One prompt, roughly twenty-five minutes, a quarter of the overall result. The writing task rewards preparation differently from the multiple-choice sections — there's no elimination strategy and no guessing. What it rewards is a repeatable process, practised until your child can run it on any prompt without thinking about the process itself. This guide gives you that process and how to coach it at home.
What strong responses have in common
Having marked thousands of practice pieces, we see the same qualities in top responses, whatever the prompt:
- They answer the prompt visibly. The connection to the prompt is obvious from the first paragraph — never left for the reader to infer at the end.
- They're complete. A beginning, a development, and an actual ending. An unfinished piece caps its own score, no matter how promising.
- They're controlled. One idea developed well beats three ideas gestured at. Sentence variety and accurate punctuation matter more than ambitious vocabulary used shakily.
- They show a flicker of originality. Markers read hundreds of responses to the same prompt. A fresh angle — even a small one — stands out enormously.
The 3–20–2 method
Minutes 1–3 — Plan (don't skip this, ever)
- Read the prompt twice. Underline the key words.
- Choose a form (story, reflection, opinion piece — whatever suits the prompt and your child's strengths).
- Jot a five-point skeleton: opening, three development points, ending. Five words per point is enough.
Minutes 4–23 — Write the skeleton, in order
- One skeleton point per paragraph. No detours, no new ideas mid-flight.
- If a sentence stalls, finish it plainly and move on — momentum beats polish.
- Watch the clock at the halfway mark: if paragraph three isn't started, compress.
Minutes 24–25 — Check
- Fix only what's quick: missing words, capitals, full stops, the ending.
- Never start rewriting a paragraph in the final two minutes.
Practice prompts to use at home
Use one a week under strict timing. Vary the type so no prompt style feels alien on the day:
How to give feedback without becoming the editor
After each timed piece, resist line-editing. Ask the same four questions every week, in this order, and let your child find the answers in their own work:
- Can you show me where your writing answers the prompt?
- Does every paragraph earn its place?
- Did it end on purpose — or just stop?
- Read one paragraph aloud: where did you stumble? (Stumbles mark the sentences to fix.)
Track only two numbers across the weeks: did they finish in time, and did they plan first. When both are consistently yes, the marks follow.
Common traps and the fix for each
- The over-long opening: a page of scene-setting, no substance. Fix: cap the opening at four sentences during practice.
- The borrowed story: retelling a film or book plot. Markers recognise it instantly. Fix: "your idea, however small, beats someone else's, however big."
- The vocabulary show: ambitious words used imprecisely. Fix: the right plain word always outscores the wrong fancy one.
- The phantom checker: children who "checked" but changed nothing. Fix: require them to find and fix two things in the final minutes — there are always two.