Spelling at Woodchurch

Spellings are taught according to the rules a of the English National Curriculum. Teachers use the Spelling Shed to provide activities that link to the weekly spellings. Children are given spellings to learn each week and are given a spelling test to review these. When marking work, teachers identify up to three words that children have spelt incorrectly from within that child’s known ability and they write these on a post-it note for the child. Children are then encouraged to identify these incorrect spellings in their own writing and correct them, using this as a reminder for further pieces of writing across the curriculum. 

Example of how we mark and identify mis-spellings:

 Spelling Shed

Spelling Shed is a spelling scheme which is divided into six stages, each stage corresponding to the respective school year. Within each stage, there are weekly objectives and spelling lists that give a steady progression through the English curriculum but also offers opportunities for our children to review spellings and attempt additional challenge lists to extend vocabulary. For each week's spelling list we provide a traditional printable practice sheet that follows the look-cover-write-check format but with other activities to add variety to this original concept.

Spelling Shed has been developed to cover all spelling targets within the National Curriculum but additionally it offers further support for learning high frequency words for each key stage.

The Spelling Shed helps children to practise spelling via simple games. The game gives four different degrees of support in the form of difficulty modes; Easy, Medium, Hard and Extreme. Higher levels allow a higher score to be achieved but children can practise as much as they like on lower levels before trying to gain high scores. The scores achieved give a league position and each class has its own league position within a school league. It also creates a supportive environment for our learners to practice and master their spellings at their own pace. The programme also provides our pupils with a more interactive whole- class spelling test known as a ‘Hive game’ which continues to engage all of our learners and continue to create a fun environment for practising spellings.  Each week, your child’s teacher will set lists of words that your child/children should practise and will monitor their progress over the week and provide opportunities for their pupils to practice within school.

In addition to our spelling scheme, the children are also required to learn what are known as high frequency words. High frequency words are words that appear often in written texts. They are a mixture of decodable words (words that can be sounded out) and tricky / exception words (words in which the English spelling code works in an unusual or uncommon way, which means the words must be learned and recognised by sight).

It is incredibly important that our children learn how to read these words as they will make up a large proportion of the text in which your children will be exposed to during their journey through school. They also need to learn to spell these words, as they will find that they will need to use these regularly within their written work. Each of these are an additional list that will be consistently taught by your child/children’s teacher throughout the year.

In Reception, your child will be given around 45 high frequency words to learn over the year – the aim is for them to be able to recognise these words and to be able to read them. Children learn these words as part of their phonics lessons and may also bring high frequency words home to read. Additional high frequency words are then included in each of your child/children’s further classes as your child/children continue their journey through our school.

Spelling Shed Website