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A storm is brewing: The Writing Framework_July 2026

The DfE's Writing Framework document, published 8th July has drawn criticism from a number of early years practitioner FaceBook groups and the press. For instance, these practitioners are upset by how much emergent writing has been down-played and even ruled out. 

' However, unlike babies babbling before they speak, ‘emergent writing’ is not a necessary stage that children have to go through before they can be taught to write letters and words' (Page 26).

School's Week pointed out that the timing is poor because, '...primary schools will soon have to read and digest an amended version of the framework, because it has been released before the culmination of the curriculum review'. As the document says on page six, 'After the final review report is published and a revised national curriculum drafted, we will publish an updated version of this writing framework to align it to the revised national curriculum'. Let us hope that those changes are hilighted.

Another sentence in the document states that, 'The reception year provides plenty of opportunities for children to develop body strength and co-ordination as well as fine motor skills, that support them to meet the physical development early learning goals' (p.26). Yes there should be many opportunities coupled to emergent writing linked to those activities'. The NAPE Schiller lecture YouTube video (8 minutes in) provides a wonderful video-clip example of this, thanks to our guest speaker, Charlotte Hacking. As Charlotte says, 'it has to be done in a rich context.

Clearly, the understanding of the stage of development of four to five year olds must be understood in putting writing in a more formal setting. Examine the bone and cartilage development of the hands of young children on the web page called NORMAL PEDIATRIC BONE XRAYS.

The emphasis on formal aspects of handwiting at this early age is worrying as on average the age of seven would seem to be more appropriate (looking at the XRays). Proof? read below, as I commend a particular Facebook Group called 'Fred's Teaching' analysis of the 150 page writing framework document and found the following:

........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

FREQUENCY OF TERMS MENTIONED IN DfE's WRITING FRAMEWORK

Less than 5

Exploration - 0       Wonder -1        Fun -1         Independence - 2       Creativity - 3         Pleasure – 3

More than 25 times

Handwriting -147      Spelling-139        Assessment - 78         Work-61      Explicit - 44     Instruction - 35       Demand - 26

 

I will try and breakdown this document in a video on NAPE's YouTube site soon, wish me luck!


By: Mike Aylen
On:15-07-2025

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