Last-minute tips for KS2 writing moderation

Year 5/6 teacher, Sophie Bartlett, shares her thoughts, tips, and experiences ahead of the KS2 writing moderation.

KS2 writing moderation: last minute tips

Sophie Bartlett is an experienced year 5/6 teacher with many successful KS2 writing moderations under her belt, and over 10 years’ experience in the classroom. In this article, she outlines her key strategies to implement before, during, and after writing moderation to ensure you stay organised and avoid overwhelm; as well as providing some examples of moderated writing. Updated as of February 2026.

Looking for SATs-specific support for year 6? Check out the Ultimate Guide to SATs from Learning by Questions.

What’s in this article?

Key dates for writing moderation 2026

Moderation-appropriate writing lessons

My experience of the KS2 writing moderation

How to prepare for KS2 writing moderation

What to do during KS2 writing moderation

What happens post-moderation?

Examples of moderated pieces of writing

As if this time of year isn’t the busiest for year 6 teachers as it is (transition, production, SRE…), the assessment season is also upon us! Once SATs is out of the way, KS2 writing moderation looms and the panic of ‘Have I even done enough writing this year?!’ sets in.

Some schools may be continuing their writing lessons as normal; some may have reduced them to make way for SATs revision; some may have paused them completely until SATs are over. Whatever your approach is, once SATs week is complete, there is only one teaching week left until the KS2 writing moderation window begins.

Key dates for KS2 writing moderation 2026

Take note of these important dates from the Key stage 2 assessment and reporting arrangements for 2026:

Key dates: KS2 writing moderation

Friday 15 May - Local authorities begin informing schools if they will receive an external moderation visit for TA

Monday 18 May - ‘Submit TA data’ form available on the PAG

Monday 1 June to Friday 26 June - Local authorities undertake external moderation of KS2 English writing TA

Friday 26 June - Deadline to submit KS2 TA data on the PAG

By now, the majority of the writing work is done, but here’s some last-minute advice for the run up to (potential) moderation!

Moderation-appropriate writing lessons

‘Independent writing’ is the crux of year 6 English lessons because a piece of writing must be considered independent in order for it to be moderated. Depending on the scheme or strategies your school employs for teaching writing, the children may be used to much more scaffolded or supported lessons prior to year 6.

Here are a few things your final writing lessons should include in order to produce any final pieces of independent writing you may need.

Element of writing lesson	Example	Guidance from point 6.2 of KS2 teacher assessment guidance 2024
Brief success criteria but no examples	Use a variety of punctuation NOT Use a semi-colon to separate two main clauses, e.g. “The door was ajar; someone was out there…” (NB - you could provide success criteria like this for punctuation as long as you aren’t intending on using that piece of work as evidence for the punctuation ‘pupil can’ statement, as it wouldn’t be independent)	“Teachers may use success criteria in lessons to help them judge whether a pupil has met the objectives for a piece of writing and to help pupils understand what they have learnt. Using success criteria does not mean that a pupil’s writing is not independent… Furthermore, using detailed search criteria as a teaching tool for one aspect of writing could still provide independent evidence of other ‘pupil can’ statements that have not been mentioned.” “Writing is not independent if it has been… supported by detailed success criteria that specifically direct pupils what to include, or where to include it, in their writing - such as directing them to include specific vocabulary, grammatical features or punctuation.”
Generalised feedback	Check your spellings (written at the end of a piece of work) NOT Marking specific spellings (NB - you could give feedback like this for spellings as long as you aren’t intending on using these words as evidence for the spelling ‘pupil can’ statement, as it wouldn’t be independent)	“Writing is *not* independent if it has been… edited or re-written because of direct intervention by a teacher or other adult - for example, when the pupil has been directed to change specific words for greater impact, where incorrect or omitted punctuation has been indicated, or when incorrectly spelt words have been identified by an adult for the pupil to correct.”
Resources supplied but not specifically directed to	Provide dictionaries, word banks (etc.) but don’t tell the children when/how to use them	“Writing is likely to be independent if it…is produced by pupils who have, if required, sought out classroom resources, such as a dictionary or a thesaurus, without being prompted to do so by a teacher.”

