us the numbers of questions which were correctly answered. The 11 questions which were answered least well are listed below in a table. I have made a comment on each of them and also indicated which aspects of the content domain (similar to what we used to call assessment focuses) the questions set out to assess. Before we get there however, here is a list of the content domain aspects and the number of questions assigned in the 2016 paper:

2a give / explain the meaning of words in context.  10 questions

2b retrieve and record information / identify key details from fiction and non-fiction. 13 questions (1x 3-mark)

2c summarise main ideas from more than one paragraph. 1 question

2d make inferences from the text / explain and justify inferences with evidence from the text. 12 questions (1x 3-mark 4x 2-mark)

2e predict what might happen from details stated and implied. 1 question (1x 3-mark)

2f identify / explain how information / narrative content is related and contributes to meaning as a whole. 1 question

2g identify / explain how meaning is enhanced through choice of words and phrases 1 question. (1x 2-mark)

2h make comparisons within the text. 0 questions.

It is certainly worth considering how well your pupils did on each of these. It is also worth considering the extent to which you teach each of these explicitly and how you go about it. As one might expect from the average number of attempts’ data, it was the non-fiction text that put most children in the doo doo. On average each question on  non-fiction was answered correctly by only 31.2% of pupils. Text 2 saw a success rate of 51.7% and text 1 was at 69.7%. This may indicate the relative difficulty of texts or questions, or their place in the test, but again, this is worth exploring with the questions I raised about non-fiction being raised again.

The questions answered correctly by most pupils were: question 2, which assessed content domain 2a; 12b, 9b and 12d, which assessed content domain 2b. Question 1, assessing 2a, was also done well. Thus, most children seem to be ok with information retrieval and, with caveats that will become evident shortly, with explaining some words in context.

Questions answered least successfully

question	Content domain	Comment
16	2d	Only 15% of pupils got this inference question right. It required two points to be made – only hinted at by its 2 mark status - and makes some demands on vocabulary, as indicated by the phrase cited at the question’s start -milled around in bewilderment. While I think pupils may do their fair share of bewildered milling, I suspect they don’t describe it as such.
33	2c	16%. The last question on the paper and requiring kids to sequence 6 paragraphs across the texts from summaries given. Potentially time consuming, this does require the ability to identify paragraph topics and relate the given summaries to their own view of the text.
29	2a	A vocabulary question close to the paper’s end. Parched is the word and pupils need to define it in context.  Only 21% did.
30	2a	Joint with 25. Another late question and another vocabulary one. It’s a simple find-and-copy question but the use of the  agentless passive (it is thought that) is the target. Only 23% recognised this form of scientific writing.
25	2a	Joint with 30. Another late question on the non-fiction text and it is a find-and-copy from somewhere on page 10. Apart from having to range across the page, pupils are required to understand that some of the animals on Mauritius is synonymous with much of the island’s…wildlife and that unique, in this context, means only found there.
32	2d	Another late question which could range across the whole text and requires inference. It also requires them to know that rehabilitate means change the image of in this context – although question 31 had proferred a definition, accepted by 35% of pupils, which stated that rehabilitation actually meant rebuild the reputation of the dodo. Thus vocabulary is pretty important here and slight shifts in meaning may have confused.
24	2d	Inference and on the non-fiction text again. Only 27% of pupils understood curious and unafraid and could work out a reason why the dodos were so blasé.
19	2d	Inference but not on the non-fiction text! Kids need to understand triumphant and overcome any confusion about what a war thog is (how some pupils said it to me). 28% did.
26b	2b	Back to the dodo and an information retrieval question which are generally done well but here only 32% got it.. Pupils did need to know that extinct meant wiped out.
21	2d	Joint with 23. Inference required and worth 3 marks. 34% were recorded as getting it correct but the data does not make clear if correct means 3, 2 or 1 mark. Markers have flagged this up as a tough question to assess, maybe because its apparent open-endedness – why might the character appeal- is closed down in the mark scheme with markers having to decide what is ‘acceptable’. It is about points and evidence which do need teaching.
23	2a	Back to vocabulary and the dodo. One would assume that spat (the past tense of spit) was part of everyday language but maybe pupils don’t associate it with force, speed or ejecting something unwanted.

