Last-minute tips for KS2 writing moderation

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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.

Take note of these important dates from the Key stage 2 assessment and reporting arrangements for 2024:

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.

Full guidance on what constitutes independent writing can be found in Point 6 of the Key stage 2 teacher assessment guidance 2024.

My experience of the KS2 writing moderation

I was moderated for the first time the year before Covid struck. 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 begun, but we weren’t moderated until the fourth week after half term, so I had a bit more time to prepare!

Pre-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.

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.

During 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

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

GDS: free-write narrative

EXS: narrative including dialogue

WTS: persuasive text

How can LbQ help with KS2 writing moderation?

Questions that ask for a written response are integrated throughout LbQ's GPS and Reading Question Sets. These tasks can be used to practise the skills required from the PCSs and, in some circumstances, potentially provide additional evidence for them: Point 5.5 of Key stage 2 teacher assessment guidance 2024 states that “evidence might also come from projects, assessment notes, classroom tests and assessments. The form of evidence supporting a teacher’s judgement is entirely up to the teacher, providing it meets the requirements of the frameworks.”

Grab your free, no-obligation LbQ trial and access an entire library of KS2 resources.