It takes effort to learn anything new and human beings - whatever their age - can only pay attention to one new thing at a time.

Learning to write involves a series of complex processes: thinking about what we want to say and how we want to say it; spelling (and English spelling is the hardest in the world); forming and joining letters correctly to transfer those ideas to the page.

We need, therefore, to prioritise what we want our children to pay attention to at each stage of learning to write. Each process needs to be planned step-by-step so children can focus upon one new thing at a time. New knowledge should then be practised alongside previously learnt knowledge, gradually applying handwriting skills and spelling knowledge to write down their thoughts on the page.