Look for a sentence that forms a complete thought and contains a verb and subject. “He ran down the street” is an independent clause. An independent clause must not include dependent marker words like “if,” “after,” “although,” “because” and “when.”

In teaching, multi-clause sentences are also known as complex sentences. For example: ‘The little girl ran to her Mummy, because the dog was there’ is a multi-clause sentence ( the main clause is ‘the little girl ran to her Mummy’, and the subordinate clause is ‘because the dog was there’).

A complex or multi-clause sentence is made up of a main clause and then one or more dependent clauses. There are two ways of creating dependent clauses: • by using a subordinating conjunction (e.g. after) to create a subordinate clause, e.g. The horse galloped after it jumped the fence.

Two or more independent clauses can be connected together in a single sentence. Sentences that contain two or more independent clauses and no dependent clauses are called compound sentences.

A simple sentence consists of only one clause. A compound sentence consists of two or more independent clauses. A complex sentence has at least one independent clause plus at least one dependent clause. A set of words with no independent clause may be an incomplete sentence, also called a sentence fragment.

A sentence can have just one clause or it can have multiple clauses. The only defining characteristic of a clause is that it must contain a related subject and verb.

Part I: Learning Activity

1. Declarative sentences tell something or make a statement.
2. Interrogative sentences ask a question.
3. Imperative sentences make a command or tell someone to do something.
4. Exclamatory sentences express a feeling and use an exclamation point at the end of a sentence.

A clause is a group of words that contain a subject (the noun or pronoun about which something is being said, usually the doer of the action) and a verb (a doing word). An example of a clause is: The fast, red squirrel darted up a tree. The subject of this clause is the fast, red squirrel and the verb is ‘darted’.

A clause is a group of words that tells you two things. First, it has a subject: that’s who or what is doing something. Second, it has a predicate: that’s the action the subject is doing. “They run” is a clause.

Steps to identifying clauses

1. Identify any verbs and verb phrases. A clause always contains at least one verb, typically a lexical verb.
2. Identify any conjunctions.
3. Check again.

A multi-clause sentence is one which has more than one clause in it. One is a main clause and at least one other is a subordinate clause. In teaching, multi-clause sentences are also known as complex sentences.

A subordinate clause is a clause (group of words with a subject and a verb) which depends on a main clause, that’s already been mentioned in the sentence. In teaching, subordinate clauses are also known as dependent clauses, because they depend on the main clause.

A main clause is a clause (group of words with a subject and verb in) that contains a subject and an object. In other words, a clause with an object in it as well. What is an object? An object is a person or thing being talked about in a clause, like a subject, but it’s not doing anything. Instead, something is being done to it.

There are two types of clauses that KS2 pupils need to know about: the main clause and the subordinate clause. Clauses are a bunch words put together, containing a subject (a thing or person that’s being talked about, such as ‘the table’ or ‘the lady’) and a verb (a word that describes doing, for example ‘jumped’ or ‘walked’ or ‘danced’).