Year 6 writing: the KS2 standards, moderation and exemplars
Year 6 writing is the one statutory teacher assessment left in primary English — no test, just a judgement made by the teacher across a collection of independent writing. Here is the framework verbatim, what each standard looks like on the page, and what moderators are actually checking.
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Year 6 writing at a glance
At the end of Year 6, the class teacher makes a statutory teacher assessment judgement in writing against the STA’s framework: working towards the expected standard, working at the expected standard, or working at greater depth. There is no writing test. The judgement is made across a broad range of evidence from day-to-day work — including writing in subjects other than English — and the writing used must have been produced independently.
This is the only primary English subject where the statutory outcome rests entirely on teacher judgement, which is why moderation exists: a proportion of schools are externally moderated each year, and the moderator’s job is to check that the collection genuinely supports the judgement. Everything on this page — the statements, the exemplars, the pitfalls — is aimed at making that collection say what you mean it to say.
The statutory writing objectives
These are the statutory writing requirements for upper key stage 2, quoted from the national curriculum. They are shared with Year 5, but must be taught by the end of Year 6 — and they are what the framework standards below are assessing.
A note on what is statutory for this year. The national curriculum sets out the key stage 2 programmes of study two-yearly: the requirements below cover upper key stage 2 (Years 5 and 6) together, and the statutory deadline for teaching them is the end of Year 6. English Appendix 2, in the next section, is statutory for Year 6 specifically.
Transcription — spelling
- Use further prefixes and suffixes, and understand the guidance for adding them
- Spell some words with ‘silent’ letters (knight, psalm, solemn)
- Continue to distinguish between homophones and other words which are often confused
- Use knowledge of morphology and etymology in spelling, and understand that some words need to be learnt specifically (English Appendix 1)
- Use dictionaries to check the spelling and meaning of words, using the first three or four letters, and use a thesaurus
Transcription — handwriting and presentation
- Write legibly, fluently and with increasing speed
- Choose which shape of a letter to use when given choices, and decide whether or not to join specific letters
- Choose the writing implement best suited for a task
Composition
- Plan by identifying the audience for and purpose of the writing, selecting the appropriate form and using other similar writing as models
- Note and develop initial ideas, drawing on reading and research where necessary
- In narratives, consider how authors have developed characters and settings in what pupils have read, listened to or seen performed
- Draft and write by selecting appropriate grammar and vocabulary, understanding how such choices can change and enhance meaning
- In narratives, describe settings, characters and atmosphere, and integrate dialogue to convey character and advance the action
- Précis longer passages, use a wide range of devices to build cohesion within and across paragraphs, and use further organisational and presentational devices to structure text and guide the reader
- Evaluate and edit: assess the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing, propose changes to vocabulary, grammar and punctuation to enhance effects and clarify meaning, ensure consistent and correct use of tense, ensure subject–verb agreement, and distinguish between the language of speech and writing, choosing the appropriate register
- Proofread for spelling and punctuation errors, and perform their own compositions so that meaning is clear
Vocabulary, grammar and punctuation
- Recognise vocabulary and structures appropriate for formal speech and writing, including subjunctive forms
- Use passive verbs to affect the presentation of information in a sentence
- Use the perfect form of verbs to mark relationships of time and cause
- Use expanded noun phrases to convey complicated information concisely
- Use modal verbs or adverbs to indicate degrees of possibility
- Use relative clauses beginning with who, which, where, when, whose or that, or with an implied (omitted) relative pronoun
- Use commas to clarify meaning or avoid ambiguity, hyphens to avoid ambiguity, brackets, dashes or commas for parenthesis, semi-colons, colons or dashes to mark boundaries between independent clauses, a colon to introduce a list, and consistent punctuation of bullet points
Year 6 grammar and punctuation (English Appendix 2)
The statutory Year 6 content from English Appendix 2 — the last of the year-by-year grammar and punctuation, and the content the greater-depth punctuation statement is drawing on.
| Area | Detail of content to be introduced in Year 6 |
|---|---|
| Word |
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| Sentence |
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| Text |
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| Punctuation |
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Terminology for Year 6 pupils
These are the terms Year 6 pupils are expected to know and use when discussing their own writing — introduced this year, on top of everything from previous years.
The three KS2 writing standards, verbatim
Statutory framework — quoted verbatim
Quoted verbatim from the STA’s “Teacher assessment frameworks at the end of key stage 2” (for use from the 2018/19 academic year onwards). This judgement is statutory: it must be made by the teacher and submitted, and a proportion of schools are externally moderated each year.
