Week 2

Dear Badgers parents,

I’m in the process of emailing you all individually with thoughts and suggestions for the week. I had planned to do this at the weekend but was not well.  Hopefully it’s not Covid-19, but I am very tired and slightly wuzzy; please bear with me.

Lizzie and the teachers are assessing online apps for sharing work but in the meantime please email me anything you want me to have a look at.

Hope you’re enjoying this time with your children.  Despite the challenges, there is an opportunity to do something remarkable over the next few weeks.  I’ll write more in individual emails, but without the ‘noise’ of school there is time for your children to reconnect with themselves, find out what they’re interested in, and becoming stronger, more-spirited learners.

In the meantime just send your children into the garden to get muddy, open a bottle of wine, and put on some loud music.  Their childhoods pass so quickly – enjoy them while you can!

James

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When you’ve scraped the mud off them and the wine’s taken effect, here’s some things you could think about around handwriting.

Handwriting 

When I started on one of my student teacher placements the class teacher took me to one side and had words with me about my writing.  Basically, it was not up to scratch: my letter formation was poor, I wasn’t joining my letters up properly, and I was setting a shoddy example to the children I was trying to teach.  She gave me a how-to-write sheet, and told me to go off and practice.  Which I did. 

I remember learning to write letters at school, then struggling with joined-up writing.  I didn’t like the change in letters like ‘k’ and ‘f’, and got annoyed at having to wait till the end of the word before I dotted ‘i’s and crossed ‘t’s.  It really was too much!  So, for the next thirty years or so I reduced how much writing I needed to do until I typed nearly everything.  Job done.  Except, of course it wasn’t. 

So, as you can see, I know how difficult it can be to learn good hand-writing skills.  I am happy to say I have made strong progress over the past eighteen months or so, and now no longer feel ashamed when I mark children’s work, or put the day’s timetable up on the whiteboard.  I suppose the moral of this story is: never too late to learn. 

But we want your children to get this sorted now!  Don’t be like me!  To this end I attach a scan of a handwriting practice sheet we use in school (A5, half an A4), and a letter formation sheet for reference.  

Good handwriting is about getting our ideas across.  We need to be not just legible, but credible.  Studies show that people with good handwriting are viewed favourably than messy writers.  (I had to do a handwriting test as part of my interview for Brighton University – goodness knows how I passed!)  If your child’s handwriting is clear it accelerates their learning in composition, rewriting and editing. If they are clear their peers can work faster with them. Ideas cross-fertilise quicker.  It’s all good.

How much handwriting practice should my child do?  To answer this question, ask yourself the following: 

• Can I read it? 
• Can my child read it? 
• Is it keeping on a straight line? 
• Are the descenders (‘g’ ‘j’ ‘y’, etc.) going beneath letters like ‘a’ or ‘e’?
• Are the ascenders (‘b’, ‘d’, ‘k’, etc.) going above letters like ‘a’ or ‘e’? 
• Are they going up and down the right amount, or too much, too little? 
• Is the writing the right size?  This might sound petty, but all writers rewrite and rewrite and rewrite.  Children are no different.  If the writing is ‘Goldilocks’ – not too small, not too large – there’s room on the page for changes, and room around letters for simple edits.  Most children need to work on this. 
• Is it joined up?  We should all be writing joined-up in Badgers class.  In the school day there’s little time to practice, but at home there is. 
• Some of you might need to help your children with specific letters; other on getting words clear.  Has your child made progress from wherever they’re at? 
• Have you tried tricky words or letter shapes?  ‘igh’, ‘anti’, ‘tion’,etc.  Writing these can help us remember them when we need to use them.