Teaching grammar and testing grammar in the English primary school: The impact on teachers and teaching of the grammar element of the statutory test in Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG) in England

This is a report on research funded by the United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA). It is the full report from which the peer reviewed paper in Changing English (Safford 2016) is drawn. This research examines the impact on teachers and their teaching of the grammar element of the statutory SPaG test. The aim of the research has been to evaluate the nature and the extent of changes to the teaching of grammar and to wider literacy teaching since the introduction of SPaG. The research explores teachers’ responses to teaching grammar to a statutory test format, and how teachers have implemented rapid curriculum change in their classrooms. We present the perspectives of teachers as they adjust to new English assessments and new expectations for children’s language in the primary school. Our research explores issues of teacher knowledge, understanding, skill and enjoyment in relation to grammar, at their own level and for teaching pupils. In this research, teachers also discuss their observations of how pupils have responded to explicit grammar teaching and the grammar test