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 …

CLOSING THE WRITING GAP THE 2023 MASTERCLASS

Modelling writing approaches. This resource summarises different approaches to modelling writing, including potential benefits and limitations.Geoff Barton, General Secretary, Association of School and College Leaders, and former English teacher Hold that thought’ is not something children with poor short-term memories can do. They say (or often blurt out) something brilliant and then it has faded away either naturally or because someone or something has disrupted the thought process. It can even happen mid-sentence. Have you met those children who begin telling you something and then hesitate and say, ”I’ve forgotten what I wanted to say now”? Or those children so desperate to tell you something that they put their hands in the air as if their lives depended on it, but when you get to them, they’ve forgotten the answer? This type of behaviour may mean a child has a short-term memory difficulty. Below are the free resources created to accompany my ‘Closing the Gap’ series. CLOSING THE WRITING GAP RESOURCES It is crucial that busy teachers are supported with timely and accessible resources to support their work. As a result, to go alongside my new book, ‘Closing the Writing Gap’, I have produced a small number of tools that I hope will help translate the insights from the book into action. Like many teachers my age, I was not taught grammar explicitly at school; or at least, I can’t remember if I was. I learned it on the job, preparing my students for their grammar tests. It was then that I realised the power of sharing with my students what Daisy Christodoulou describes as the ‘meta-language’ of words.

Closing the Writing Gap By Alex Quigley (Huntington School Closing the Writing Gap By Alex Quigley (Huntington School

Top 10 grammar moves. This infographic summarises the key grammar moves that feature in academic writing. Writing a book about teaching writing is a daunting prospect. Sharing the reality that I spent years in the classroom struggling to support weaker writers only adds to the trepidation. What if my teacher knowledge gap wasn’t the norm? What if my attempts to translate practical strategies fell flat?

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I am a blogger and the proud author of ‘Closing the Reading Gap’, ‘Closing the Writing Gap’, and ‘The Confident Teacher’.