These are the ‘pupil can’ statements from the statutory teacher assessment framework at the end of key stage 2, quoted exactly as the Standards and Testing Agency wrote them. A pupil’s writing should meet all of the statements within the standard at which they are judged — with one important discretion, set out in the footnote below.
Working towards the expected standard (WTS)
The pupil can:
- write for a range of purposes
- use paragraphs to organise ideas
- in narratives, describe settings and characters
- in non-narrative writing, use simple devices to structure the writing and support the reader (e.g. headings, sub-headings, bullet points)
- use capital letters, full stops, question marks, commas for lists and apostrophes for contraction mostly correctly
- spell correctly most words from the year 3 / year 4 spelling list, and some words from the year 5 / year 6 spelling list
- write legibly.
Working at the expected standard (EXS)
The pupil can:
- write effectively for a range of purposes and audiences, selecting language that shows good awareness of the reader (e.g. the use of the first person in a diary; direct address in instructions and persuasive writing)
- in narratives, describe settings, characters and atmosphere
- integrate dialogue in narratives to convey character and advance the action
- select vocabulary and grammatical structures that reflect what the writing requires, doing this mostly appropriately (e.g. using contracted forms in dialogues in narrative; using passive verbs to affect how information is presented; using modal verbs to suggest degrees of possibility)
- use a range of devices to build cohesion (e.g. conjunctions, adverbials of time and place, pronouns, synonyms) within and across paragraphs
- use verb tenses consistently and correctly throughout their writing
- use the range of punctuation taught at key stage 2 mostly correctly (e.g. inverted commas and other punctuation to indicate direct speech)
- spell correctly most words from the year 5 / year 6 spelling list, and use a dictionary to check the spelling of uncommon or more ambitious vocabulary
- maintain legibility in joined handwriting when writing at speed.
Working at greater depth (GDS)
The pupil can:
- 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 (e.g. literary language, characterisation, structure)
- distinguish between the language of speech and writing and choose the appropriate register
- exercise an assured and conscious control over levels of formality, particularly through manipulating grammar and vocabulary to achieve this
- use the range of punctuation taught at key stage 2 correctly (e.g. semi-colons, dashes, colons, hyphens) and, when necessary, use such punctuation precisely to enhance meaning and avoid ambiguity.
Two rules worth knowing exactly. First, the standards are cumulative: teachers “should be confident that pupils have met the standards preceding the one at which they judge them to be working”. Crucially, the framework then adds that they “are not required to have specific evidence for that judgement” — work demonstrating that a pupil is meeting a standard is itself sufficient to show they are working above the preceding ones. Greater depth therefore does not mean re-evidencing every expected-standard statement. Second, writing has a discretion the other subjects do not: a pupil’s writing should meet all of the statements within a standard, but teachers can use their discretion so that a particular weakness does not prevent an accurate judgement of the pupil’s attainment overall. Note also that there are no additional spelling or handwriting statements at greater depth.
What it looks like on the page
The passages below were written for this page to illustrate the criteria. They are not children’s work, and they are annotated against curriculum expectations only — strengths and next steps, not marks or scores.
Working towards the expected standard (WTS)
Illustrative passage written for this page — not a child’s work
The old factory has been empty for years. It is on the edge of town near the canal.
Joe went inside through a broken window. It was dark, cold and full of rubbish. He heard a noise upstairs so he went up to look. There was a dog in the corner and it was thin, scared and dirty. Joe didn’t want to frighten it. He sat down on the floor and said don’t worry, I will help you.
What this shows against the curriculum
- Paragraphs are used to organise ideas, and the setting and character are described — two of the four WTS composition statements, evidenced here. The other two (writing for a range of purposes; simple devices to structure non-narrative writing) cannot be shown by a single narrative extract, and would have to come from elsewhere in the collection.
- The WTS punctuation statement is met: capital letters, full stops, commas for lists (‘thin, scared and dirty’) and apostrophes for contraction (‘didn’t’, ‘don’t’) are used mostly correctly.
- The gap to the expected standard is the wider KS2 punctuation range: the direct speech at the end has no inverted commas. EXS requires the range taught at key stage 2 — including speech punctuation — to be used mostly correctly.
- The writing reports what happened. It does not yet select language with awareness of the reader, describe atmosphere, or integrate dialogue to convey character and advance the action — all EXS composition statements, and all absent here.
Working at the expected standard (EXS)
Illustrative passage written for this page — not a child’s work
The old factory had been empty for so long that the town had stopped seeing it: a grey shape by the canal, more weather than building.
