Each year in May, all eligible Year 6 pupils are assessed using Key Stage 2 SATs tests. The KS2 English grammar, punctuation and spelling (GPS) test consists of two papers. GPS Paper 1 is a 45-minute, 50-mark test which focuses on grammar and punctuation questions. For an analysis of GPS paper 1, read our ‘Play Your Way to SATs Success with Grammar Arcade’ blog post.
GPS Paper 2 is a spelling test consisting of 20 words and 20 marks. Although the papers are split, there is sometimes overlap, with some questions in GPS Paper 1 focusing on spelling objectives. There is no time limit on GPS Paper 2.
What Makes an Effective Speller?
‘An effective speller draws upon the entire rich linguistic tapestry of a word to spell it correctly. The threads of this tapestry can be identified as phonological knowledge, orthographic knowledge, morphological knowledge, etymological knowledge and visual knowledge.’
(Apel et al., 2004a, b; Henry, 1989; Masterson and Apel, 2010). Adoniou (2014, p. 145)
The image above from Oakley & Fellowes demonstrates the key elements to becoming an effective speller. By developing phonological, orthographic, morphological and etymological knowledge, we expand our mental lexicon. Our mental lexicon is a bank of words we have committed to our visual memory and can spell almost automatically. Visual memory uses the other strands to support words being memorised.
Watch this webinar recording to learn more about what makes an effective speller.
What is Orthographic Mapping?
‘Orthographic mapping is the cognitive process by which readers associate speech sounds with written letters (phoneme-grapheme associations) in a written word to store it for immediate retrieval “on sight”.’
Mather & Jaffe (2021, p. 15-16)
The GPS Paper 2 Spelling Paper is designed to test this. Can pupils immediately retrieve the speech-sound-written letter associations on sight?
The Importance of Prior Learning for KS2 SATs Success
The table below shows a breakdown of the spelling content of past papers from 2018 to 2024. It shows how many words in each paper were from Key Stage 1, Year 3 & 4 spelling patterns, the Year 3 & 4 statutory word list, Year 5 & 6 spelling patterns and the Year 5 & 6 statutory word list. This highlights that it is an end of Key Stage assessment, not an end of Year 6 assessment.
The table clearly shows that the majority of words in the assessment contain Year 3 & 4 spelling patterns, with words that contain Year 5 & 6 spelling patterns following.
We can see that the 2024 paper contained three Year 5 & 6 statutory words, which is the most that it has been for the past five assessments, with previous papers having zero. This demonstrates the importance of teaching spelling patterns.
The numbers in brackets show how many words were exact example words of the spelling pattern listed in the National Curriculum Spelling Appendix. For example, the 2024 spelling paper had eight words containing Year 3 & 4 spelling patterns and four of them were words that the National Curriculum Spelling Appendix lists as example words. View the full National Curriculum Spelling Appendix here.
The ^ symbol demonstrates which year group/word list it appears in first, but it is also revisited in later year groups as a pattern.
Spelling Paper Breakdown
The table below shows all the words that appeared in the 2024 GPS Spelling Paper 2, along with the year group pattern or year group statutory word list where it appears. (NSE) stands for non-statutory example; this is where the word is of the year group pattern and is listed as an example word.
As with previous years, the majority of the words in the 2024 assessment contained Year 3 & 4 spelling. We can also identify the overlap of where words or spelling patterns first appear in the curriculum and where they are recapped.
For example, the word ‘island’ is on the Year 3 & 4 statutory word list and is also a non-statutory example of the Year 5 & 6 spelling pattern ‘silent’ letters. The word ‘famous’ contains the Year 3 & 4 pattern ‘ous’ suffix and is on the Year 3 & 4 statutory word list. The word ‘social’ contains the Year 5 and 6 pattern ‘cial’, but antisocial is a non-statutory example for the Year 3 & 4 ‘anti’ prefix. Some words are a combination of lots of patterns; for example, the word ‘replacing’ contains the Year 3 & 4 spelling pattern prefix ‘re-‘, the Year 3 pattern soft ‘c’ and adding ‘-ing’ to words ending in ‘e’.
Compare the Words
The table below compares the words in the KS2 spelling papers from 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Clear patterns occur throughout the papers. The past three papers all have words that contain the ‘ou’ representing the /u/ sound. The 2022 and 2023 papers both have words with ‘ough’ patterns containing different pronunciations; however, this pattern did not occur in the 2024 spelling paper, so there is a possibility that it could appear in the 2025 paper. The word ‘scenic’ was in the 2022 paper and the word ‘scenario’ was in the 2023 paper. Both of these words contain ‘sc’ representing the /s/ sound, although this pattern did not appear in the 2024 assessment, the word ‘replacing’ with the ‘c’ representing the /s/ sound did.
Other patterns that reoccur are:
- ‘ure’ – texture, puncture and measure
- Words where ‘y’ represents the /i/ sound – syrup, lyric and symbol
- Words ending in ‘gue’ and ‘que’ – league, queue and unique
- Words representing the /a/ sound with ‘e’ in the spelling – veins, obey and survey
- Homophones – once per paper – currant, banned and queue
- Words with silent letters – island and lamb
- Words where ‘ch’ represents the /c/ or /sh/ sound – chaos, mechanic, character and machine
- Words with the ‘-ly’ suffix – reluctantly, steadily and frequently
- Combinations of spelling patterns – disrespect, undrinkable and replacing
As suffixes are a huge part of the English language, it makes sense that a lot of the words in the spelling assessment contain suffixes. Words with the suffix ‘ous’ or ‘ious’ have appeared once in each paper, but the suffixes ‘tion’, ‘sion’, ‘cial’ and ‘tial’ frequently appear.
