Kingsbridge Institute of Learning

Session Overview:

Writing is a complex skill for many pupils. Beringer et Al (2002) highlight this with their not-so- 'Simple View of Reading' which shows that writing poses a great challenge for the working memory. Writing involves pupils engaging in a complex coordination of several cognitive processes. Pupils must engage in text generation, transcription and executive functioning when writing, but, as we know, the working memory has a finite capacity and can easily become overwhelmed.

In this session, we aim to support schools to engage with the best available evidence on teaching primary writing in order to develop a robust and practical approach to improving writing.  The session will deep dive into the best evidence available around classroom based writing strategies and ways to overcome pupils' barriers to successful writing It will include practical examples that should help teachers to make better-informed decisions about how to best support pupils' writing in their classrooms.

Biography:

Simon Cox is director of the Blackpool Research School. Research Schools were set up by the EEF and aim to share what they know about putting evidence into practice and support schools to make better use of evidence to inform their teaching and learning. Simon is an experienced secondary maths teacher and school leader, and regularly speaks at conferences and delivers training for schools about evidence-informed teaching.