Vocabulary questions, though figuring in the best answered questions too, seem to offer challenge, especially in non-fiction work, late on in the paper and when the words are not part of everyday language or used in everyday ways. Vocabulary is an important part of inference questions too, partly because of how the questions are framed but also because they are inextricably intertwined. Some vocabulary questions were done well especially early on in the test and where there were options. Question 2 was find the synonym for rival with 4 options being given and 85% ticking the correct box with equal, neighbouring and important rejected in favour of competing. Question 1 was a find-and-copy – a word meaning relatives from long ago. Ancestors was understood or well guessed by 79%.

Both rivals and ancestors are well within the experience of most pupils.

When dealing with vocabulary, as part of inference as well as on its own, it is unlikely that simply doing words of the week or issuing  lists to learn will be helpful. Words need to be seen in varying contexts and their varying uses, nuances and implications understood. Having a wide range of experience will clearly help build vocabulary but where this isn’t possible ( and many children I know have never petted warthogs on the savannah, rowed a boat to a private island or ridden a giraffe) then the vicarious experience of reading lots of books and doing lots of drama can help. I would also suggest that lots of non-fiction reading can extend the knowledge base required (even if one doesn’t go the whole hog on Hirschian notions of cultural literacy) and introduce pupils to forms, sentence structures and language beyond those they experience at home. Giving explicit attention to how factual texts are constructed and having kids write them themselves may be valuable in many ways.

To do well on the reading paper, say successful teachers I have talked to, schools need to do some or all of the following:

·         Teach pupils to ‘game’ the test - knocking off one mark questions and not spending aeons on three markers

·         Have kids focus on the first two texts – thus increasing the time available by a third and reducing panic too. Not recommended for those able readers aiming to achieve at greater depth

·         Teach ways of approaching an unfamiliar text – chunking it, identifying the key points of paragraphs, seeking out topic sentences for example, plus puzzling over unusual uses of language, checking comprehension as they go… .

·         Give pupils the confidence and skill to take a stab at what a word might mean and check if it makes sense in context

·         Teach word roots and seize opportunities to expand passive and active vocabularies

·         Enjoy words publicly

·         Read widely across a range of genres and engage pupils in discussion of books at every opportunity

·         Read non-fiction and write non-fiction, looking at how writers engage readers and present facts and opinions

·         Read challenging texts, i.e. those which may take some effort to grasp because they are older, more specialized or more complex. Tease out meaning together and consider what makes them difficult.

·         Organise lots of visits,

·         Do lots of drama, including hot seating and role play so pupils develop empathy and a vocabulary to describe experiences and emotions they couldn’t realistically have in day-to-day life

·         Make sure all pupils are middle class or better and have interested, involved parents.

assessment and moderation

There is to be an inquiry into primary assessment - details can be accessed via : http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/education-committee/inquiries/parliament-2015/primary-assessment-16-17/ .

Meanwhile discussion continues over various aspects of the assessment system and, of course, the potential significance of testing at age 11 as the government seeks to implement its new secondary modern system. I do hope the system is extended so that every teacher can deny a child access to their classroom unless they pass aa test. It would make life much easier.

On a different note, the ever helpful Michael Tidd published a survey he had undertaken into KS2 writing moderation. he was checking out what people understood by 'independence'. he set a series of questions (see below) and got results suggesting there were wide variations in what people thought was legitimately accepted as independent, what wasn't and whether they thought it was acceptable but not sensible or acceptable and sensible.
the questions were:

1.A teacher shares success criteria on the board before writing?

2.A teacher collects key vocabulary and shares it on the board before writing?

3.A teacher reads and shares examples of good sentences etc during independent writing?

4.A child uses a dictionary of their own accord to check their own spellings?

5.A teacher underlines misspelt words for a child to correct independently?

6.A teacher marks ‘sp’ in the margin of a line where spelling needs to be corrected, for a pupil to find and correct?

7.More able pupils sit with less confident spellers to give peer feedback on spelling corrections?

8.A teacher directs a child to add a sentence containing a semi-colon to a piece of writing?

9.A teacher sits with a pupil asking them where they think new paragraphs should have been used, before re-drafting?

