Writing

At the GLA, our vision is for everyone to know that they are writers. We strive to breakdown barriers so that all children can experience the joy of seeing their ideas come to life.

“I am the clash and collide of the stars because I create worlds.” I am a writer by Joeseph Coelho

GLA WRITING VISION

I picked up the pencil but it was too hard to write. The letters shook and wobbled on the page and refused to sit on the perfect line. The ideas were alive in my head but not on the page. Instead, my brain worked overtime. What did my teacher want me to write? What rhymed with enough? Though, through, plough, dough or cough?

I searched my memory for inspiration. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. A Tale of Two Cities. I wanted to tell my own stories in my own way (just like Dickens), for I wanted to be a writer…

I could have given up. My ideas lost to the world. My writing finished with a big, fat… FULL STOP.

I didn’t, for I wanted to be a writer…

It could have ended there, but I was a child of The GLA: a trust full of aspirations so high that it destroyed any barrier I had to writing. The Wicked Stepmother, Evil Pea, Rumpelstiltskin, The Three Witches, Grendel and - of course - The Big, Bad Wolf! The ideas started to come alive for me, for I was becoming a writer…

The power of curiosity took over me. My teachers encouraged me to, ‘Say it loud and say it proud for all to hear! For no child’s voice should be lost or disappear!’ I was a writer. I was taught the magic of vocabulary (modelled texts showed me the way): I could twist and turn and move and bend my ideas. I could scare and argue and explain and excite.

At times, the writing and spelling of the words still scared me but I was encouraged to practice every day. The sounds turned into words: grapheme to phoneme and phoneme to grapheme. A simple formula when you know how.

Today, I am a writer, who can communicate to all. No challenge too big, too daunting or too small. So, I ask you to think: what does your story say?

My name is unknown but I was once a child – just like you - who needed support to bring a world of words to life. A child who needed belief and aspiration.

You can access the grammar overview here that we follow.

Spelling

Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) provides children with the phonetical knowledge required to recognise and write the many graphemes of the English language. The spelling strategy builds upon the need for oral rehearsal; children say the word, before breaking down into the single phonemes ready to spell. As children enter KS2, ELS strategies continue to be used, progressively building the knowledge of spelling patterns and the relationship between spelling and meaning. You can see an outline for the lesson structure that we follow in KS2 below: