Year 6 Story Starters – KS2 Conjunctions

This Year 6 teaching sequence has been designed to support pupils to revisit and recall how conjunctions are used. An interesting and engaging image is provided as a visual prompt to stimulate discussion and inspire creative writing.

Pupils will revisit the grammar focus, in this case hconjunctions, before completing the short writing task, applying what they have learnt.

What is included in this story starters resource pack?

• Image prompt story starter
  In the image provided it shows a sign from the island of Svalbard in the Arctic Circle, which warns that polar bears can be found all over the island. Can you imagine living on Svalbard? How would the bears affect how people live there?
• Conjunctions grammar challenge
  Complete the sentences, thinking carefully about what each conjunction means
• Conjunctions writing challenge
  Write a set of guidelines for people who have just arrived on Svalbard to warn them about the bears. Try to use as many different conjunctions in your sentences as you can, each time using the conjunction to share a particular meaning.

What is a conjunction?

A conjunction is a word used to connect clauses or sentences, or to coordinate words in the same clause, such as ‘and’ or ‘but’.

• Co-ordinate: goes between, and links, words, phrases, clauses or sentences of equal importance. There are only seven: ‘For’, ‘And’, ‘Nor’, ‘But’, ‘Or’, Yet’, ‘So’
• Subordinate: also known as a subordinating conjunction. This introduces a subordinating clause, and joins it to the main clause in a sentence

National Curriculum English programme of study links

Pupils should be taught to extend the range of sentences with more than one clause by using a wider range of conjunctions, including when, if, because, although

This resource is part of the Tricky Grammar Story Starters collection.
View more from this collection

• teacher notes
• activity sheets