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Important update from TheSchoolRun

For the past 13 years, TheSchoolRun has been run by a small team of mums working from home, dedicated to providing quality educational resources to primary school parents. Unfortunately, rising supplier costs and falling revenue have made it impossible for us to continue operating, and we’ve had to make the difficult decision to close. The good news: We’ve arranged for another educational provider to take over many of our resources. These will be hosted on a new portal, where the content will be updated and expanded to support your child’s learning.

What this means for subscribers:

  • Your subscription is still active, and for now, you can keep using the website as normal — just log in with your usual details to access all our articles and resources*.
  • In a few months, all resources will move to the new portal. You’ll continue to have access there until your subscription ends. We’ll send you full details nearer the time.
  • As a thank you for your support, we’ll also be sending you 16 primary school eBooks (worth £108.84) to download and keep.

A few changes to be aware of:

  • The Learning Journey weekly email has ended, but your child’s plan will still be updated on your dashboard each Monday. Just log in to see the recommended worksheets.
  • The 11+ weekly emails have now ended. We sent you all the remaining emails in the series at the end of March — please check your inbox (and spam folder) if you haven’t seen them. You can also follow the full programme here: 11+ Learning Journey.

If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected]. Thank you for being part of our journey it’s been a privilege to support your family’s learning.

*If you need to reset your password, it will still work as usual. Please check your spam folder if the reset email doesn’t appear in your inbox.

What is a question?

What is a question?
Find out how, what and when children are taught about question marks in primary school in our grammar and punctuation guide for parents.

What is a question?

A question is a type of sentence that we ask or write to gain further information from a person or people responding.

Written questions are punctuated with a question mark to show that the sentence has been completed.

Often, but not always, question sentences begin with one of the following words:
 

  • Who
  • What
  • When
  • Where
  • Why
  • How

For example:

Not all questions begin with these words though; there are many other alternatives that can be used to frame the structure of a sentence. For example:

When are questions taught in the primary school classroom?

Questions are first taught during Year 1, when a child is learning the difference between ‘yelling’ (command), ‘telling’ (statement) and ‘asking’ sentences (questions).

In Year 1, children are also taught and encouraged to ask questions to find out further information; this often occurs during reading comprehension and topic (history and geography) lessons. By the end of Year 1, children will be expected to be able to identify and then punctuate the end of a question sentence using a question mark, and be able to ask simple questions within their writing.

In Year 2 children will be expected to write questions within their writing more confidently, and be able to identify question sentences that require to be punctuated with a question mark. To leave Year 2 working at the expected standard for a child of their age, children would be expected to demonstrate they can punctuate question sentences accurately.

As part of the Year 2 Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling SATs, children will also be expected to add the appropriate punctuation to a sentence. For example:

In Year 3, when direct speech is formally introduced, children will be expected to punctuate questions with question marks within inverted commas (speech marks). Consolidation of this  punctuation rule will continue throughout Upper Key Stage 2.

To leave Year 6 working at the expected standard for a child their age, children need to be able to demonstrate they can punctuate question sentences using a question mark within their writing. Also as part of the KS2 Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling SATs, children will also be expected to add the appropriate punctuation to a sentence. A SATs question on his topic might look like this:

How are questions taught in the primary classroom?

When children are learning the difference between ‘asking’ and ‘telling’ sentences in Year 1, they will often learn about some of the key words that are involved in asking questions. These words are: who, what, when, where, why and how. They are taught these words alongside other words that can ‘help us get a response or an answer’.

Children will identify question sentences from worksheets, punctuate various sentences types with the appropriate punctuation, and then begin to write their own sentences as they progress throughout their time at school.

Asking questions isn’t solely a written exercise at school; being able to ask questions orally in order to further knowledge also forms part of the reading curriculum and the humanities and science curriculums.