Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling (EGPS)

Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling (EGPS) 

In order to be effective communicators, we place great value on the importance of accurate spelling and the correct use of punctuation and grammar. We follow the National Curriculum 2014 to ensure that teaching is both structured and rigorous throughout the school. We use Essential Letters and Sounds to ensure a consistent approach to the teaching of phonics and spelling throughout the Foundation Stage and Key Stage One. For pupils who need further support, we use phonics based reading and spelling interventions in year 3 & 4. 

Dictations

In class this year, we are going to be spending time working on learning spelling rules to aid us with our writing. At home, your child will be learning words from the statutory word list. These words are particularly useful because, with many of them, once the root word has been learnt, longer words can be spelt correctly by applying the guidance for adding prefixes and suffixes -for example, interest can be used to spell interestingly and disinteresting in year 3 and 4 and occupy can be used to spell reoccupy, occupied and occupying in year 5 and 6. Research shows that children need to be exposed to a variety of different methods of learning spellings. It would be helpful if you could support your child in their learning. A selection of strategies can be found below. The spellings, which they learn at home, will be assessed through dictated sentences. This is because it is a more effective way of encouraging children to apply their learning than a straight forward spelling test of single words. All children will start on the first dictation list. When they have correctly spelled all 5 words in their dictated passage, they will be able to move on to the second dictation list and the next. We will celebrate this in school with praise for the hard work they have put in to learning these challenging words. We will be grateful if you were to do the same thing at home. Thank you for your ongoing support.