This resource introduces the contracted forms, abbreviations, punctuation and word choices that make writing informal and explores how to adapt them to make sentences more formal. The children are then challenged to write the same information in both a formal and informal style.

This resource supports the children to identify and write in the active and passive voice. It starts by ensuring they can recognise the past participle of a verb before supporting them to use that knowledge to turn an active sentence into a passive one. It then looks at how to write a passive sentence with the subject omitted before looking at how to turn passive sentences into active ones. The challenge then asks the children to identify whether sentences are written in the active or passive voice depending on the position of the subject within the sentence.

This resource introduces the children to using a colon after a main clause when the second clause, phrase or word explains or gives an example of the first. The children are given opportunities to identify where the colon should go as well as write a suitable clause or phrase after a given main clause and colon. The challenge then asks the children to decide whether they need to use a colon or semi colon in given sentences and fully explain how they know.

This resource introduces the children to using a semi colon to separate two main clauses. It starts by ensuring the children can recognise main clauses. The children are then given a range of scenarios to decide whether the coordinating conjunction could be replaced with a semi colon. In order to do this, they need to decide whether both clauses are main clauses and closely linked in meaning. The children are then challenged to add a suitable second clause so that it can be separated from the first with a semi colon.

This resource teaches the children how to contract two words and how to recognise where the apostophe goes. It also introduces irregular examples and common errors such as the use of ‘could of’ instead of ‘could’ve’. The children are given opportunity to contract two words within sentences as well as write the extended form of contractions. The challenge looks at common misconceptions with homophones such as its/it’s and your/you’re.

This resource teaches the children how to use the adverbial conjunctions ‘furthermore’, and ‘in addition’ to add extra detail to the first clause, and ‘in contrast’, ‘on the other hand’ and ‘however’ to add a main clause that opposes the first main clause. It then teaches the children how to use these adverbial conjunctions to join two main clauses, punctuated correctly with a semi colon and a comma. The challenge asks the children to choose the most appropriate adverbial conjunction based on the content of the two main clauses.

This resource teaches the children how to use the adverbial conjunctions ‘consequently’, ‘therefore’ and ‘as a result’ to show an ‘expected’ result, and ‘however’ and ‘nevertheless’ to show an ‘unexpected’ result. It then teaches the children how to use these adverbial conjunctions to join two main clauses punctuated correctly with a semi colon and a comma. The challenge asks the children to choose the most appropriate adverbial conjunction based on the content of the two main clauses.

This resource looks at how traditionally commands may have been perceived as bossy, starting with an imperative verb. The children are taught to recognise these types of command before looking at ones that may seem more polite and not start with the imperative. In recognising these types of commands, the children will also revise questions, statements and exclamatory sentences. Following this, the children are taught about the impact of modal verbs and how these stop a sentence being a command even though they can sound bossy. The children are then challenged to identify all the different sentence types within a paragraph and punctuate them appropriately.

This resource looks at how to use exclamation marks before moving on to exclamatory sentences which must start with ‘how’ or ‘what’. The children are taught how to structure these including ensuring they include a verb. ‘How’ and ‘what’ questions are then introduced to ensure the children can distinguish between questions and exclamatory sentences. The children are then challenged to identify different sentence types within a paragraph and punctuate them appropriately.

This resource introduces the children to a range of question forms including when to use ‘which’ and when to use ‘what’; when to use ‘who’ and when to use ‘whose’; how to turn statements into questions by swapping the subject and verb; and how to turn statements into questions by adding on a tag. The challenge then tests their understanding by asking them to change a range of statements into questions in two different ways.

This resource teaches the children a variety of ways to use dashes effectively in their work from linking lists to main clauses; showing interruption or a change of thought in speech; and extending a main clause with an example, afterthought or explanation. The challenge then tests their understanding by seeing if they are able to identify when it is appropriate to use a dash and when they should be using a hyphen.

This resource initially guides the children in how to correctly punctuate direct speech. It then moves into converting reported speech into direct and takes the children through the steps of changing pronouns and determiners to 1st person and changing the tense to present tense verb forms as well as how questions may affect the word order. The challenge then offers an opportunity to consolidate their learning by converting all the reported speech in a passage to direct, and introducing new speaker, new line.

This resource builds on the children’s knowledge of 1st and 3rd person and the different verb forms that they will need in order to achieve the objective. It gives the children a step-by-step guide on how to convert direct speech into reported speech before giving them some examples of their own to convert. The challenge then really ensures that they understand the objective by asking them to identify common conversion errors and correct them.

This resource supports the children to extend simple sentences by adding adjectival and adverbial prepositional phrases. This puts the focus on the different jobs of prepositional phrases which then helps the children to recognise them within sentences. They learn that prepositions come at the start of these phrases. The challenge then extends the children’s understanding by looking at words that can act as a preposition or conjunction within a sentence depending on whether they are used as part of a phrase or clause.

This lesson combines the children’s knowledge of using coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions and relative pronouns in order to create multi-clause sentences. At first, the children are challenged to identify and name the type of conjunctions in sentences before moving on to recognising main and subordinate clauses in two clause sentences initially, building to 3-4 clause sentences.

This resource introduces how to use hyphens correctly in numbers and with prefixes before supporting the children to create examples of their own. The challenge activities then really test their understanding by ensuring they can explain which sentences have used hyphens correctly before asking them to explain how hyphens can change the meaning of a sentence and the importance of using them correctly to avoid ambiguity.

This resource introduces how to embed parenthesis within a main clause and how to punctuate it with commas, dashes or brackets. It then looks at when parenthesis comes at the end of a sentence and how it needs to be punctuated differently depending on whether you choose to use commas/dashes or brackets. Challenge then looks at choosing the most appropriate punctuation to mark the parenthesis depending on the formality of the writing and the punctuation that is already evident within the sentence in order to avoid confusion.

This resource teaches the children how to use the 5 relative pronouns, including the more complex pronouns ‘whose’ and ‘whom’. The challenge then looks at defining and non-defining clauses to help the children understand when they can use ‘that’ before focusing on the conditions that are needed for the pronoun to be omitted from the relative clause completely.

This resource introduces the fact that clauses have a subject doing a verb before looking at how the addition of a subordinating conjunction can turn a main clause into a subordinate clause. It then focuses on how subordinating clauses can come before, after or be embedded within a main clause and the impact this has on the punctuation within the sentence. The challenge then asks the children to add their own subordinate clause to main clauses, which relies on them being secure on the difference between a phrase and a clause.

This resource introduces the coordinating conjunctions and focuses on how to use the more tricky ones (for, yet and nor) to join main clauses. It then looks at how coordinating conjunctions can also be used to connect words and phrases and the impact this has on punctuating sentences. The activities ensure the children can recognise the conjunctions within sentences as well as use them appropriately in their writing.