Education Endowment Foundation:Talk for Writing

Talk for Writing

Primary Writing Project
Project info

Independent Evaluator

IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society logo
IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society
Testing a programme which aims to improve pupils’ writing skills.
Schools: 6 Grant: £121,000
Key Stage: 2 Duration: 2 year(s) Type of Trial: Pilot Study
Completed January 2015

Talk for Writing is an approach to teaching writing that encompasses a three-stage pedagogy: imitation’ (where pupils learn and internalise texts, to identify transferrable ideas and structures), innovation’ (where pupils use these ideas and structures to co-construct new versions with their teachers), and invention’ (where teachers help pupils to create original texts independently). These tasks aim to improve writing ability by giving pupils an understanding of the structure and elements of written language.

This project sought to develop Talk for Writing into a whole-school programme. The pilot programme ran for 18 months, from January 2013 to July 2014, and involved ten schools in Portsmouth. It included a series of 6 full days for school leadership teams (project teams) plus three whole school conferences (“Big Days”) to train teachers and teaching assistants. It covered all primary age groups from nursery to year 6. In addition to the training and support for schools, the programme provided materials, resources, and guidance for staff development, planning and progression. Each school appointed a literacy lead”, who shared responsibility for implementing the programme with the headteacher.

This developmental pilot was subject to an evaluation, which had three aims:

  • to appraise the research literature underpinning key dimensions of the Talk 4 Writing pedagogy;
  • to evaluate the promise and feasibility of the programme, and provide formative recommendations to inform future evaluation and development; and
  • to provide an initial quantitative assessment of the potential impact of the programme on writing skills that could be used to inform any future trial.

The evaluation took place over twelve months and involved six of the 10 intervention schools, one of which withdrew halfway through the programme following the appointment of a new headteacher, and three comparison schools. There were two comparison schools in Portsmouth and one in London.

Question
Finding
Comment

Was the approach feasible?

Yes.

Most schools completed the project. Teachers were very positive about the programme and embedded some features in their classroom practice.

Is there evidence of promise?

Mixed.

The majority of heads and teachers reported a positive impact on pupil attitudes, progress and attainment. However, the evaluation was not able to securely estimate the impact of the programme on academic attainment, and prior research evidence provides a mixed amount of support for the principles underlying the approach.

Is the approach ready for a full trial?

No.

Further work is required to develop the programme before it is subjected to a full trial.