Bullimbal School recognises that we all use different writing implements, throughout our day. We use different implements depending on the task e.g. email and our situation e.g. in the classroom or out and about.
Australian Curriculum v7.5 (2016) recognises the need for students to become familiar with different writing implements. For beginning writers, Australian Curriculum gives equal recognition to handwriting and typing. Bullimbal School, therefore, sees that handwriting and typing, or another alternative pencil, should be given at least equal emphasis during writing instruction.
Furthermore, Bullimbal School recognises that writing is a very complex task, involving skills such as ideas, planning, language generation, word selection, spelling, revision, production and letter writing or selection. As writing skill levels develop, most of these writing skills need to occur simultaneously. For some students, it is extremely difficult for them meet the fine motor demands of handwriting when they are also learning the cognitive and language parts of writing. Therefore, where appropriate, handwriting will be addressed as a separate writing task and the student will focus on developing their writing skills with the easiest pencil available to them – which might be a flip chart, iPad, keyboard or other alternative pencil.
