The National Curriculum that children follow in our school places great emphasis on correct spelling and at the end of Year 6 every child sits a spelling test, as part of their SATs.
Learning to spell well is extremely useful if we want our children to become confident writers. If they are constantly stopping to think about how words are spelled while they write, it can interrupt the flow of their thoughts, taking them away from what we want them to be thinking about: their choice of words and how they construct those words into sentences that communicate exactly what they want to say.
The National Curriculum requires children to learn to spell different words in different year groups.