Tag: SATs

Posted in Mental Health, Uncategorized

Mental Health in May!

Posted on by Sharon Grimshaw

May is Mental Health Awareness Month in the United States – and it’s seventy  years since it was first started in all the way back in 1949.  Here in the UK, we are coming up to Mental Health Awareness Week, which starts on Monday 13th May – ironically, this is also SATs week for our Key Stage Two kids, when they are likely to be more stressed than usual!

As parents, we feel confident in picking up our children when they fall – putting plasters on grazed knees, soothing away nightmares, giving Calpol for a fever, but dealing with their mental health can be frightening and make us feel helpless.

Throughout May I’ll be sharing hints, tips and resources to help YOU help your child if they are becoming anxious or worrying about school, friendships, bullying, loneliness, body image, exams, the new school year and new classes/schools. 

And remember – mild anxiety and worries are normal parts of life for all of us, adults and children alike.  But if you think your child is at risk of harming themselves, or are constantly struggling with anxiety, low mood or depression, please reach out for help:

Posted in SATs, SPaG, Year 6

So where’s the preposition, then?

Posted on by Sharon Grimshaw

Prepositions are the words in a sentence that tell us the position of something, when it’s happening, or the direction it’s going.


Position: these include on, under, behind, in front of, next to, inside.
For example: The cat is under the table.

When: these include before, after, during, on Saturday.
I’m going shopping on Saturday.

Direction: these include towards, away from, along, into.
Mikey walked along the road.

This term is quite easy to remember because preposition has position in it!

Photo by Elio Santos on Unsplash

Posted in SATs, SPaG, Year 6

Show how you do it with adverbs and adverbials!

Posted on by Sharon Grimshaw

Just like adjectives describe a noun, adverbs tell us more about the verb in a sentence. (Yes, I agree, adjectives should really be called adnouns!!)⠀⠀

Adverbs tell us how, why, where or when something is happening.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
She danced gracefully.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Carefully, Mikey picked up the cat. (Tells us how something is happening)⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The cat pooped in my shoe yesterday. (Tells us when something is happening)⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I always walk to work . (Tells us how often something is happening)⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The kids raced inside. (Tells us where something is happening)⠀⠀⠀

Adverbs can also tell us the possibility of something happening:⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I definitely placed my keys on the table.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Mikey never misses a chance to go for a walk.

It will probably snow tomorrow.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Maybe she dances when no-one is looking.

And yes, the cat really did poop in my shoes this morning. Thanks, Spangle!

Trust me, adverbials really aren’t scary at all. They are just a small group of words that do the same job as an adverb – they give us more information about the action that is happening in the sentence.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
They are usually about place:⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The cat pooped in my shoes. (I’m not getting over that any time soon, you know.)⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Or they can be when something happened:⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I walked a mile early this morning.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Or they can be how something happened:⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
My husband drank his coffee as quickly as possible.⠀⠀

A fronted adverbial is just an adverbial at the front of a sentence:⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Almost instantly, I remembered I hadn’t fed the cat this morning.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
After today, I work three shifts a week.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Below the apple tree, the children ate a picnic.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Fronted adverbials are ALWAYS followed by a comma!⠀⠀

⠀⠀⠀⠀
Photo by Laura Marques on Unsplash

Posted in SATs, SPaG, Year 6

Nothin’ Happens Without a Verb!

Posted on by Sharon Grimshaw

Verbs are really important!  If there isn’t a verb in a sentence, it’s NOT a sentence! They are the action word – they tell us what something or someone is doing or being in a sentence.  For example:

The cat stretched.

Put your jacket on!

I swam to the edge of the pool.

Ella is drawing a picture.

As you can see from that last example, you can have two verbs together in a sentence.

One of the tricky verbs to spot is the different forms of the verb ‘to be’ – I am, he is, she is, we are, I was, you were, he was, they were.  Sometimes they can be on their own: Mikey was late.  Sometimes they will be together with another verb:  I am typing this post!

Verbs are the words that change to show WHEN something happened – in the past, in the present, or in the future.  Don’t worry about tenses, we’ll have a look at those another day!

Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

Posted in SATs, SPaG, Year 6

Amazing Adjectives!

Posted on by Sharon Grimshaw

Adjectives are words that describe nouns, giving us more information about what the noun looks like, feels like, smells like, tastes like etc. They let us build up a picture in our minds! For example:

I saw a cat.

Let’s add in an adjective!

I saw a ginger cat.

We can add more than one adjective, to make the picture even clearer:

I saw an enormous, ginger cat.

✔ COMPARATIVE ADJECTIVES compare the noun to something else and they often end in -er.

I had the bigger slice of cake.

Be careful – you can use ‘more’ or ‘less’ with an adjective to make it a comparative one:

My dinner was less tasty than the cat’s.

✔ SUPERLATIVE ADJECTIVES show us that the noun is the least, most, worst or best.  They often end in -est, like smallest, biggest, loudest, quietest.

We can also use ‘most’ or ‘least’ with an adjective, to make a superlative adjective:

Monday is my least favourite day of the week!

Photo by Simone Dalmeri on Unsplash

Posted in SATs, SPaG, Year 6

Nouns and Pronouns revealed!

Posted on by Sharon Grimshaw

Here we go!  This is the first part of our SPaG series of blog posts and it’s all about nouns and pronouns!

Nouns name things.  There are four different types of nouns that your child needs to know and be able to spot them in a sentence.  These are:

✔ Common nouns – everyday words like cup, phone, elephant, box, strawberry.  These can be singular (one of them) or plural (two or more – cups, phones, elephants, boxes, strawberries)

✔ Proper Nouns – these are names for individuals, places or things, including days of the week and months of the year – for example Monday, February, Crewe Street, Leeds, Niagra Falls.  They ALWAYS have a capital letter to start them!

✔ Collective nouns – these are names for groups of things – a flock of birds, a group of people, a herd of cows, a murder of crows.

✔ Abstract nouns – these are the names of things you can’t see, hear, smell, touch or taste.  They are names of concepts or ideas. These include: intelligence, love, friendship, idea, happiness.

Pronouns are words we use in place of a noun, or a noun phrase. There are three types:

✔ Personal pronouns – these are used to replace a name, generally to avoid repetition in a sentence and to make it sound less clunky (which is not a technical term, but it should be, right?!)

For example: Mikey enjoys the IT lesson and Mikey looks forward to the IT lesson every week.  Yep, clunky!  We could replace some of the proper nouns (Mikey) and noun phrases (IT lesson) with pronouns and make it much better:

Mikey enjoys the IT lesson and HE looks forward to IT every week.

These are the personal pronouns – I, you, she, he, it, they, me, him, her and them.

✔ Possessive pronouns show who something belongs to: mine, your, our, their,  his, hers, its, yours, ours and theirs. For example:

This book belongs to Mikey. It is his book.

And finally we have:

✔ Relative pronouns – these are used to add more information about a noun in a sentence: that, who, where, when and which.  For example: Mikey went to visit his aunt, who lives in London. (Did ya see I slipped a little possessive pronoun in that sentence too? I’m sneaky like that!)

And there we go! All you need to know about nouns and pronouns for the Year 6 SATs!

Top photo by PNG Design on Unsplash