Year 5 & 6 Spelling

06 September 2024

In Key Stage 2, instead of asking you to learn a short list of spellings each week, you will be

given a longer list (roughly 40 words) that we will focus on in that half-term. Don’t worry,

we’re not asking you to learn them all in one week. Instead, we’ll ask you to focus on

learning these words over the course of the entire half-term. There’s a few reasons for this:

1. We want you take responsibility for your own learning and start to figure out how you

learn best (there’s some ideas below). Even if that means making some mistakes

along the way.

2. Lots of research suggests that learning more spellings over a longer time leads to

better remembering how to spell them in the long-term.

3. Similarly, lots of research suggests that if you learn something for a week and don’t

come back to it you’ll likely forget it anyway

4. We won’t have a ‘formal’ test each week. Instead, we’ll mix it up. We might ask you

to test each other on the words you’ve been learning. We might test the words at

random and then you’ll know which words you need to practise more and which

words you’re confident with. We might just think about some of the words and share

ideas for how we’re going about learning them.

5. Ultimately, we want this to be about learning – and not just getting them right in a

test.

How you decide to do this is up to you. You might decide to focus on the trickiest words first.

Or, you might decide to learn 8 words a week and really focus on these whilst still practising

the others, too. For some of you, you might already feel confident with some of the words so

might choose to not practise these at all. However you decide to do it is up to you. The

important thing is that you’re learning them and learning how you like to learn them best.

Every Friday, we’ll spend time practising or testing (informally) or discussing all things

spelling so be ready (one of our 8 Rs for learning) to join in!

If you need some ideas for practical things to do, check out the Super Spelling Strategies

Guide on the school website.

Half-term 1

This half-term, our spellings are linked to the rules and strategies we’ll be learning in class:

• alternative ways for writing the ‘ay’ sound
• alternative ways for writing the ‘ee’ sound
• ‘double up for a short vowel sound’
• ‘drop the e for ing’
• ‘drop the y for an i’
• adding the suffixes ed, ing
• homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently)

Each Friday, you’ll be tested on 8 of the words from the list below.

Half-term 1

This half-term, our spellings are linked to the rules and strategies we’ll be learning in class:

• homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently)
• ‘double up for a short vowel sound’
• ‘drop the y for an i’
• using apostrophes for contraction (eg can’t, won’t)
• adding the suffixes ed, ing, er, est
• adding the prefixes un, dis, im, in, ir, il

Each Friday, you’ll be tested on 8 of the words from the list below.

10 June 2024

This half-term, our spellings are linked to the rules and strategies we’ll be learning in class:

• etymology: cyclo, chrono, struct, port, tract, dict
• apostrophes for contraction and possession
• spelling patterns: tious, cious
• recapping of previously taught spellings

Each Friday, you’ll be tested on 8 of the words from the list below.

19 March 2024

This half-term, our spellings are linked to the rules and strategies we’ll be learning in class:

• homophones: draught, draft, dissent, descent, proceed, precede, wary, weary
• applying rules: prefixes and suffixes
• spelling patterns: unusual patterns (eg bruise, guarantee, vehicle)
• spelling patterns: unusual patterns (eg yacht, immediately)
• etymology: phone, micro, tele, graph, auto, geo

Each Friday, you’ll be tested on 8 of the words from the list below.

01 March 2024

This half-term, our spellings are linked to the rules and strategies we’ll be learning in class:

• adding suffixes: sion, tion, ssion, cian
• adding suffixes: words ending in ‘fer’
• spelling patterns: tial, cial
• spelling patterns: tious, cious
• adding prefixes: tele, super, auto, inter
• homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently)

12 January 2024

This half-term, our spellings are linked to the rules and strategies we’ll be learning in class:

• homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently)
• spelling patterns: ant/ance, ent/ence
• adding prefixes: co and re
• adding prefixes: un, dis, im, in, ir, il
• apostrophes for contraction and possession

Each Friday, you’ll be tested on 8 of the words from the list below.

10 November 2023

Here are your new  40 words for this half-term. Let’s get learning them! How you decide to do this is up to you. You might decide to focus on the trickiest words first. Or, you might decide to learn 8 words a week and really focus on these whilst still practising the others, too. For some of you, you might already feel confident with some of the words so might choose to not practise these at all.If you need some ideas for practical things to do, check out the Super Spelling Strategies Guide on the school website.

08 September 2023

This half-term, instead of learning eight different words each week, we’d like you to learn these 40 words over the whole half-term. Lots of research suggests that learning more spellings over a longer time leads to better remembering how to spell them in the long term.

How you decide to do this is up to you. You might decide to focus on the trickiest words first. Or, you might decide to learn 8 words a week and really focus on these whilst still practising the others, too. For some of you, you might already feel confident with some of the words so might choose to not practise these at all. However you decide to do it, is up to you. The important thing is that you’re learning them and learning how you like to learn them best.

Each week, we’ll choose eight random words to test you on – this will take place every Friday.

If you need some ideas for practical things to do, check out the Super Spelling Strategies Guide on the school website.

14 July 2023

This week, we’ve been learning about words that contain the ant/ance, ent/ence word endings. Please learn the following words for a test on Friday 21st July:

hindrance

apparent

convenience

excellent

existence

frequent

nuisance

sufficient

07 July 2023

This week, we’ve been learning about words that contain the –cial and –tial word endings. Please learn the following words for a test on Friday 14th July:

glacial

social

racial

influential

preferential

confidential

substantial

residential

30 June 2023

This week, we have been looking at words that contain specific spelling patterns. Please learn the words for a test on Friday 7th July.

vicious

delicious

ambitious

infectious

precious

malicious

cautious

nutritious