Curriculum

What is Moderated Writing?

In Terms 2 and 4, all students participate in a session called 'Moderated Writing'. This means that from Prep - Year 6, every student uses the same prompt as inspiration. This term, the prompt was 'Brave'. Students have the opportunity to share ideas, story lines, characters, setting and develop vocabulary particular to the topic.  A copy of the prompt is below.

When teachers 'moderate' they share their understanding with other teachers of what the progression of learning, in this case writing, looks like throughout each year level. They use a Marking Guide and assess to a set criteria. For writing this criteria is comprised of 10 areas:

• Audience
• Text Structure
• Ideas
• Characters and Setting
• Vocabulary
• Cohesion
• Paragraphing
• Sentence Structure 
• Punctuation 
• Spelling

What you can do at home?

One of the best ways to improve your child's writing is through reading. Reading a variety of genres (mystery, diaries, historical fiction, fantasy, etc) improves their understanding of the types of characters, setting, vocabulary and text structure specific to those genres. Encourage free writing at home in any form and sharing imaginative, make-believe stories as a family.