Learning and Teaching 

Writing at home

A core part of our learning program is writing. Children are invited to write about different imaginative ideas and real life topics. This could involve writing just one sentence (Prep) up to writing an informative piece of a page in length (Year 5 and 6). 

The writing process

As we teach children to write, we follow the writing process. This enables the children to understand the stages of writing from planning to revising and finishing with publishing. When you view your child’s learning activities with them, you will notice that we break the writing process up across the week so that one day they may plan their ideas out (pre-writing in the chart below), then draft, edit and publish. Breaking up the writing process enables the children to think about what they are writing, receive feedback from their teacher and make changes to their work as they write. 

Across our learning communities at the moment, we are focusing on:

Preps - Writing a sentence (I like cats. I see a dog and a cat).

Year 1 and 2 - Narratives, information reports

Year 3 and 4 - Information reports

Year 5 and 6 - Information reports and poetry

Examples of the writing happening across our learning communities. Thanks to Jemima, Alison, Sophie, Jacob, Elsie and Jay.

Some tips for parents

• Allow your children to complete their writing independently.
• When they have finished, read their writing and talk to them about what they have written.
• Don’t edit for them, edit with them. 

Use a different colour pen or pencil to edit:

• Capital letters at the start of the sentence and names.
• Punctuation - full stops, exclamation marks, commas and question marks.
• Correct formation of lower case and upper case letters.
• Spaces between words.
• Spelling - sound out the word with them while editing.
• Paragraphs.
• Sentence structure - do the sentences make sense?

Most importantly, encourage your child to edit their own work and to try to fix any errors themselves. 

For more information on how to support your child's writing at home, see the Department of Education's booklet 'Literacy And Numeracy Tips To Help Your Child Every Day - A Guide For Parents Of Children Aged 0-12.'

Deborah Courtney

Director of Teaching and Learning