A RAYLEIGH primary school is over the moon to have gone from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘good’ with their new writing scheme.

In November 2013 Down Hall Primary School, in Brooklyn Drive, Rayleigh, were rated as ‘requires improvement’ by school watchdog Ofsted mainly for inconsistencies in the school’s teaching of writing and mathematics, including presentation.

The school swiftly made the decision to undertake a handwriting programme, which was implemented in the school thanks to sponsorship from stationery manufacturer BIC UK. The school turned to Start-Bee for help with handwriting and begun running the start-bee's handwriting lessons for Early Years, Year one and twos.

Ofsted have now returned to the school and saw drastic improvements such as the children in EYFS and Years 1 and 2 were now exceeding expectations in handwriting.

It also stated that significant improvements in the quality of teaching have led to good progress throughout the school

As a result the school's grade was lifted to ‘good’.

Start-Bee is a proven method for teaching handwriting that delivers outstanding results. By combining the right tools for handwriting with e-learning videos and practical exercises, Start-Bee’s method can take a complete handwriting beginner from making marks to writing their name to UK’s Ofsted standard for Foundation Stage learners within seven weeks.

Bec Wakefield, Early Years Teacher and English subject leader at Down Hall is passionate about handwriting and has seen a lot of improvement with the children since the scheme begun.

She said: “The children love it and so do the teachers as it’s very easy to use and very simple to follow the onscreen instructions.

“The systematic approach develops a child's handwriting/fine motor skills whilst making it a fun session for the children; as a result, right now, where we have seen the most improvement so far is in handwriting posture and improved pencil grip.

“That said, in just a relatively short period of time, improvement with Start-Bee has been rapid.”

Iain Jude. Years 1 and 2 Teacher at the school, added: “I've noticed that using Start-Bee has impacted on other subjects too, especially history and science, where the children are having to write the whole afternoon.

“By improving the children's handwriting stamina levels, thanks to Start-Bee’s intervention and the right BIC® tools, the children are better able to cope.

"With Start-Bee we have been able to push the children to deliver more handwriting each day and their presentation of work has improved too even in the short time we’ve been using the scheme.”