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The level of difficulty in the Reading section of the Key Stage 2 curriculum has increased significantly over the past five years. While schools are closed due to the Covid-19 outbreak, here are some top tips to support your children in improving their reading skills.

As someone who passionately believes in the power of parental engagement to transform children’s outcomes, this COVID-19 crisis offers an opportunity for all of us. I know it can feel daunting to suddenly and unexpectedly be in charge of home learning, so here are some easy guidelines to follow that may make it easier:

In a world without levels, with APP scrapped, and a new assessment landscape suddenly emerging, it's sometimes hard to know where to turn. Schools up and down the country are working on a whole host of different models for in-school assessment, and without the common language of the old world, it sometimes seems hard to know how our own systems relate to the wider world.

We caught up with Deputy Head Michael Tidd at the start of term to ask him what his priorities were for the year ahead and how he intended to tackle them. Here is what he kindly shared with us.

It’s the start of a new school year and with a challenging new curriculum, a level-free approach to assessment and the new national tests around the corner we know there is a lot on the minds of primary school teachers at this time. That’s why we are hosting three conferences this term, designed to help primary schools get ready for the new national tests. 

As the new autumn term approaches, many schools will be interested to hear the latest announcement from the Department for Education which states that primary school children have performed well overall in this year’s key stage 2 national tests, with four out of five children achieving good results in all subjects.

With thanks to Michael Tidd for this very thought-provoking guest post

Maddy Barnes discusses exciting and engaging ways to teach, track and assess GPS in both Key Stage 1 and 2!

Michael Tidd is Deputy Headteacher of a primary and nursery school in Nottinghamshire, having previously taught in middle and primary schools in West Sussex. We asked him for his thoughts on summative assessment in the new curriculum.