Do you have enough independent writing to assess your year 6 pupils against the writing Teacher Assessment Framework for the end of Key Stage 2?
Plazoom has created a selection of writing activities, linked to the foundation subjects where possible, to provide opportunities for independent writing. These could be used to assess pupils against the TAF statements for writing, providing vital evidence of the standard that pupils are working which could be used for internal or external moderation.
‘Pupils’ writing, on which teachers base their judgements, must be produced independently by the pupil.’ (Key stage 2 teacher assessment guidance, October 2019). This writing activity provides success criteria to help pupils understand what they have learnt and a stimulus for writing but teachers should ‘avoid modelling or over scaffolding the expected outcome.’ (Key Stage 2 teacher assessment guidance, October 2019)
In this writing task, pupils will write a narrative about discovering a new world through a portal. This could be used within a geography topic, with pupils describing the physical and human features of the new world that the characters visit. They will need a knowledge of geographical features of places and relevant geographical vocabulary to use in their writing.
The activity can be used within a geography lesson, providing an opportunity for cross-curricular writing where pupils can show their understanding of geographical features of locations, while also allowing pupils to demonstrate their writing skills independently. Alternatively, it could be used to inspire pupils to write an engaging narrative to provide a further example of independent writing evidence.
What is included in this narrative writing pack?
- Personal writing skills checklist
For pupils to write their own writing checklists to encourage independent editing.
- Narrative writing skills checklist
A list of features, without modelled examples, for pupils to use as a checklist for editing writing.
- Features of a Portal Story poster
A poster for display outlining the features of a portal story to help pupils with planning.
- Cohesive Devices poster
A PDF poster showing examples of cohesive devices that pupils could use in their writing.
- Using Dialogue posters
Two PDF posters with examples of how to convey character and advance action in a story using dialogue in KS2.
- Magical portal image
An engaging image of a magical portal to inspire fantastic writing.
- New world image cards
A collection of images to inspire creative writing and encourage pupils to use geographical vocabulary.
- Narrative planning sheet
To support pupils when planning and organising their ideas.
- Themed writing paper
A PDF writing sheet for pupils to use when writing their final draft.
- Teacher assessment sheets
For teachers to use to assess pupils against the year 6 writing TAF statements; these could be placed in pupils’ books as a record of evidence seen.
TAF Statements the writing could provide evidence for
WTS
- To use paragraphs to organise ideas.
- To describe settings and characters.
EXS
- To describe settings, characters and atmosphere in narratives.
- To integrate dialogue in narratives to convey characters and advance actions.
- To use a range of cohesive devices (e.g. conjunctions, adverbials, pronouns, synonyms) within and across paragraphs.
GDS
- To write effectively for a range of purposes and audiences, selecting the appropriate form and drawing independently on what they have read as models for their own writing (eg characterisation)