March 2020

We've created a new online group where teachers and educators can connect, share and get answers to burning questions on phonics and early reading.

With school closures and disrupted learning due to the pandemic, parents and families are increasingly working with their children at home. This blog gives some simple guidance about supporting your child with grammar. 

As we enter 2022, schools all over the country are preparing for both the KS1 and KS2 assessments. This blog is focussed on preparing year 6 children for the KS2 reading test. However, other KS2 teachers will also find elements of this useful. Whether you are an experienced year 6 teacher or a new-to-year 6 teacher, we hope that these tips will support you over the next two terms.

Over the summer Ofsted published its long anticipated History Research Review. Rising Stars History author Bev Forrest takes us through the review and pulls out the key takeaways for Primary schools. 

If you have a child in Year 6 you will be thinking about ways to help them prepare for the mathematics tests in May. In this blog, I’ve put together 5 tips to help parents support their children and have included some examples of where the Achieve series can be really helpful.

In the first of two blogs, Executive Principal (Wellspring Academy Trust, Leeds) Sam Bailey, explains her journey to systematic synthetic phonics teaching. It begins at a time before Letters and Sounds and the Phonics Screening Check (remember those days?!) at ‘stage zero: novice’…

After two years of no national assessments, it seems like the KS2 assessments might be returning this year. Whether they do or not, here are some tips for teaching grammar and some subject knowledge areas to look out for. We asked Shareen Wilkinson to share some tips to support teachers with grammar subject knowledge.

Rising Stars maths author, Steph King, shares her top 5 tips for consolidating Key Stage 2 learning.

RS Assessment has recently launched a 3 step programme called ‘Shine’, which enables schools to assess students, identify those who need support and deliver effective interventions. I have been looking at feedback from schools using Shine, and have put together the top five benefits of using RS Assessment’s tests together with the Shine reports and interventions in place of other forms of assessment and intervention.

In this Q&A, author Tony Bradman tells us about Reading Planet Astro, the exciting new high interest/low reading level strand. Tony series edited the 48 fiction and non-fiction books which have been created by a team of top authors including Bali Rai, Jan Burchett and Sara Volger.