10.A teacher provides verbal feedback on drafts, before pupils produce up to 5 drafts?

I added two more for the purpose of discussion with moderators:

11.( linked to q8) A teacher tells the class to review the framework criteria/tick list after they have produced a first draft. S/he tells them to ensure that they have met the criteria e.g. by ensuring they have a semi-colon sentence, a passive sentence or two, some words off the year 6 list etc.?

12.( linked to q10) a teacher gives verbal feedback before pupils write their second and final draft?

The outcomes can be viewed on his blog https://michaelt1979.wordpress.com . He has written lots more of interest on the topic but ,as I was prepping a moderators' meeting, I thought I'd look at the questions too. Independence is a fraught area and likely to be  an issue in 2017 as well.

My responses are below and are introduced by the guidance from STA and by guidance I gave out to moderators and schools following STA presentations to local authorities. I am grateful to colleague Sarah Coldbeck who attended a different presentation to me so we were able to confirm each other's understanding of what was said.

Clarification on evidence for writing that is allowed as ‘working independently’

If writing evidence has been redrafted by the pupil, this is acceptable as independent work. The redrafted work may be in response to self, peer, or group evaluation, or after discussion with the teacher.

Pupils can also independently use classroom resources such as dictionaries, thesauruses, word banks, classroom displays, books or websites.

It would not be independent if the work was modelled or heavily scaffolded, copied or paraphrased or where the teacher has directed the pupil to change specific words or punctuation.         STA guidance

Guidance from myself to schools and moderators Feb 2016.

The writing that children produce and that moderators will look at should be part of their normal classroom practice in writing. Cold tasks, exam condition style sessions or things done purely for assessment purposes are not required or desirable. The writing could be produced after teaching of a particular text type. Success criteria might have been generated or shared and could still be on show as children wrote. Discussion of ideas, immersion in or magpieing of vocabulary and exploring examples of the text type are part of good classroom practice and do not disqualify the writing from assessment. The key point about independence is that children make their own choices about how to apply what they have been taught or have discussed. Directly copying from a model would not count as independent and neither would something heavily scaffolded.

Use of dictionaries, working walls and word banks are perfectly acceptable and the child still has to make a decision about when to deploy these resources and refer to them. Electronic spelling aids are not acceptable though, as you have to confirm that they spell independently.

Drafting, polishing and improving one’s writing are integral to the writing process and encouraged by the national curriculum. Moderators will want to look at drafts and plans as part of their scrutiny. This would include responses to peer assessment or teacher comment where these are not overly directive. A comment about rethinking the adjectives used or checking punctuation, for example, are perfectly acceptable and do not interfere with independence. A direct comment about, for example, changing a particular word, is not acceptable. Proof reading for the child is also not acceptable.

The ‘prompt don’t proof’ guidance about marking is worth adhering to.

My response

On the basis of the STA guidance and that issued by ourselves after attending the STA briefing on the exemplification materials and frameworks, we would think that the answer to questions 1,2 and 4, is a definite and unequivocal  yes.

Question 3 may depend on whether these sentences then appear in children’s  work. However, as we indicate below, and is clear in STA requirements, writing for the purpose of assessment is not required. If it is good practice to share examples and model for pupils when teaching children how to write – and we believe it is – then this is permissible. If you are teaching writing in science and asking pupils to complete a report using the agentless passive then exemplification is extremely useful. Dictating the sentences is not and it would probably be best to have modelled the passive in an unrelated piece of writing.

Question 5 may be tricky. It is good practice for teachers to prompt pupils to rethink a word, though it would probably be better if the pupils put the squiggly line underneath a word they were uncertain of themselves. The teacher is not correcting but prompting. This seems just about acceptable in the definition of independence. It does not quite reach the extent of a Microsoft spellchecker but I think it comes close. 

Question 6 seems similar to question 5 – a prompt to seek and correct so probably acceptable and not quite so targeted at the particular error as the practice in q5.

Question 7 is part of peer assessment but I wonder if the assistance given from peers acting as unqualified teachers, and possibly just telling them the spelling, would be supportive of independence. I don’t think it would mean rejecting the work as overly scaffolded but I wonder if it allows the spelling box to be ticked?