Element of writing lesson

Example

Guidance from point 6.2 of KS2 teacher assessment guidance 2024

Brief success criteria but no examples

Use a variety of punctuation

NOT

Use a semi-colon to separate two main clauses, e.g. “The door was ajar; someone was out there…”

(NB - you could provide success criteria like this for punctuation as long as you aren’t intending on using that piece of work as evidence for the punctuation ‘pupil can’ statement, as it wouldn’t be independent)

“Teachers may use success criteria in lessons to help them judge whether a pupil has met the objectives for a piece of writing and to help pupils understand what they have learnt. Using success criteria does not mean that a pupil’s writing is not independent… Furthermore, using detailed search criteria as a teaching tool for one aspect of writing could still provide independent evidence of other ‘pupil can’ statements that have not been mentioned.”

“Writing is not independent if it has been… supported by detailed success criteria that specifically direct pupils what to include, or where to include it, in their writing - such as directing them to include specific vocabulary, grammatical features or punctuation.”

Generalised feedback

Check your spellings (written at the end of a piece of work)

NOT

Marking specific spellings

(NB - you could give feedback like this for spellings as long as you aren’t intending on using these words as evidence for the spelling ‘pupil can’ statement, as it wouldn’t be independent)

“Writing is not independent if it has been… edited or re-written because of direct intervention by a teacher or other adult - for example, when the pupil has been directed to change specific words for greater impact, where incorrect or omitted punctuation has been indicated, or when incorrectly spelt words have been identified by an adult for the pupil to correct.”

Resources supplied but not specifically directed to

Provide dictionaries, word banks (etc.) but don’t tell the children when/how to use them

“Writing is likely to be independent if it…is produced by pupils who have, if required, sought out classroom resources, such as a dictionary or a thesaurus, without being prompted to do so by a teacher.”

Full guidance on what constitutes independent writing can be found in Point 6 of the Key stage 2 teacher assessment guidance.

My experience of the KS2 writing moderation

I was moderated a few years ago. I’ve always found it useful hearing about people’s experiences of something before I experience it myself, so hopefully this will be helpful to you too!

At the time, I was teaching a mixed year 5/6 class, so I only had 14 year 6s to prepare for moderation. We were informed on the final day of SATs week; we only had one teaching week before the moderation window began, but we weren’t moderated until the fourth week after half term, so I had a bit more time to prepare!

How to prepare for KS2 writing moderation

There are a few ways I prepared for moderation that made me feel fully confident in my assessments (please note you absolutely do not have to do this sort of preparation but it just made the process so much smoother for me on the actual day! I also acknowledge that I only had 14 books to do this with).

I did this with every year 6 book as we weren’t informed which books would be looked at until the day before the moderation.

How to prepare: KS2 writing moderation

Quick identification of independent pieces

I highlighted the corner of the page of the pieces of work in each child’s book that I wanted the moderator to look at (5-6 pieces of work from around March onwards).

Colour code the pupil can statements (PCS)

I chose a different colour for each of the PCS from the TA frameworks at the end of KS2 and put a dot in the margin of any piece of work that contained evidence for that PCS (see photos below). I also put matching coloured tabs on the pages so the pieces of work containing certain evidence could quickly be found (again, totally unnecessary, but sped up the process and meant I could indulge in my love of stationery!)

Identify which further evidence is needed

I submitted my TA for each child, even if I didn’t have the full range of evidence for them yet, as completing the tasks above meant I knew which PCS I still needed to evidence for which children. I could then plan my next couple of writing units to meet those statements.

What to do during KS2 writing moderation

Again, please keep in mind that this is my experience only – anecdotally, there have been discrepancies between moderations carried out in different LAs. My experience was extremely positive and went very smoothly! Some key points to note:

The moderator chose six books (two WTS, two EXS and two GDS) – she only wanted to see English books (I was stressed about the potential lack of extended writing in our other books but luckily that wasn’t an issue)
She wanted to be left alone with the books for around two hours – I felt nervous about this at first as I wanted to be part of the initial discussion but my colour coding process helped me to feel more confident
We then discussed her findings and talked about the context of each child
She agreed with them all but decided she needed extra evidence for two: more proof of editing for an EXS child, and more proof of manipulating grammar and vocabulary effectively for a GDS child

What happens post-moderation?

During small-group work and whole-class lessons, I planned activities that allowed the two aforementioned children to produce the extra evidence required. This was sent off to the moderator who then agreed with my judgements.

Examples of moderated pieces of writing

Here are some examples of moderated pieces of writing, covering GDS, EXS and WTS.

GDS: free-write narrative

EXS: narrative including dialogue

WTS: persuasive text

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