Joe climbed in through the broken window at the back, where the ivy had pulled the frame away from the brick. Inside, the air was colder than outside, and it smelled of rust and wet paper. Somewhere above him, something moved.
He found her upstairs, pressed into the corner where two walls met — a thin dog, all ribs and warning, watching him with the steadiness of an animal that had decided not to run again.
“It’s all right,” he said, and sat down on the filthy floor to prove it. “I’m not going anywhere.”
It took her four hours to cross the room.
What this shows against the curriculum
- Writes effectively for the reader: the language is selected with awareness (‘more weather than building’), meeting the EXS purpose-and-audience statement.
- Settings, characters AND atmosphere are described — the addition of atmosphere is what separates EXS from WTS here.
- Dialogue is integrated to convey character and advance the action (‘and sat down on the filthy floor to prove it’), rather than merely reporting speech.
- Cohesion is built across paragraphs with adverbials and pronouns; tense is consistent throughout; the KS2 punctuation range, including speech punctuation and a dash, is used mostly correctly.
Working at greater depth (GDS)
Illustrative passage written for this page — not a child’s work
Extract from a formal report submitted to the council:
“The Canal Street site was acquired by the council in 1998 and has been left to decay ever since. It is the Committee’s view that the structure — while undeniably derelict — retains sufficient integrity to merit conversion rather than demolition. Were the site to be cleared, the town would lose its last standing evidence of the rope industry that built it.”
Extract from the same writer’s diary, that evening:
“I said all the right things and I don’t think anyone was listening. Mr Aldridge looked at his phone the whole time. What I wanted to say was: my great-grandfather made rope in that building for forty years, and when they knock it down that stops being true anywhere except in me.”
What this shows against the curriculum
- The same writer, two forms, two registers — and the difference is deliberate. This is the greater-depth statement about distinguishing the language of speech and writing and choosing the appropriate register, evidenced directly.
- Assured, conscious control over levels of formality: the passive (‘was acquired by the council’, ‘has been left to decay’) and the subjunctive (‘Were the site to be cleared’) in the report; contracted forms and a colon-led confession in the diary.
- Punctuation is used precisely to enhance meaning — the dashes in the report hold a concession; the colon in the diary lands the sentence.
- The influence of reading shows in the structure of the pairing itself. Note what is NOT here: no showcased vocabulary, no length, no semi-colon inserted to be counted. Greater depth is control, not accumulation.
Moderation and what to look for in the books
Writing is the only statutory teacher assessment left in primary English, and a proportion of schools are externally moderated each year by their local authority. The moderator is not re-marking the children’s work — they are checking that the collection supports the judgement the teacher made.
Independence is the first thing they check
Writing used for the judgement must be produced independently. Work that was modelled sentence by sentence on the board, written from a scaffold that supplied the structure, or corrected after directed feedback (including from a tool) is not independent evidence. This is the most common reason a collection fails to support its judgement.
Range is the evidence, not just quality
The standards are about writing effectively for a range of purposes and audiences. A collection of five narratives cannot evidence that, however strong they are. Formal and informal, narrative and non-narrative — and writing from other subjects counts, which most schools under-use.
The collection has to persuade a stranger
The moderator does not know the child. Everything you know about how a piece came about — that it was independent, that it was a first draft, that the child chose the form — has to be visible in the collection itself, not in your memory of it. Light annotation earns its keep here.
Judgements are made across the collection, never on one piece
No single piece of writing carries a standard. A pupil meets a standard because the body of evidence shows they meet its statements — and the particular-weakness discretion exists precisely because real children are uneven.
For the moderation process itself — who gets moderated, the summer window, and what happens on the day — see KS2 writing moderation and preparing for writing moderation.
Common pitfalls in Year 6 writing
- Treating greater depth as a punctuation checklist. The framework explicitly notes that not every punctuation mark must be evident. Semi-colons planted in a paragraph to be spotted are not evidence of greater depth; a well-judged dash that lands a sentence is. The statement asks for punctuation used correctly and, when necessary, precisely to enhance meaning.
- Equating greater depth with length or ambitious vocabulary. No statement in the framework mentions length, and vocabulary counts only insofar as it is manipulated to control formality and suit the reader. A short, controlled piece in exactly the right register is stronger evidence than pages of unshaped narrative.
- Losing the judgement to a lack of independent writing. Schools often have plenty of good writing and very little independent writing. If most of the year’s output followed a shared model, the collection cannot support the judgement — and this is discovered in the spring term, when there is no time left to fix it.