Question 8 may seem like a no on the face of it and I added question 11 to broaden it a little. A general reference to the assessment criteria which requires writing to have grammatical features such as semi-colons if it is to be judged as good, seems fine. Pupils need to know which hoops to jump through. The advice is to put a semi-colon sentence in to please the examiner and being able to do this appropriately and correctly is what should be judged so my answer is: yes, this  is  still independent  and I would advise schools to do what is suggested in question 11.

Question 9 is again borderline but is prompting rather than proofing or over directing thus is probably acceptable practice, although it should lead over time to pupils asking themselves these questions.

Question 10 is a bit confused and mixes the validity of feedback with the number of drafts done. Verbal feedback in general terms or which points to success criteria seems fine. 5 drafts may seem too many, but does the number of drafts actually matter if it is the child trying to get it right ? Moderators might ask for more detail about the feedback given and would hope that later pieces of work show the child being able to step back and evaluate prior to a final draft without recourse to peers or adults. How many times would you draft a letter of application for an important job?

Questions 11 and 12  are yeses.

Other questions.

What is the purpose of independent writing? Is it to provide material for assessment, thus making every writing session a test? Is it the application of what has been taught and learned? Is it part of the learning process?  The writing that is being  assessed is also evidence of having learned the science geography, history or whatever and how to write within the constraints of that subject.

What do real writers (i.e. grown-ups) do when writing? Should children not be doing this?

NB the national curriculum emphasises that the drafting and proof-reading process needs teaching (It is essential that teaching develops pupils’ competence in these two dimensions -transcription and composition-. In addition, pupils should be taught how to plan, revise and evaluate their writing.

Hundreds of years ago I worked with students on a school newspaper at toot Hill Comp in Notts. The paper was unofficial and frowned upon by the management, as were most things I did. However, many students got a great deal from it. one thing we all had a go at was translating words into pictures. Predating the film Ted by several years, we came up with a variety of ...ted images. I have redrawn some below - thanks to Jules Hussey, Paul Metcalfe, James Campbell and his brother Eddie (I think- sorry if it isn't your name). More to come.  Do try your own.

Taking moderation to extremes

or

What we have learned about KS2 writing and assessment in 2016

Like a portakabin in the playground, the ‘interim’ assessment criteria for KS1 and 2 writing look likely to be in use indefinitely. Although the STA website emphasises that the 2017 frameworks are for one year only, they said that was the case for 2016, yet here they are again, unchanged and unaffected by the controversy that surrounded their birth.  Whatever one thinks of the descriptors, this probably counts as a blessing, as, for 2016 -17, we begin the year with an idea of how we have to assess our pupils’ writing; something we lacked for most of 2015-16. We also have the added benefit, dubious though it may be, of experience, having applied the criteria during the summer assessment season.  As someone with responsibility for overseeing KS2 writing moderation in 2016 and going into several schools to monitor, challenge and support the process, I thought it might be useful to share a few thoughts, informed by my own observations and by the feedback received from our esteemed moderators at both KS2 and KS1.

Context and controversy

The interim frameworks were rolled out in September 2015 and were supplemented by exemplification materials which finally appeared around Christmas.  There was resistance to the exemplification materials, the criteria and the timescale for assessment (May 22^nd given as deadline for writing assessment at KS2 and 13^th June for KS1) which led to grudging changes to assessment and reporting arrangements (“for this year only”) in March 2016. The increased demand and ‘perfect fit’ approach were defended as part of a commitment to higher standards, with ‘robustness and fairness’ advanced as reasons for the early deadlines. The exemplification materials were also defended but the compulsion to use them, along with the accompanying tick-sheets that offered assistance in applying the criteria, was removed. Local Authorities and moderators were left in the middle somewhat. They had an obligation to ensure that assessment in the schools being sampled was robust and that criteria were applied consistently. Original plans were binned. Professional dialogue was reinstated, having been discarded in favour of a more authoritarian ‘scrutiny’, and moderators retrained to make them aware that schools couldn’t be required to submit assessments in advance of a visit (no matter that this actually accelerated and improved the process) and didn’t have to use the tick-sheets and exemplification, though moderators would. Fortunately for us, we had kept schools abreast of all the changes and had involved them throughout. Our moderators are practising teachers drawn from several schools and collectively, and often individually, possessed of vast experience and expertise. As a result, the majority of schools were prepared to submit their assessments in advance and were welcoming and hospitable to moderators who, as had always been the case in the past, were there as professional colleagues, helping them to ensure their assessments were accurate, no matter what they thought of the strictures and criteria imposed upon them.

