At Glebe we follow Little Wandle's handwriting programme in Reception and Year 1. Children print each grapheme and are handwriting sessions are taught separately from phonics lessons. No joined up handwriting is taught.

Printed handwriting in reception and year 1:

From Year 2 onwards, children begin to join their handwriting. We follow 'Letter join' which is a whole school handwriting scheme offering a combination of traditional and digital resources. The programme is outlined briefly below:

In Year 2, children are introduced to cursive letters and how to join them. They will have regular practice in letter formation and joining their handwriting.

An example of letter join in year 2:

In Year 3, sessions focus on improving legibility, consistency and the quality of their handwriting. Pupils should use joined handwriting throughout their independent writing.

An example of joined up handwriting:

In Year 4, sessions focus on building fluency and consistency. Learners will continue to build on producing legible handwriting through regular practice.

By the end of Year 5, children should be producing cursive writing automatically, enabling them to focus on the content of their work rather than the process of writing. Therefore, sessions continue to build on combining fluent handwriting with other subjects across the curriculum.

In Year 6, pupils will consolidate the stamina and skills required to write at length, with accurate spelling and punctuation. They will develop more of a personal handwriting style as they write with automaticity and will learn to write at different speeds with different attention to neatness, depending on the task.