- Forgetting that GDS sits on top of EXS. The standards are cumulative: the greater-depth statements sit on top of the expected standard rather than replacing it, so atmosphere, integrated dialogue, cohesion and consistent tense are all still in scope. What the framework does not require is separate evidence for each preceding standard — it says teachers “are not required to have specific evidence for that judgement”, because work meeting a standard already shows the pupil is working above the ones below it. Greater depth is not an alternative route around the expected standard, but nor is it a second evidence-collection exercise.
- Putting grades on children’s writing. The framework produces one end-of-key-stage judgement across a body of work. It is not a mark scheme for individual pieces, and the STA’s own guidance advises assessing individual pieces in line with the school’s assessment policy rather than against the framework. Stamping WTS/EXS/GDS on every piece in a book misrepresents what the standards are.
Where Howay fits
Noticing what a piece of writing shows — and noticing it across a whole class, all year — is the part that takes the evenings. That is the layer Howay surfaces: a teacher photographs the handwritten page, and Howay returns a criteria-level view of what the writing shows against the frameworks teachers already use, with strengths and next steps rather than a number. The teacher edits everything before anyone else sees it.
It does not make the assessment judgement — that stays with the teacher. What it does is make the evidence easier to see and to articulate, piece by piece. See Howay for teachers or Howay for parents.
Common questions
- How is Year 6 writing assessed?
- By statutory teacher assessment, not by a test. At the end of key stage 2 the class teacher judges each pupil against the STA’s framework as working towards the expected standard, working at the expected standard, or working at greater depth. The judgement is made across a broad range of evidence from day-to-day work — including writing in subjects other than English — and the writing used must have been produced independently. There is no Year 6 writing SAT; the grammar, punctuation and spelling test is a separate, different thing.
- Does a pupil have to meet every ‘pupil can’ statement?
- In principle a pupil’s writing should meet all of the statements within the standard at which they are judged. But writing carries a discretion the other subjects do not: teachers can use their professional judgement so that a particular weakness does not prevent an accurate judgement being made of a pupil’s attainment overall. The standards are also cumulative — a pupil judged at greater depth must have met the preceding standards — though the framework is explicit that teachers are not required to hold specific evidence for that, since work meeting the higher standard already demonstrates it.
- What does ‘independent writing’ mean at the end of key stage 2?
- Writing produced without the structure, content or corrections being supplied to the pupil. Discussing a text type, teaching a technique and providing a stimulus are all fine. A piece written sentence-by-sentence to a model on the board, a piece built on a scaffold that supplied the organisation, or a piece redrafted after being told what to change is not independent, and cannot support the judgement — that includes changes made in response to feedback from a tool as well as from an adult.
- What is the difference between the expected standard and greater depth?
- The qualifiers disappear and control appears. At the expected standard, KS2 punctuation is used ‘mostly correctly’ and vocabulary and grammar reflect what the writing requires ‘mostly appropriately’. At greater depth, punctuation is used correctly and, when necessary, precisely to enhance meaning; the pupil draws independently on their reading as a model, distinguishes the language of speech from writing, chooses the appropriate register, and exercises an assured and conscious control over levels of formality. The step is from doing these things to controlling them deliberately.
- Is Year 6 writing moderated?
- Yes — a proportion of schools are externally moderated by their local authority each year, because writing is statutory teacher assessment with no test behind it. The moderator’s job is not to re-mark the children’s writing but to check that the collection of evidence supports the judgements the school has made, and independence is the first thing they look at.
- Do Year 6 pupils get a grade for their writing?
- No. The outcome is one of three teacher assessment judgements — working towards the expected standard, working at the expected standard, or working at greater depth — reported at the end of the key stage. It is not a mark, a percentage or a grade, and it describes a body of writing across the year rather than any single piece. (The separate grammar, punctuation and spelling test does produce a scaled score, but that is not the writing judgement.)
Sources
- Standards and Testing Agency, “Teacher assessment frameworks at the end of key stage 2” (for use from the 2018/19 academic year onwards) — every ‘pupil can’ statement on this page is quoted verbatim from this document.
- Standards and Testing Agency, “Key stage 2 teacher assessment guidance” — independence rules, evidence and the moderation process.
- Department for Education, “National curriculum in England: English programmes of study” (key stages 1 and 2) — the statutory objectives on this page are quoted from this document. Crown copyright, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Department for Education, “English Appendix 2: vocabulary, grammar and punctuation” — the year-by-year statutory detail and the terminology pupils are expected to use.
- Department for Education, “English Appendix 1: spelling” — the statutory spelling rules and the word lists referred to throughout.
Statutory curriculum and framework wording quoted on this page is Crown copyright, reproduced under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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