What is EGPS?
This is an acronym for English Grammar,
Spelling and Punctuation.
“So please, oh PLEASE, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can
install,
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.”
‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’
-Roald Dahl
Children’s literature is at the core
of our English teaching in Nutfield
Church C of E Primary School.
We strongly believe that
children’s lives can be enriched
through quality literature.
We aim to provide clear, detailed
EGPS objectives through
engaging text-based teaching
sequences lasting
approximately three
weeks.
The new curriculum, introduced in 2014,
places emphasis on grammatical subject
knowledge.
There are two key components to writing in
the curriculum- transcription (spelling and
handwriting) and composition (articulating ideas and
structuring them in speech and writing).
Vocabulary, grammar and punctuation feature in both
sections.
Spellings
The New National Curriculum places
emphasis on the
teaching and learning of spelling.
It gives prominence to the learning of spelling rules (and
all the many exceptions).
Spelling is not a single set of skills. It can be the use
of phonics, it can be the visual memory of patterns on the
page, or the meaning of a word or phrase within a sentence.
In Year Two, for example, we have just been learning
about homophones and how words can sound the same but
have different spellings and different
meanings.
Grammar and sentence structure
Expected standard at the end of KS1
(Words written in this colour are defined at the end of this PowerPoint)
 Attempts to use a variety of sentence structures.
 Almost all sentences are grammatically accurate.
 Sentences with different forms: commands; statements;
questions; exclamations, are used as appropriate.
 Correct use of co-ordinating conjunctions (or, and, but)
to join clauses.
 Some correct use of subordinating conjunctions (when,
if, that, because) to join clauses.
 Correct tense choice, past and present, (including the
progressive form) is appropriate and consistent
throughout writing.
 Use adjectives and adverbs appropriately.
 Expanded noun phrases are used for description and
specification.
Punctuation
Expected standard at the end of KS1






Capital letters are used at the beginning of almost all
sentences.
Sentence boundaries are almost always recognised and
are correctly demarcated.
Full stops, question marks and exclamation marks are
almost always used appropriately, where required.
Capital letters are used to indicate almost all proper
nouns and the personal pronoun.
Commas are used to separate items in a list.
Apostrophes correctly mark some contracted forms
and some singular possession in nouns.
Handwriting
Expected standard at the end of KS1
 Almost all letters are neat and regular in size.
 There is some use of diagonal and horizontal strokes
to join letters.
 Upper and lower case letters are not mixed within a
word.
 The spacing between words is almost always
appropriate and consistent.
We encourage the children to use the cursive style when they
are forming letters as this not only helps them to correctly
orientate their letters but it also provides a solid basis for
when they learn to join.
The following slides provide
examples of questions that our Year
Two children may expect to see when
they sit their English Grammar,
Punctuation and Spelling tests in May
2016.
Spellings
An adult says the omitted word aloud, then they read the word a
second time in context and then the omitted word is said a third
time.
The following are examples of contextual or
themed questions. The questions may be
presented in a variety of ways. The
questions may take the children through a
story, or they may be presented with a
block of text and associated questions.
The following are examples of short
answer, stand-alone questions that
our children may be given.
Grammatical terms/word classes
Nouns-
naming word for a person/people, places, objects
nouns can be singular or plural (e.g. cat/cats)
nouns can be common (e.g. dog, cat)
nouns can be proper (e.g. the name of a particular person, place or
thing, and always starts with a capital letter)
- nouns can be collective (e.g. team)
- nouns can be abstract (e.g. those that you cannot see/touch and can be
emotions)
Pronouns- stand in for a noun (e.g. I, you, he, she, we, they, my, your, his, her, our,
their)
Possessive pronouns-used to refer to a specific person/people or
thing/things (e.g. my, mine, our, ours, its, his, her, hers,
their, theirs, your and yours)
Noun phrases- a group of words that describes the noun
Verbs- a ‘doing’ or ‘being’ word. It tells us what is happening in the sentence.
(e.g. jump, run)
Adverb- the use of ‘ly’ in Standard English to turn adjectives
into adverbs (e.g. quickly, slowly, carefully)
- tells us how, when, or where (e.g. happily, last, then, next, soon, therefore)
- indicating degrees of possibility using adverbs (e.g. perhaps, surely)
Adjectives- describes the noun (e.g. terrible, incredible, beautiful)
Conjuctions- joins two sentences or clauses (e.g. when, before, after, while, so,
because) Coordinating conjunctions always go between the words or
phrases that they are connecting. There are seven coordinating
conjunctions in the English language. An easy way to remember the
coordinating conjunctions is to remember ‘FANBOYS’
F = for
A = and
N = nor
B = but
O = or
Y = yet
S = so
Statement- provides a piece of information
Question- asks something. A question always ends with a question mark
Command- a sentence that tells you to do something
Exclamation- a sentence that shows surprise or strong feelings. Strong
feelings can be excitement, happiness, fear or anger
Compound sentence- a sentence that contains two clauses that are joined but
could stand alone (e.g. "The kitchen table was set for
breakfast, and the room smelled of coffee, bacon, damp
plaster, and wood smoke from the stove”.
- E.B.White, Charlotte's Web)
Inverted commas- speech marks indicating direct speech
Apostrophes- mark possession (e.g. Miss Wood’s coat, the teachers’ coats)
- mark contracted forms (e.g. we have = we’ve)
Commas- A comma is a punctuation mark that indicates a pause in a sentence
or separates items in a list (e.g. soft,blue material)
Suffix- a word or letter/letters placed at the end of another word to change
its meaning (e.g. prediction, properly, reasonable)
Homophones- words that sound alike, but have different meanings and
spellings (e.g red/read, write/right, see/sea)
What can you do to help your child?
 Help your child with their homework.
Your child is given spelling homework on a
weekly basis.
 “Children’s learning to spell is closely
related to their learning to read and to
their understandings about how spoken
language is written down.”
Regular reading with your child, not only the books that they
bring home from school, but books at home, and from the
library, will help your child in their written development.