Mrs Spear is our Spelling Lead.

At Southmead, children are encouraged to develop their skills of spelling and to choose and use adventurous vocabulary developing a love of words.

Spelling is intrinsically linked with writing and one of the key factors in using accurate spelling is for clarity of communication. Children are encouraged to develop their use of proofreading skills to check and correct spellings. We wish for all children to become confident spellers and to understand that there are many ways of learning spellings and developing their knowledge of interesting vocabulary.

The teaching of spelling complements the teaching of phonics at Key Stage 1 and links between spelling and phonic skills are frequently made. Children use accurate language to discuss their spelling choices, such as phoneme, grapheme, digraph and split digraph.

From Year 2, spelling is taught daily through the No-Nonsense Spelling scheme. This allows children to learn and develop skills progressively with clear blocks of learning across the year and to build upon previous learning. Children are taught spelling rules and given strategies to learn and practise spellings, often involving quizzes and games, developing their knowledge of common exception words, the statutory spelling lists and enabling them to develop their personal spelling lists.

There are many different ways to learn spellings and these are explicitly taught to the children to enable them to become accurate spellers.

Children are given spellings to learn and these are assessed in different ways throughout their spelling lessons. For example, through using and applying the spellings learned within their writing, dictation, explaining of rules or patterns and occasionally more formal spelling assessments.

Dictionary skills are developed through whole class teaching and children have access to a variety of dictionaries to check their own writing. ‘Have a go’ strategies at the point of writing are also taught, giving the children the opportunity to go back and check their work for spelling when this is completed.

Children keep spelling journals in which they can practise and demonstrate their understanding of spelling rules and pattern, as well as keeping their own personal lists of words to learn.

Each class makes use of age-appropriate spelling resources to support children in the learning of spelling and encouraging them to use these in their independent writing. For example, key vocabulary for a topic and spelling rules are displayed within the classroom environment so that children are able to spell these words accurately.

Our spelling curriculum encourages children to become self-assured spellers who are empowered to have a go when faced with tricky spellings. It enables them to use their spelling skills for proofreading writing for accuracy. They are always encouraged to make use of interesting vocabulary and to become fascinated with words, using these accurately and confidently, developing their own independence in their choice of language.