1. New expectations
Writing, maths and SPAG

2. Writing Increased focus on being grammatically accurate
A wide range of sentence types is required
Handwriting and spelling expectations have increased and are now crucial
Writing must be independent to be used as evidence at end of KS2

4. Maths No mental maths paper: there is an arithmetic paper instead
The others two papers are reasoning papers, testing deeper understanding of mathematical concepts
No marks can be guessed any longer!

6. SPAG
Focus on technical terms (e.g. fronted adverbials, subordinate clause, inverted comma, parentheses, apostrophe for omission, modal verb, synonym, antonym…)
The marking is not overly generous: if you join your letters underneath an apostrophe, no mark.

10. New expectations
The expectations have changed all of a sudden and have sharply increased
The pass marks have not – and are not going to be – given until after the exams so it makes it difficult to report on how children are doing
Children who may just have been doing fine are possibly now below age related expectation

11. Reporting at end of key stage
Used to be a level (3,4,5)
Now it is binary: at the standard or not
Working at age-related expectation
Working towards age-related expectation
For writing, there is also working at the expected standard with greater depth