What are the Writing Checklists?
These Writing Checklists have been created by Shareen Mayers to support schools with writing moderation.
How to use the Writing Checklists
These checklists were designed to be used in books by children to either edit, evaluate and proofread their work or to assess their final pieces of writing. They have been trialled by 20 primary schools in the London Borough of Sutton, who use them for children to check their work on a weekly or fortnightly basis. They can also be used for 'cold' pieces of writing across the curriculum because they cover generic writing skills.
The Writing Checklists include numbers, which can be used to ease workload. Instead of writing 'Next Step: remember to use a wider range of cohesive devices' teachers can simply write: 'Next step: no. 6'. Children can then check whether or not they have used their next step in future work. The checklist can also be displayed in the classroom.
If you'd like to print these out on sticker labels, please note that the sticker size is 99.1mmm by 67.7mm. Alternatively, schools can print, cut and stick the checklists in children's books.
Year 2 and Year 6
Year 2 and Year 6 teachers in Sutton have found these extremely useful for moderating and assessing writing this year. They are fully in-line with the national curriculum and the interim assessment framework.
Spelling Rules
You can also download the Spelling Rules reference guide, which provides a quick summary of the Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 spelling rules for the new curriculum.
These resources were created by Shareen Mayers, Lead Primary English Adviser, Sutton Improvement and Support Services.
The writing checklists were written over a year ago to support pupils with editing and proof-reading their work. Since then, the Standards and Testing Agency (STA) have clarified their definition of over-aided success criteria. Although these checklists are not success criteria, they still support pupils with how to be successful at editing and proof-reading.
The STA have stated that success criteria is over-aided if it tells pupils 'what' to write and/or 'where' to write it. E.g. I have started my sentence with When or While. Therefore, in order for writing to be independent, teachers should remove the examples from the checklist. These can, of course, still be used with the examples but this writing would not be classed as independent.
Further details on independent work can be found here:
2017 KS2 teacher assessment moderation guidance
2017 KS1 teacher assessment moderation guidance
Looking for further support with writing assessment and moderation?
Check out our Writing Assessment Tasks.