Spelling

Learning to spell is crucial to writing. This begins in the Early years, with the pupils learning Phonics. Through the teaching and learning of phonics, children learn to hear sounds and to represent them with letters; they learn to segment words into phonemes and to build and blend phonemes into words. The skills of segmenting and blending also supports the children’s spelling ability.  Alongside this, pupils are taught common exception and tricky words which do not follow a pattern – these are learnt by sight. 

Towards the end of the Letters & Sounds programme, when the pupils have a secure phonic understanding, the focus moves to spelling patterns and rules.  

From Year 2 to Year 6, we use the No Nonsense Spelling Scheme, which follows the guidance for spelling, as set out in the National Curriculum. 

Pupils will bring home spellings to learn, as appropriate. 

Punctuation

Once children can build and spell individual words, they are taught the conventions of punctuation and grammar in order to write simple sentences.  

In Reception, the pupils are taught to start a sentence with a capital letter and end with a full stop.  They then progressively learn other punctuation until they can master the full range, in Year 6.

From KS1, pupils are taught to proof read and edit their use of punctuation.  Years 1 - 3 are supported with this through the use of the Writing Wizard.  

Grammar

For writing to make sense and to flow, the pupils are taught the conventions of grammar.  Pupils learn the function of different word classes and their place, and role, within a sentence.  They can then progress from the writing of simple sentences, to being able to create compound and complex sentences, combined into coherent pieces of writing, presented in paragraphs.