A Simple Guide to ‘The Write Stuff’
🏗️ Structure vs. Creativity
Jane Considine’s ‘The Write Stuff’ is a popular and highly structured system for teaching writing in primary schools. It aims to bring “clarity to the mechanics of writing” through a step-by-step approach. Positioned as a solution for consistency, this guide breaks down its core ideas, benefits, and common criticisms.
⚙️ The Pedagogical System
‘The Write Stuff’ is built on a defined structure. Here we explore its core components: the lesson cycle, the ‘Sentence Stacking’ method, and the editing process.
🔄 The Three-Chunk Lesson Cycle
1. Initiate
The “we do” phase. A stimulus (image, clip) inspires ideas. Pupils “chot” (chat and jot) vocabulary, which is shared via “Kind Calling Out” to build a rich, collective word bank.
2. Model
The “I do” phase. The teacher provides “demonstration writing” live, verbalising their thought process and explaining choices of grammar and vocabulary from the Writing Rainbow.
3. Enable
The “you do” phase. Pupils write their own sentence following the model. The “Deepen the Moment” challenge encourages them to independently add more advanced skills.
📚 Sentence Stacking
This is the core method of the scheme. Sentences are crafted one at a time and “stacked” together to build a paragraph. The intention is to reduce cognitive load, but a key pedagogical risk is that it can lead to robotic prose that lacks natural flow if the transition to independent writing isn’t expertly managed. The term ‘sentence stacking’ is also used critically in writing analysis to describe prose that is repetitive and lacks cohesion.
✍️ The Editing Process
E1: Revise
A first-pass proofread, checking for basic errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar.
E2: Rewrite
Improving sentences by rephrasing them for better clarity, impact, or structure.
E3: Reimagine
The most advanced stage: adding new details or sentences to develop ideas and add depth, often using “editing flaps.”
🌈 The Writing Rainbow
At the heart of ‘The Write Stuff’ is this visual framework. It gives teachers and pupils a shared language by sorting writing concepts into three simple, colour-coded zones.
💡 The FANTASTICs
The ‘Ideas’ of Writing
These are nine lenses that prompt pupils to think about what to include in their writing, focusing on sensory and emotional details.
Feeling, Asking, Noticing, Touching, Action, Smelling, Tasting, Imagining, Checking (for sound).
🔧 The GRAMMARISTICs
The ‘Tools’ of Writing
This zone covers the technical elements needed for good writing, like punctuation, sentence structures, and high-quality vocabulary. It includes the ‘Shade-o-meter’ to teach pupils about word intensity and nuanced vocabulary choices.
✨ The BOOMTASTICS
The ‘Techniques’ of Writing
This zone covers the literary devices that make writing more exciting. In KS1 this includes simile, alliteration, and onomatopoeia. In KS2, it expands to include more complex techniques like metaphor and personification.
📈 Context & Rationale
Why is a scheme like ‘The Write Stuff’ so popular? Its rise can be understood by looking at the broader primary education landscape in England, shaped by phonics policy and accountability pressures.
A Response to the Phonics-First Era
The government’s intense focus on Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) for reading has created a demand for a similarly systematic approach to writing. ‘The Write Stuff’ mirrors the deconstructed, chunked methodology of SSP, offering schools a sense of pedagogical coherence between their reading and writing curriculums.
An “Ofsted-Ready” Curriculum
In a high-stakes accountability system, the scheme’s comprehensive and pre-packaged nature is highly appealing. It provides a clear, sequential curriculum with its own internal logic and vocabulary, which is easy to implement, monitor, and articulate to external inspectors.
🔬 Evidence & Critique
The scheme is highly debated. It’s promoted with strong school testimonials but lacks large-scale, independent research. Here’s a balanced summary.
✔️ Claimed Benefits
👨🏫 Supports Teachers: Provides a clear structure, shared language, and “takes the guesswork out” of teaching writing.
😊 Builds Pupil Confidence: The step-by-step approach helps pupils feel successful and improves sentence quality.
🌍 Helps Vulnerable Learners: The visual and scaffolded methods are often cited as being effective for EAL and disadvantaged pupils.
Source: Primarily school testimonials and commercially produced marketing materials.
❌ Common Critiques
🤖 Formulaic Writing: The biggest concern is that the rigid structure leads to uncreative, “paint-by-numbers” writing that lacks authorial voice.
🤯 Cognitive Overload: Some teachers report that lessons can introduce too many complex concepts at once for pupils to properly absorb.
❓ Lacks Independent Validation: There are no large-scale, independent studies from bodies like the EEF to prove its effectiveness in a UK context.
Source: Practitioner feedback on professional forums and critical reviews.
💰 Implementation & Cost
Adopting ‘The Write Stuff’ as a full system represents a significant commitment in terms of both cost and professional development.
Financial Investment
Costs include initial training (from £180 for an individual online course to over £7,000 for in-person support packages), annual subscriptions for the unit plans (approx. £150 for a school), and optional physical resources.
Implementation Fidelity
The scheme is presented as a complete “system,” which implies a need for high-fidelity implementation to achieve the promised results. This includes specific approaches to classroom layout, book organisation, and lesson delivery.
🤔 Recommendations for School Leaders
Based on the analysis, a cautious and evidence-led approach is recommended when considering this scheme.
Diagnose First
Analyse your pupils’ writing. Is the main issue structural competence or a lack of creativity? The scheme is designed to address the former. Don’t buy a solution for a problem you don’t have.
Pilot Before Committing
Given the high costs and lack of independent efficacy data, run a small-scale pilot in one year group. Measure its impact in your specific context before considering a whole-school rollout.
Protect Creativity
If you adopt the scheme, you must actively plan for how you will ensure pupils develop an authentic authorial voice. Supplement it with opportunities for open-ended, process-based creative writing.