At Loughton School we believe that phonics or spelling (depending on the point of the child's learning journey), writing and reading share a cyclical relationship. They support each other and so without a firm understanding of phonics/spelling, children may not reach their full reading and writing potential. 

We aim to give children the tools and strategies they will need to develop into confident spellers. We aim to instil a love of words by encouraging children to explore words, their origins and meanings. This will in turn feed into their writing and reading. We aim for any teaching of spelling to be robust, challenging and engaging.

Grammar is now taught specifically within our English lessons, and is often referred to as 'SpaG (spelling and grammar). 

Spelling

Our spelling vision at Loughton School is for our children to develop an interest in words, their meanings and their origins. From year three to year six, children will be exposed to a wide range of vocabulary so that year on year the children are building a bank of words which they can spell independently. At the beginning of their school journey at Loughton, regular spelling investigations will enable children to learn and explore the written patterns and sounds (graphemes and phonemes) alongside daily practice of common spelling rules and the origins of everyday words. Children will link this learning to a wide range of lessons when reading words and spelling them and daily 10-minute activities will consolidate their knowledge of spelling patterns and relevant vocabulary. As they move up the school, their regular spelling practice time will focus more on collecting banks of words which show similarities, building resilience and independence.

Children will learn to use their prior knowledge of phonics from KS1 to help them spell words. They will become independent at identifying the tricky sounds within a word that makes spelling challenging. By learning about word families, children can make links between words with similar sounds.

Children have regular opportunities to show their knowledge during discussions in class. Their spelling books reflect the journey of their learning and they become more resilient when making plausible and sensible attempts at spelling words based on what they have learnt.

The school has based its spelling strategy on the spelling books by Jane Considine.