The Frameworks and Exemplification

The writing framework at KS1 and KS2 is really the GPS test in another form. The descriptors, whether bulleted or dropped into a table for ticking, mention purpose and audience but are simply a list of grammatical features that have to be included to meet the expected standard, whether purpose, audience and context require them or not. The attempt, of course, is to replace the old ‘best fit’ approach where assessors make a judgement about the qualities of a collection of writing against a prose descriptor (or, with the now defunct APP grids, several prose descriptors) and arrive at a grade level or standard.  The ‘best fit’ approach is mistrusted because its descriptors are open to interpretation and, even with levels and sub-levels, it provides only a broad idea or approximation of how capable a writer the child is. It does not guarantee ‘mastery’ of each and every attribute. A tick-list (what some commentators like to refer to as the ‘perfect fit’ approach, with its suggestion of rigour and precision), ostensibly details what a child can or has to do, but does not evaluate effectiveness or quality. The approach is an abandonment of much past practice including that of former Tory governments, as is illustrated by this from the Cox Report of 1989:

The main principle is that the secretarial aspect should not be allowed to predominate in the assessment while the more complex aspects of composition are ignored. It is evident that a child may be a poor speller, but write well-structured and interesting stories, or be a good speller, but write badly structured and boring stories. (1)

            The dismay that many teachers felt on seeing the criteria and the exemplification was expressed very clearly across social media with Mike Rosen, amongst others, railing against this highly reductive approach and the view that “good writing can be defined or measured by using a criterion like ‘does this passage include an embedded relative clause’”.(2) Arguably, the criteria simply ask for the application of grammatical knowledge and ‘secretarial skills’ (or ‘technical skills’, depending upon one’s ideological frame perhaps) but, as Rosen and others ask, is this a viable or useful definition of writing for purpose and audience when there is nothing to suggest that successful address to these principles is of any value? The creators of the exemplification materials (the adults, not the children whose work has been commandeered) seem to be aware of the conflict and difficulty. Their commentaries included sections on ‘composition and effect’, which were the areas which, in the days of writing tests and level descriptors, gained most marks. Their comments are pointless in assessment terms though, and do not address anything in the framework. They deal with ‘complex aspects of composition’ and elements which actually are mentioned in the current national curriculum, such as ‘fluency’, enjoyment and understanding of language’, ‘effectiveness as well as competence’ and ‘conscious control’ but these aspects do not figure in the descriptors.

There were a few prosaic and pragmatic problems encountered with the tick boxes and bullet points of the framework. The ‘perfect fit’ descriptors often conflated more than one skill or attribute. Across a range of work teachers and moderators had to find children “using present and past tense mostly correctly and consistently” (KS1) or “using passive and modal verbs mostly appropriately” (KS2). Often of course, this did not occur simultaneously and a single tick or highlighter stroke could not convey whether the statement had been met or not. Trying to judge whether a child had met the standard for the single bullet point, “using inverted commas, commas for clarity, and punctuation for parenthesis mostly correctly, and making some correct use of semi-colons, dashes, colons and hyphens” (KS2) caused mild apoplexy. A single tick, or the alternative approach of annotating the work, disingenuously proposed by the then Education Secretary, could not usefully cover the entirety of this descriptor and it had to be disaggregated. Ironically, we had to construct lengthier tick lists than those provided by STA so that we could manage the information and confirm what a child had achieved. This difficulty was compounded by the fact that, for a child to have met the standard, every bullet point or statement had to be demonstrated.

As the STA training for Local Authority leads demonstrated, reading several pieces of work and confirming that a particular standard had been met mostly, consistently, sometimes, occasionally, frequently or whatever takes a long time. Moderation visits were much lengthier than in previous years, especially in three form entry schools, and year 2 and year 6 teachers, who generally do not swim leisurely in oceans of free time, often found assessing every child against each criterion onerous, exhausting and wasteful. Even during the moderation visit, there was insufficient time to follow the exemplification model and ensure that 5 out of 6 pieces ticked enough boxes for a pass. Judgements were required and dialogue was essential. If there is a return to solitary scrutiny by moderators in 2017, they will need sleeping bags and camping equipment for every visit.  

