Learning and Teaching 

Remote Learning - Writing at home

A core part of our learning program is writing. Children are invited to write about different topics creatively or informatively. This could involve writing just one sentence (Prep) up to writing an informative piece of a page or more 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. 

As teachers, observing children's work as they move through each stage gives us information on what they have learned and what they need to learn next. A key part of this is noticing spelling, grammar, idea organisation, and sentence structure within their writing pieces. Over remote learning, we ask that you allow your child/children to compose their ideas independently. Some tips are listed below. 

Some tips for parents

• Allow your children to complete their writing independently
• Talk to them about their handwriting and letter formation to discuss if it is clear for others to read.
• 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?

If you have any questions about your child/children's writing don't hesitate to ask their teacher.

Deborah Courtney

Director of Learning and Teaching