A new report from The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) focuses on furthering the understanding of current practice and research priorities in teaching Writing. Key findings include:
- Similarities in schools between all key stages in terms of their approaches and/or programmes to teach Writing, and how the decisions on the approach to Writing are made and by whom;
- Whilst most schools created their own Writing programmes, some commercially available schemes were more commonly selected than others, namely: Talk for Writing; Read Write Inc. Spelling; Little Wandle; and Letter-join in Primary schools; and CGP (Coordination Group Publications) English Workbooks and Lit Drive in Secondary schools;
- A noticeable difference at Secondary level, when compared to Primary, was that school-wide approaches were less common than department-wide;
- Surveys suggested that teachers had minimal in-school Continuing Professional Development (CPD) on Writing;
- At Primary level, assessment of Writing took place through teacher assessment, with moderation forming a part of this process., whilst at Secondary level, a more formal approach was taken;
- Motivation is higher for Writing in Primary school pupils than in Secondary school pupils;
- Primary schools identified their main challenges as lack of pupil confidence in spelling, ensuring a consistent approach to teaching Writing across the school, and poor pupil vocabulary.
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