In addition to time pressures, and despite our best efforts as an LA, teachers, who had received the exemplification material late in the year, did not always feel confident or fully prepared for the assessment process. At KS2 they were also preparing children to take tests in grammar, maths and reading which were based on a six-year curriculum of which their children had had eighteen months. At KS1, they were preparing to administer and mark new tests while gathering evidence to make assessments against new criteria in maths, reading and writing. They also had to decide whether to use the grammar test that the government had mistakenly published online a few months earlier and which was originally designed to inform their judgement of children’s writing. Nonetheless, many teachers gave up their time, conscientiously applied the criteria, read the exemplification materials and prepared for moderation with a thoroughness that was admirable but morale-sapping and debilitating. Previously, moderators had travelled in pairs but with the complexity of KS1 assessment and the need to check that the tests had been marked accurately by teachers, this was increased to three. At KS2 we stuck with two moderators per school but, while also moderating the moderators, I often acted as an additional body.

Moderation in all things

When in schools, moderators engaged teachers in a dialogue about the evidence. Receiving provisional assessments in advance meant they were able to select pupils whose work they wanted to see and get a good start to the long process of verifying or challenging judgements. Most teachers did want to talk about the particular qualities of the work being scrutinised and, as in previous years, were keen to point out where a child was using imaginative vocabulary, evocative similes, effectively deployed dialogue or clear expressions of opinion and evidence. They were rightly proud of the occasions in the writing where a particular group of words captured an idea or emotion, i.e. where children discovered the objective correlative! However, moderators had to be party-poopers and bring discussion back to tick sheets and grammatical features. Time was spent hunting down semi-colons and passive constructions at KS2 and at KS1 the exclamation sentence proved elusive and there were debates about horizontal strokes and spaces between letters. Where teachers had undertaken periodic assessment using the tick lists and had deployed them with children during the drafting and proof-reading process, the ticks were forthcoming. Where they hadn’t, aided by well-meaning organisations like NAHT and the unions who had put out guidance emphasising what could and couldn’t be done and had encouraged a retrogressive level-based judgement, things were less straightforward.  A collection of work might well have been a 4B or even a 5 last year but, if the passive voice was lacking or a semi-colon, dash or hyphen could not be found, it was not at the expected standard. The deferred deadline of June 30^th allowed moderators to give schools time to produce extra work which did allow pupils to tick the boxes. This may not be the case next year and in 2016 it added the pressure of an additional visit and extra assurances about independence.

Because teachers were talking to teachers, because there was space to review and because the majority of teachers at KS1 and KS2 had attended briefing sessions and network meetings or knew moderators and advisers they could ask, things went relatively smoothly. Because teachers knew their children extremely well and moderators were keen to help rather than condemn, the dialogue worked. Changes to STA instructions on cursive handwriting did have to be explained and there were many debates about what a ‘wide range of clause structures’ might be and which structures and vocabulary correctly indicated the required levels of formality. As formal writing was also a feature of the ‘greater depth’ standard at KS2, moderators often advised schools to include more formal writing in their plans for next year, suggesting discursive pieces and more stringent approaches to writing  investigations in science for example, where the passive could also be required.  There were also discussions about what constituted a short story (a requirement at KS2) or a narrative (a requirement at KS1), though, in the latter it mattered little as none of the criteria dealt with a text level judgement, unlike the now defunct Foundation Stage descriptors which at least referenced features of a narrative. At KS2 confirming that an atmosphere had been created and dialogue integrated so that character could be conveyed and action advanced did lead to some discussion and schools fared better when they sought to have children produce longer, more sustained narratives and free them from the tyranny of the old writing test or the Big Write model.  This criterion, like the first two KS2 ‘greater depth’ criteria, also seemed more in keeping with old judgements about composition and effect, and less about parading one’s SPAG knowledge.

