31 July 2020

Post date: Jul 31, 2020 2:17:29 AM

Every Monday, the teachers have a Professional Learning session that covers a range of topics that relate to what we are needing to do to provide a rich, wide, varied curriculum and move the children along the Reading, Writing and Maths continuum. One constant is that we always plan to cover too much in any given year. A bunch of over-achievers or maybe limited ability to filter - we want the kids to have it all!

Every couple of years, we need to take a deep dive into the teaching of Writing as it continues to be 'the thing' that is hardest to shift. It's complex. the English language is often absurd and we live in an age where children infrequently see the adults in their worlds - both at home and school - sit down and write. They witness plenty of texting no doubt and brief responses on social media maybe, 'working from home' but....... pretty much gone are the days of sitting and writing for pleasure.

Occasionally, the relevance of the physical act of writing (and spelling) comes up for debate on more of a global scale. In fact, a teacher commented last week that some of our children think writing means the physical act of typing. (I'm going to save the conversation about screens for another day...) It's concerning.

This prompted 3 of the teachers - John, Ximena and Carl - to develop a Webinar of Developing Writers for you last term. The hope here was to prompt some thinking and get some conversation going. We had 28 attendees, which was a great start, and we are keen to offer this platform again in the future. Beats going out on a freezing cold night too.

At last Monday's Professional Learning session, we entered into a fairy light lit Tautoru, accompanied by delicious sounds, sweet treats, book and word prompts and plenty of pencils, pens and paper. The teachers leading this session just wanted us to write...... write...... write. It was powerful. Although I found my own ramblings slightly worrying, we all thoroughly enjoyed the chance to just.....,write!

In our quest to build a stronger Literary culture at Worser Bay School, we are clear that we totally have to focus on delivering the teaching of the mechanics of writing - the how to - and we need to place more emphasis on the desire to write, choosing to write, writing for a purpose, writing for an audience.... continuing to raise the profile of our children as writers (and ourselves as writers). As C. S. Lewis said, "You can make anything by writing."

Let's get more making happening!