Active and Passive Voice (KS2) Explained

Active and passive voice sounds trickier than it is. Once your child can spot who is doing the action in a sentence, the rest falls into place. This guide breaks it down with plain definitions and clear Year 6 examples, and shows how the two voices turn up in the KS2 SPaG paper.

What is active and passive voice?

Every sentence with an action has someone or something doing that action, and often someone or something it is done to. Active and passive voice are simply two ways of arranging those parts.

• In the active voice, the subject does the action.
• In the passive voice, the action is done to the subject.

Here is the same idea written both ways:

• Active: The chef cooked the meal.
• Passive: The meal was cooked by the chef.

Nothing about the event has changed. A meal was cooked by a chef in both sentences. What changes is the word order and where our attention lands.

Active voice: who is doing the action

In the active voice, the doer comes first. The order is usually subject, then verb, then object. The subject is the person or thing doing the action, and the object is who or what the action happens to.

Look at these active voice examples, with the doer in bold:

• The dog chased the postman.
• Mia painted a picture.
• The storm flattened the fence.

In each one, you can ask "who or what is doing the action?" and find the answer at the start. The active voice feels direct and lively, which is why most stories and everyday writing use it. To brush up on subjects, verbs and objects, our guide to word classes for KS2 is a friendly place to start.

Passive voice: when the action comes first

In the passive voice, the thing that has the action done to it is moved to the front. The doer can be added at the end with the word by, or left out altogether.

Here are some passive voice examples for Year 6, with the verb part in bold:

• The postman was chased by the dog.
• A picture was painted by Mia.
• The fence was flattened. (We have not said who or what did it.)

Notice the pattern. Every passive sentence uses a form of the verb to be (such as is, was, were or are) followed by a past participle, the form of a verb you often use after has or had, like chased, painted or broken.

If your child can spot a form of to be working together with a past participle, they have almost certainly found a passive sentence.

How to change an active sentence into the passive, step by step

Changing active to passive voice follows the same three steps every time. Let us turn this active sentence into a passive one:

The farmer fed the lambs.

1. Move the object to the front. The object (the lambs) becomes the new subject: The lambs...
2. Add a form of "to be" plus the past participle. Pick the right form of to be, then the past participle: The lambs were fed...
3. Add "by" and the original doer (optional). Keep the farmer by adding them at the end: The lambs were fed by the farmer.

So The farmer fed the lambs becomes The lambs were fed by the farmer. To go the other way, simply put the doer first again. Here is one more:

• Active: The wind blew the leaves.
• Passive: The leaves were blown by the wind.

When writers choose the passive voice

The passive is not better or worse than the active. It is a tool, and good writers pick the one that suits the moment. Writers often choose the passive when:

• The doer is unknown. My bike was stolen. (We do not know who took it.)
• The action matters more than the doer. The bridge was repaired last summer.
• They want a more formal tone, which is common in reports, science write-ups and news. The results were recorded carefully.

Choosing on purpose is a real Year 6 writing skill. The passive can make formal writing sound calm and objective, while the active keeps stories moving. Knowing both gives your child control over their sentences, a bit like the careful choices behind the subjunctive mood.

How active and passive voice are tested in the KS2 SPaG paper

In the KS2 English grammar, punctuation and spelling test, children may be asked to do a few things with the passive voice. Typically that means:

• ticking the sentence that is written in the passive voice,
• rewriting an active sentence so it is passive (or the other way around), or
• explaining the difference in how a sentence is built.

A question might give The gardener planted the tree and ask for the passive: The tree was planted by the gardener. For more on what the paper covers, see our overview of the KS2 SPaG test. Exact arrangements can change from year to year, so it is worth confirming the latest details on GOV.UK.

Practice: switch sentences between active and passive

A little regular practice makes this stick. Cover the answers first, then turn each active sentence into the passive.

• The cat knocked over the vase. (The vase was knocked over by the cat.)
• The waves battered the cliffs. (The cliffs were battered by the waves.)

Then turn these passive sentences back into the active, putting the doer first.

• The goal was scored by Aisha. (Aisha scored the goal.)
• The cake was iced by Grandad. (Grandad iced the cake.)

If your child wobbles, go back to the question that unlocks everything: who or what is doing the action? Find the doer, and the voice follows.

How SATS LION helps

SATS LION turns SPaG practice like active and passive voice into short, game-style quests inside Word Mage Academy, so children can practise spotting and switching sentences a few minutes at a time. Every question is mapped to the KS2 curriculum and reviewed by a person, with gentle feedback rather than pressure. If you would like to see what is inside, take a look at our features.