Conversations with moderated schools unsurprisingly revealed that moderators and teachers shared a frustration with the new assessment system, the political whims that dictated the frameworks and the cack-handed implementation. The arbitrary decision that those working below ‘working below’, i.e. at pre-key stage standards were not to be moderated was concerning for some schools where there were pupils operating at this level. Moderators assisted in this at the school’s request and helped them to distinguish between the three sub-levels that describe pre-key stage 2 performance. How schools who weren’t moderated or who were but did not offer up their ‘pre-key stage’ pupils, got on may be anyone’s guess but with 75% of schools not getting a moderating visit some uncertainty must remain.

An uncertain future

We don’t yet know the details of the 2017 moderation process and whether it will be the same as this and previous years. Government bowed to pressure over the timing of the assessment but said it was only for this this year – thus it may well be that the writing deadline is May 22^nd or thereabouts and KS1 has to be wrapped up by June 13^th ish. KS2 grades/levels/standards or whatever we now call them may have to be submitted to LAs and STA by the end of the very testing month of May with moderators then checking the accuracy of assessments in selected schools. KS1 teachers would just be exhausted shadows of their former selves. Holiday patterns, with Easter vacations and the summer half-term break occurring at different times and for different lengths of time for different schools are likely to cause even greater confusion and complication next year than they did this. The ‘moderation’, as originally envisaged for 2016, may also become a ‘scrutiny’ and not the helpful, collaborative process which moderation defaulted to this year. On the basis of the original instructions to LAs for 2016, scrutineers would march into schools carrying the threat of a maladministration charge with them. They wouldn’t engage in professional dialogue but would sequester themselves in the building, issuing demands for more evidence if required and then present their verdict to the head, LA and STA.  Opportunities to have kids produce last minute pieces of writing so that they did not fall short of the expected standard for want of a colon, dash or embedded clause would be unavailable.

At our post-moderation debrief, moderators shared what they had learned and what they were going to be doing in their own schools next year. At KS1 there was a feeling that there has to be a continuing focus on subject knowledge and on ensuring that practice, e.g. with regard to cursive writing, allows pupils to hit the criteria. Teachers noted that they must make sure that pupils have the chance to use different sorts of sentence, including the mimicking of Swallows and Amazons’ exclamations that begin with a ‘what’ or a ‘how’ and contain a verb (What jolly wonderful lessons will emerge!). They also saw the inevitability of building in periodic internal moderation to identify what needed to be taught directly but were also determined to ensure immersion in a range of texts, regular reading and opportunities to write for pleasure and enjoy language.

Similar thoughts were in the minds of KS2 moderators, who were adamant that they wouldn’t teach to the interim frameworks because tick lists are not helpful in improving writing, whereas an attention to purpose and audience is. Using models of good writing produced by other children and by professional writers was strongly advocated, with attention being drawn to how they use punctuation and particular grammatical structures to achieve a particular effect. They felt it important to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s however and thought the extended tick sheets were a necessity, when undertaking periodic assessment themselves or when engaging pupils in peer and self-assessment and as part of the all-important drafting and proof-reading process. Ensuring that there were opportunities for formal writing was agreed as vital, particularly where pupils aspire to be working at greater depth. This did mean further developing their understanding of what constitutes ‘formality’ and ensuring that the passive voice was encouraged in assignments such as the science report, news report, discursive essay and occasionally in fiction. There was also a desire to increase the knowledge of some of the more abstruse elements of the framework, such as the difference between separating independent clauses with a colon or a semi-colon.  Extended short stories will figure more, it was believed, with teachers concentrating on constructing extended narratives and teaching how to create character, develop action and dialogue and climb and descend the story mountain. All of this being done, of course, with a strong regard for pupil independence.  

Discussion about the 2016 moderation cycle inevitably turned to the tests with reading being the major concern at both KS1 and KS2. How writing, after years of lagging behind performance in reading, suddenly became the stronger discipline, was certainly an area for discussion. The problems with the reading tests at both KS1 and KS2, however, is a topic for another day.

1.    The Cox Report: English for ages 5 to 16. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1989

2.     See michaelrosenblog.blogspot.co.uk . Michael Rosen also produced a poem on the subject called Writing at the Expected Level (20^th June 2016) and has written several pieces on the grammar test and writing assessment.