If you want to be a teacher in the UK, you have to pass a series of literacy and numeracy tests. These are hard but a good way to learn some basic skills that are not taught in schools, or have forgotten.

The spelling tests are tricky and knowing some strategies to help you spell words that you haven’t used for a a long time or have never used before can help.

Check out these words that could be in the test: relieved, environmental, governmental, stationary, deterrent, compulsory, irrelevant, thorough, parliament, variant, library, decision parallel, formally, recommended, entrepreneurial, significantly, omitted, successfully

There are certain words and rules that they tend to test you on, so knowing these is important, for example, adding -ly, adding -es, drop or keep the ‘e’, 1:1:1 doubling up rule for longer words, etc.

achievable, compulsory, negligible, justifiably, exaggerated, exhaustive.

Can you spell these under pressure, quickly and on a keyboard without using a dictionary, spellcheck or writing them out a few times? (We'll do these in a test later.)

No? Of course you can't. I was struggling with these spelling. Why? Because I don't use these words in everyday situations so they're not automatically available to me in my brain. But I can use various spelling strategies to help. I'm shocked that teachers and children aren't taught these great strategies.

OK so teachers need to know how to spell, know spelling strategies and understand why spelling is the way it is. But no one is teaching these.

When you do the QTS practice tests a few times you can see the patterns and reasons why they are testing certain words. They want to know your knowledge of: how words are built with prefixes and suffixes, spelling rules, and common letter patterns.

Key strategies to improve and remember spellings include:
▶ knowing how words are built with root words, prefixes & suffixes - check the series of lessons in the Lessons section - Click here


▶ knowing spelling rules & the exceptions - check the various lessons in the lessons section


▶ using memory tricks/mnemonics - click here


▶ using syllable breakdown - Click here


▶ understanding the history of spelling & why words are the way they are - check the Silent Letters lesson, and my ebook Click here


▶ using the Look, Say, Cover Write Check method Click here


▶ recognising common letter patterns - ible/able, ent/ant, ory/ery/ary... - click here


▶ noticing vowels - deterrent, thorough, exaggerated, experience (This is great for dyslexics.)

QTS SPELLING TESTS - Pen and paper at the ready or type if you don’t have spellcheck or predictive text

Use all the tricks and strategies you can. In the real test there's a time limit! Don’t panic is the first tip, or your brain will seize up (neurological fact).

In the QTS exam they give you a sentence to establish the context of the word and you press the player and type in the word.

1. Passing this test is ____.
2. Doing the QTS spelling test is ____ .
3. The difference between the two products is ____.
4. He was ____ proud of his achievements.
5. He ____ how much it was.
6. The unions have described the latest pay offer as ____.
7. The deal will be ____ announced on Tuesday.
8. Children normally feel a lot of ____ about their first day at school.
9. This is an ____ study.
10. She ____ to mention that she was going to Yorkshire next week.
11. These documents are ____.
12. The words 'annoyed' and 'irritated' are more or less ____.

After the test I'll go over the spellings letter by letter or you can check them below. Remember to:

1. Underline the mistakes.

2. Analyse the mistakes - why do you think you've made them?

3. Think about how you can remember them, what strategies can help you?



  1. Answers
    1. achievable
    2. compulsory
    3. negligible
    4. justifiably
    5. exaggerated
    6. unacceptable
    7. formally
    8. anxiety
    9. exhaustive
    10. omitted
    11. irrelevant
    12. synonymous


    Let's go over the spellings and strategies to remember the words, rules and what to look out for.

    1. achievable - you've got two rules going on in this word: achieve + able so use the "drop the 'e' rule" with a vowel suffix = achievable, and the "i before e except after c" rule works for this.

    2. compulsory — they're testing your knowledge of letter patterns and visual memory - is it ery or ory or ary?) you could use syllable breakdown com /pul /so / ry - say it slow and exaggerated and visualise it. Or come up with a memory trick: sorry it's compulsory

    3. negligible - testing your ible/able again. You could use syllable breakdown neg/li/gi/ble. Notice the two i's li/gi - neg li / gi ble. Can you come up with a memory trick?

    4. justifiably = testing your suffix ending rules: justify + ably: so we have to change the y to i with -ably= justifi + ably = justifiably
    You could use syllable breakdown = jus /ti/ fi/ ably, (see the two i's)

    In the QTS test commentary they say: "Think of the root justify, lose the final 'y' and replace it with 'iably'" justif + iably

    5. exaggerated  Are there two g's, two r's? The 'ex' sounds like "eggs!" Can you see the 2 g's in eggs - use that memory trick to remember that there are two g's in exaggerated exaggerate + d = exaggerated. A memory trick could be: "I ate two extra eggs” = exaggerated

    exa- letter pattern: exact, exactly, exam, exaggerate


    6. unacceptable - again the able/ible ending and a prefix 'un'
    un + accept + able: no dropping anything just add the un + able.

    7. formally - sounds easy but it's about adding the suffix ending -ly. We don't drop the L . formal + ly, usefully = useful + ly, helpfully, naturally, finally

    8. anxiety - this word the QTS site said, "You have to learn by heart"
    You could learn the others in the anxi- pattern: anxiety, anxious, anxiously. Or use a memory trick.

    9. exhaustive - sounds like "eggs or stiff" so you can't use phonics!
    Take notice of the other words in the patterns and make a list: exhaust pipe, exhaustion, exhausting

    10. omitted - this is the 1:1:1 doubling up rule click here to go to the lesson

    11. irrelevant - ir+ relevant You can use syllable breakdown ir/re/le/vant
    Notice the 2 x e's irrelevant. For more on some prefix rules click here

    12. synonymous - can you think of any ways to remember this word?
    syn/o/ny/mous


    Key strategies to doing the test are:
    1. Use memory tricks.
    2. Use syllable breakdown to break a word down into small chunks by sounding it out slowly.
    3. Think of a word that sounds like the word and has the same letter pattern.
    4. Use your knowledge of suffixes and prefixes.
    5. Think of the spelling rules - drop the 'e', doubling up 1:1:1 rule, i before e rule
    6. Notice the patterns and vowels in the words.
    7. Use Look Say Cover Write Check to help you learn the words.

    Teach your students these strategies too.

The following tests are one-word spelling tests. Scroll down for the answers.

Answers. Check your spelling carefully letter by letter. And think about the mistakes and how you can remember the spellings next times.

Test 1
1. accommodation/ accommodate
2. accomplishments
3. achievable
4. acknowledge
5. administrative
6. aggressive/aggression
7. anxiety
8. ecstasy
9. basically
10. capabilities
11. chronological
12. communication

Test 2
1. compulsory
2. cumulative
3. crucial
4. embarrass
5. exaggerated
6. exhaustive
7. existence
8. environmentally
9. detrimental
10. definitely
11. formally
12. government
13. grammatical

Test 3
1. illuminating
2. implementation
3. inappropriate
4. independently
5. ineffectual
6. irrelevant
7. justifiably
8. mathematical
9. metacognition
10. meticulous
11. minuscule
12. miscellaneous