Here's a fun new study on handwriting (HW) that was recently published called 'The use of lined paper in child education: impact of line presence on handwriting quality'

They tested whether the type of paper (lined or unlined) affected HW quality. 1/ In the @researchED1 Guide to Primary Literacy, I hypothesised that HW quality (HWQ) was a multiplicative relationship between two separate but interconnected areas: Handwriting fluency (HWF) and handwriting legibility (HWL). 2/

Here’s 5 things I’ve learned about handwriting from writing the chapter.

🥉Handwriting isn’t prioritised that much in English schools anymore. While much of the work that is done in school is with paper and pen, as adults type day-to-day, handwriting’s not seen as important.

https://twitter.com/JohnCattEd/status/1849775473426833860

This is an issue though because of number 2.

🧠 There’s some neurological evidence that suggests that handwriting does something in brains that activates more areas around learning information when compared to typing or other modes.

Here’s a 🧵 of my section of the talk @Kieran_M_Ed and I did at @researchED1 last week all about variation. We started off explaining how we went about using @LitmapsApp to find articles of interest. Litmaps is great as you can build a collection of articles and you can see connections within that collection. When you hover over a ‘node’ it shows those direct connections to that particular paper. We had read 48 articles/books about variation.

Have tried to write a blog (first one in ages), but I’ve really struggled so here’s the TLDR:

Next academic year KS1 assessment finally stop being a thing.

That means we have a rare opportunity to help those that find learning the hardest.

By the time KS1 sats come around… The gaps between the higher attainers and lowest attainers are already huge. Some of the gaps are there through factors external to school and some are there due to factors within the school.

One of those internal factors is curriculum. Curriculum coverage at KS1 is one…

Have had a long thought about this since hearing it on Saturday. Particularly the aspects around this:

‘our big compromises – those that matter most – have always been made in the favour of the academically brightest.’

It got me thinking about the choices primary schools…

https://twitter.com/bennewmark/status/1652615643206766592

can make to shift the balance in favour of those that find learning difficult, particularly those in the earlier parts of primary school where, from my experience, the gaps open and never narrow. Those that grasp place value, numerosity, learn to decode fluently and regulate…

At STEP, we have been thinking hard about our writing curriculum. This curriculum is free for all and is graciously hosted by @LaSalleEd on their website. To get access just click ‘register a free account’, sign in and view it As with the current Complete Maths Mathematics Curriculum, you are not getting a ppt and a worksheet. We believe that the best lessons do come from the intellectual wrestling that teachers do in thinking about lessons. Our ambition is for this to be a great depository on…

Here is a cool thing that you can do with Complete Science from @LaSalleEd and @thesteptrust with regards to ‘working scientifically’.

Search for ‘working scientifically’ and you will be able to see every objective (big question) that falls within ‘working scientifically’. 1/ As you can see from the above across the curriculum there are 52 objectives that fall within ‘working scientifically’.

But you can filter this down by age and strand, so now you can see how ‘working scientifically’ looks across strands and/or key stages. 2/

Short little thread about what you get from our writing curriculum. 🧵

First off you get three views. There are the unit views, groups and topics. From here you will be able to see what the progression within a a particular topic or group looks like across the curriculum… Each unit is made of various statements - think of these as ‘big ideas’ that students need to know- and also a composition statement. These can be thought of as an opportunity to apply what they have learnt, but to also learn about how to plan writings for audience and purpose.

Cat’s out of the bag. Colleagues across STEP and Complete Maths have been working to bring our granular punctuation, grammar and sentence curriculum. With their platform and our teaching expertise, we think we have got something that will help really help… colleagues across primary and secondary understand what their journey has been like from Y1 and how we can best teach some of these ideas. It’s very much ‘beta’ right now. At STEP we are still full time leaders and teachers who are going through each granular goal…

Sunday 5:
This article really gets to the heart of what I’ve think knowledge-rich curriculum is.

“The curriculum is future-oriented in that it aims at the formation of autonomous and responsible individuals who can thrive and flourish in the present and future world.” 2:
Features of the writing system can be learnt implicitly through statistical learning. This starts at a young age and the rate of which the patterns of language are acquired vary and *may* explain different rates of reading.

Here’s all the recent threads I’ve done on spelling and the history of English spelling. Hope you find them all enjoyable.

Part 1

https://twitter.com/Mr_AlmondED/status/1555138215153213440

Part 2

https://twitter.com/Mr_AlmondED/status/1555472372454629376

Been thinking about this all day and here’s what I think people may commonly mean by ‘pace’ but can’t look beyond the surface. When pace is too slow it’s one of these factors:

A) Teacher explanation isn’t well thought out and leading to longer than necessary times for input.

https://twitter.com/rlrossi64/status/1324785639225786373

B) Teacher explanation contains too much information, not always relevant with some ad hoc improv which leads to less time for student practice.

C) Teacher’s AfL skill is weak and teacher hasn’t picked up that students should move onto independent/guided practice...

A few thoughts on the EEF’s updated guidance report for KS1 (Y1/2 ) literacy regarding recommendation 4.
I am happy with what is said in the second picture. I hope many teachers have also experienced this - that answering comprehension questions does not make a better reader 1/ The big daddy of analysis into Reading Instruction is the National Reading Panel of 2000. They looked at 203 papers on comprehension and found that ‘instruction of comprehension has been successful over the 3rd to 6th grade range.’

That is Y4 to Y7 in the UK…

/2