Few teachers would teach writing in primary or secondary classrooms without using a WAGOLL to model writing for novice pupils. The language of ‘WAGOLL’s – or ‘What A Good One Looks Like’ – is common, but there may be less shared understanding about how to use them most effectively in the classroom. You will find …
There are few simple solutions in education. If you are being promised one, it is at best a hopeful fib, at worst a deceptive sales-pitch. But there are some helpful principles that can guide our actions. A useful one I think could help improve literacy in primary and secondary schools: write less; read more. It …
We can take the brilliant complexity of sentences for granted. Each sentence written in the classroom is a distillation of a near-infinite number of complex moves. For pupils, practising one sentence brilliantly may be worth a hundred sentences written in haste. Too often, in the classroom, sentences are modelled, but pupils don’t have a strong …
Do our pupils need support for bolster their writing development? In my last blog, I posed the question about whether there was a hidden problem with the damage wrought by the pandemic on pupils who have joined secondary school. The evidence of a dip in national date at both Key Stage 2 and Key Stage …
Are pupils new to secondary school this year prepared for the challenges of academic writing? After a couple of terms of secondary school, it becomes clearer whether pupils are getting to grips with the academic demands. As they write narratives in English, essays in history, notes in science, or annotate in art, pupils are expected …
Is there a hidden writing problem in secondary schools? Read More »
Benjamin Franklin may be one of the most interesting people in modern history. Born into poverty, leaving school aged 10, he then became a famed president, inventor, thinker, and writer. His story of teaching himself to write may be a little famous too. Franklin, without a teacher, and with very little formal schooling, was determined …
Debates about spelling never really go away. No matter what technological advancement is ushered in, it appears that spelling development still matters and we should sustain the teaching of spelling. For young writers in particular, spelling is linked to writing, reading and vocabulary development. But teachers need support to understand the challenge and teach spelling …
