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A transition suitcase for KS2

Odd title but I am sharing this in case it is of use to anyone else. Here in Hampshire we've been doing some more work on our 'End-of-year 6 Agreement' transition documents which I'll attach here. Copies are also stored on the website. However it has become apparent that some schools are not yet at this stage and needed something even simpler to use at student level.

So here is a possible alternative - a 'Transition Suitcase' for a Year 6 child to complete. There is a blank copy attached and an example of how it might look when completed. The idea is that it encourages colleagues as well as children to think in terms of sentence level skills by asking for learnt core structures to be listed and not leaving so much space for lots of vocabulary. It can be hard for non-linguist teachers (and even some specialists especially when starting off teaching in KS1 and KS2) to avoid the trap of leaping from topic to topic accumulating mountains of vocabulary but not progressing to be able to do anything with it - which is why the 'core structures' are suggested as the crucial 'suitcase' of the kit. The structures can be used repeatedly regardless of topic. The aim of the kit is also to make it clear that the expectation at the end of KS2 is of being able to 'read, write, say and understand' in the target language - not merely glossed over, covered it once or never wrote anything at all. This hopefully reinforces guidance both from the national curriculum (statutory soon for Years 5 & 6) and the KS2 Framework for Languages. But at the same time we wanted to keep it entirely up to teachers and children what actual language they cover at this level, after all there are lots of resources both free and commercial available for primary languages and only the class teacher knows which will suit his/her own class best.

This example is in French but the format could be used for any language and of course extra work can be recorded on the reverse of the sheet if children want to do so and could continue in the suitcase theme too! Please let me know if you find it useful or have your own suggestions. (Also if anyone wants a word copy to adapt say so and will upload it here too)

The original Hampshire End of Year 6 Agreement documents:

Tags: 6, Agreement, Can, French, German, Guidance, I, KS2, Spanish, Transition, More…Year, can, do