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Years 5 and 6 English · Key Stage 2 · Spelling – English Appendix 1

Years 5 and 6 spelling words: accommodate to convenience

The statutory spelling list for Years 5 and 6 is a set of words that children are expected to spell correctly by the end of primary school, chosen because they are common in writing and hard to get right. This page covers the first 25 in alphabetical order, from accommodate to convenience, including committee, cemetery, conscience and conscious. Children learn them through word history, word building and careful attention to the tricky part.

Spelling words: accommodate to convenience, explained

The list is statutory, so schools must teach it, but the programme of study leaves the order and method to each school. This page covers accommodate, accompany, according, achieve, aggressive, amateur, ancient, apparent, appreciate, attached, available, average, awkward, bargain, bruise, category, cemetery, committee, communicate, community, competition, conscience, conscious, controversy and convenience. Spelling is also tested in the Year 6 grammar, punctuation and spelling test, and teachers look at spelling in children’s writing too.

The curriculum guidance says word history can help, and gives conscience and conscious as examples: both are related to science, which comes from a Latin word, scio, meaning “I know”. Seeing the word science tucked inside conscience explains the sci in the middle. It also says that many of the words are useful for practising suffixes. For example, attached is attach plus ed, available is avail plus able, competition grows from compete, and community and communicate are built from the same base.

A big group of the words depend on double letters that cannot be heard. Accommodate has two c letters and two m letters. Accompany has a double c, because it is built from the word company with ac at the front. Aggressive has gg and ss, apparent and appreciate both have pp, attached has tt, and committee has a double m, a double t and a double e. Communicate and community each have a double m but only one n. Children learn these by chunking the word and saying each chunk with its double letter.

Several of the words come from other languages, which explains their odd shapes. Amateur keeps its French ending -eur. In ancient, the c and i together make a “sh” sound, so the ie is not saying ee and the “i before e except after c” rule does not apply. Bruise has ui in the middle, which says “oo”. Awkward has w, k and w close together. Cemetery is spelt with three e letters and ends in -ery, not -ary. Achieve does follow the rule, with ie saying ee after the v, and bargain ends in -ain even though it sounds like “gin”. Because many of these patterns repeat so little elsewhere, children learn them one by one.

In school, teachers usually have children say the word in a spelling voice, break it into chunks, find the tricky part and then use look, cover, write and check. Many schools teach the words in small groups and come back to them after a few days. Children also use the words in sentences, so they know what each one means, and the more the words appear in their own writing, the more secure the spellings become.

Words your child will hear

Statutory
Set down in law. Every school must teach the words on the list.
Etymology
The history of a word and where it came from, such as science and the Latin word scio.
Suffix
Letters added to the end of a word, such as -ed in attached or -able in available.
Double letter
The same letter twice in a row, as in accommodate and committee.
Chunking
Splitting a long word into small parts, such as ac-com-mo-date, to spell one part at a time.
Mnemonic
A memory trick for a spelling, such as thinking of science inside conscience.

What the National Curriculum says

In Years 5 and 6, pupils should be taught to:

  • Spell these words from the statutory word list for years 5 and 6: accommodate, accompany, according, achieve, aggressive, amateur, ancient, apparent, appreciate, attached, available, average, awkward
  • Spell these words from the statutory word list for years 5 and 6: bargain, bruise, category, cemetery, committee, communicate, community, competition, conscience, conscious, controversy, convenience

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: three tricky words

Your child needs to spell “accommodate” and “cemetery”, and to choose between “conscience” and “conscious” in two sentences: “My ___ told me to own up” and “She was ___ of the noise.”

  1. Accommodate: chunk it as ac-com-mo-date. The tricky part is the two double letters, cc and mm. A well-known trick is to say that it is a big word with two c letters and two m letters, big enough for lots of guests.
  2. Cemetery: say it as “cem-e-ter-y” with every vowel sounded. There are three e letters and no a, so it ends in -ery. Write it and underline each e in turn.
  3. Conscience or conscious: both begin with con and then have sci, from the word science. The noun conscience means your inner sense of right and wrong, and ends in -ence. The adjective conscious means awake or aware, and ends in -ous.
  4. Choose by meaning. “My ___ told me to own up” needs the thing that tells you right from wrong, so it is conscience. “She was ___ of the noise” describes being aware, so it is conscious.
  5. Cover, write and check, then try again the next day.

accommodate (cc and mm), cemetery (three e letters, ends -ery), My conscience told me to own up; She was conscious of the noise.

Common mistakes and how to help

Writing single letters in double-letter words, such as “acommodate”, “aggresive” or “apreciate”

A double letter makes no difference to how a word sounds, so children can only know it is there by learning it.

What helps: Chunk the word and say each chunk clearly, giving the double letter its own beat: ac-com-mo-date. Circle the double letters in colour, then cover and write from memory.

Confusing conscience and conscious, or writing “consience” and “concious”

The two words sound similar at the end and look alike, and the sci in the middle is easy to forget because it sounds like “sh”.

What helps: Show the word science inside both. Then use meaning: the noun conscience ends in -ence, and conscious, the describing word, ends in -ous. Put each in a sentence.

Spelling by sound where the letters are unexpected, such as “ansient” for ancient, “amatur” for amateur or “apparant” for apparent

The sound gives no clue to the c in ancient, and unstressed endings are said so quickly that several letters could fit, so a child writes the most likely one.

What helps: Look for a related word: apparent comes from appear, and ancient has the same cien as science. Remember that amateur keeps the French -eur ending. Learn the ending as part of the word.

Getting committee or cemetery wrong, such as “comittee” or “cemetary”

Committee has three sets of doubled letters, and the middle of cemetery is barely sounded, so the vowels are hard to hear.

What helps: Say committee as com-mit-tee and note the doubles: mm, tt and ee. For cemetery, point out that apart from the y at the end, every vowel is an e, and keep the two words on one card for practice.

How to help at home

  • Find the hidden word. Write science inside conscience and conscious, company inside accompany, appear inside apparent and avail inside available. Underline each hidden word. Seeing why a spelling is built that way gives your child a reason to remember it.
  • Double-trouble hunt. Write out accommodate, aggressive, appreciate, attached, committee and community. Ask your child to circle every double letter, then cover the word and write it. Count the doubles together afterwards.
  • Make a mnemonic. Invite your child to invent a silly sentence or picture for the trickiest word, for example, a cemetery with three e letters. Many children find that a trick they made up themselves is easier to remember.
  • Write a real note. Ask your child to write a short note or card to a relative using five words from the list, such as achieve, appreciate and community. Check the spellings together before it is sent.
  • Little and often. Choose four words, practise them for five minutes, and test them again the next day and a week later. Replace words once they are secure.

Related topics

Builds on

More on spelling – English Appendix 1

Everything in Years 5 and 6 English

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