Below is a list of some of Spelling Shed’s lessons that include this related content:
- Words ending in ‘-sure’ and ‘-ture’ – Stage 3 Step 4 and 5
- Words with the short vowel sound /i/ spelled ‘y’ – Stage 6 Step 11
- Words with the long vowel sound /igh/ spelled ‘y’ – Stage 6 Step 12
- Words ending in ‘-gue’ and ‘-que’ – Stage 3 Step 27
- Words with the digraph ‘ai’ and tetragraph ‘aigh’ – Stage 3 Step 13
- Words with the digraph ‘ei’ and tetragraph ‘eigh’ – Stage 3 Step 14
- Words where the digraph ‘ey’ makes an /ai/ sound – Stage 3 Step 15
- Homophones – across all year groups
- Words with ‘silent’ first letters – Stage 5 Step 16
- Words with ‘silent’ letters – Stage 5 Step 17
- Words where ‘ch’ makes a /sh/ sound – Stage 4 Step 11
- Words where the digraph ‘ch’ makes a /k/ sound – Stage 3 Step 25
- Words with the suffix ‘–ly’ – Stage 3 Step 16
- Words ending in ‘-ly’; exceptions – Stage 3 Step 17
- Words ending ’-ly’ – Stage 4 Step 9
- Words ending ’-lly’ – Stage 4 Step 10
- Words ending in ’-ous’ – Stage 4 Step 14
- Words ending in ’-ous’ incl. those where ‘ge’ from the base word remains – Stage 4 Step 15
- Words ending in ’-ious’ and ‘eous’ – Stage 4 Step 17
- Words ending in ‘-tious’ and ‘-ious’ – Stage 5 Step 1
- Words ending in ’-tion’ – Stage 4 Step 20
- Words ending in ’-sion’ – Stage 4 Step 13 and 21
- Words ending in ‘-cial’ – Stage 5 Step 3
- Words ending in ‘-tial’ – Stage 5 Step 4
- Words ending in ‘-cial’ and ‘-tial’ – Stage 5 Step 5
Download the full Medium Term Plan for free.
Top Tips
Tip 1: Good Practice is Good Practice
Don’t suddenly change your practice. Keep practising spelling by using research-based, proven approaches. Continue to focus on teaching spelling patterns, exploring morphology and using activities that support orthographic mapping. This can be with sound buttons, Elkonin boxes and syllable breaks.
Here are two options:
Option A: Happily is spelled H A P P I L Y.
Option B: “When the base word ends in a ‘y’, this normally changes to an ‘i’ when adding many suffixes, like ‘-ly’
Option A focuses on spelling one word.
Option B focuses on a spelling pattern and this can be further explored and applied with other words, such as ‘merrily’, ‘gloomily’, ‘healthily’, ‘angrily’, ‘scarily’ etc.
Tip 2: Remember that it is an end of Key Stage assessment
SATs are an end of Key Stage assessment and our spelling paper breakdown further demonstrates this. Identifying gaps and revisiting patterns can be really helpful. Use of Spelling Shed’s Mastery Zone, end of term assessments and data tools can support you further with this.
Tip 3: Have a practice test
Although we don’t want to test too much, it is important that children know what the test experience will look and feel like prior to the real deal. This is crucial for some children.
‘The development of spelling skills is not merely a matter of memorising word lists by rote.’
Joshi et al. (2008) in Daffern & Fleet (2021, p. 68)
However, it is important that you are not testing to teach. Tests do not teach children how to spell. The purpose of tests is to practise the test format and assess the children in an out of context format.
Tip 4: Choose varied, effective practice methods
Help children choose varied, effective practice methods that suit them. Spelling Shed’s games make spelling practice fun and engaging. You can also use syllable breaks, word mapping and cloze sentence activities.
Tip 5: Teach children skills for managing test anxiety
Some children will have more anxiety than others before and during the SATs assessments. Teach children skills such as breathing exercises, making sure they are eating healthy, getting enough sleep, exercising and letting them know mistakes are ok.
Tip 6: Do a variety of patterns in one session
When we do an individual lesson, you can only teach one spelling pattern at a time. However, you can look at multiple spelling patterns if you are looking at similar spelling patterns. For example, you could group words ending in ‘tion’, ‘cian’, ‘sion’ and ‘ssion’ in one lesson, so children can understand which ending to use and when. You could also group words by suffixes, for example ‘able’, ‘ible’, ‘ably’ and ‘ibly’ or prefixes, for example ‘il’, ‘al’ ‘el’ and ‘le’.
Tip 7: Take handwriting on a case-by-case basis
If children have clear handwriting and it is cursive, don’t try to change it and make them print. Obviously if the children are writing in cursive and some of the letters are not clear, then it is wise to ask them to use a print method. You don’t need to have the whole class using the same style.
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Video Webinar Recording: Spelling SATs Top Tips 2025
Watch this free webinar recording for all of the above.