11 Plus Creative Writing: Tasks, Examples and Marking Guidance

First, check whether your target school sets a writing task. If it does, use its published familiarisation material and marking guidance to choose what to practise.

The end-of-key-stage-2 teacher assessment framework describes evidence across a pupil’s classwork. It is not an 11 plus marking scheme. Published arrangements differ: CSSE's 2027-entry information describes an English paper that includes writing, Kent has a separate unmarked writing exercise, Sutton schools set their own second-stage arrangements, and Medway's listed papers do not include a separate extended-writing paper. Check the current instructions for the school and entry year you are considering.

This guide distinguishes published test arrangements from practice suggestions, school marking from statutory teacher assessment, and teaching examples from exam grades. It also offers a prompt bank, a flexible planning framework and a home-feedback checklist. Formats can change, so confirm details against the admissions authority or school for the entry year you are considering.

Try an original Year 4 or Year 5 writing task

Our free creative-writing library has 12 original tasks across stories, descriptions, persuasive writing, letters, diaries and picture prompts. Each includes planning questions, a small word bank and three annotated model responses. These are curriculum-based teaching examples, rather than exam grades. Write a first draft before reading the models, then choose one technique to try in your own work.

What the 11 plus creative writing task actually is

A writing task asks a child to respond to a prompt within the test instructions. The number of tasks, length and time vary. Some papers ask for several short responses rather than one long story. Use the word or sentence guidance on the actual paper. Prompts can take forms such as:

• Story writing, from a title ("The Locked Door") or an opening line.
• Descriptive writing, where nothing much needs to happen: a place, a person, a moment.
• Extract continuation, where the child reads a passage in the comprehension section and continues or responds to it.
• Non-fiction and personal writing, such as a letter, a speech, a diary entry or a persuasive argument.

Where a test includes a timed writing task, the instructions and school marking scheme determine what the child needs to do. Some tasks are handwritten, while arrangements and access support can differ. Check the school's scheme for how it assesses ideas, structure and accuracy; the examples here do not establish a national scoring rule.

Test	Published position (check for your entry year)	Practice implication
CSSE	The published 2027-entry information says English lasts 60 minutes, with 10 minutes' additional reading time; Applied Reasoning was removed from the September 2024 test (2025 entry). 2028-entry details are not yet published.	Check the guide and instructions for your entry year; do not rely on timings from an older sample paper.
Kent	The council describes an unmarked writing exercise of 40 minutes, including 10 minutes' planning time; a local headteacher panel may use it as part of its assessment.	Follow the current task instructions. The exercise does not receive a test mark.
Sutton Grammar second stage	Written English and maths papers, each around 45 minutes to an hour.	Check the school's instructions and weighting; do not assume the same rules at every Sutton school.
Medway	The council lists English, maths and reasoning papers. Its English paper is 30 minutes and covers comprehension, punctuation and grammar; no separate extended-writing paper is listed.	Match practice to the papers listed for the current entry year.

What the published test guidance says about writing

This is one factor in planning practice. Work out which published arrangements apply to your school and entry year before choosing materials.

If your child sits CSSE (Essex). CSSE's published information for 2027 entry says English lasts 60 minutes, with 10 minutes of additional reading time. Applied Reasoning was removed from the September 2024 test (2025 entry). Those timings are published guidance for the 2027-entry cycle; CSSE says 2028-entry dates will be published later. The older familiarisation paper's 30/10/20 section timings should not be treated as current instructions. Check the CSSE examination materials for the arrangements that apply to your entry year. Our CSSE guide explains the wider format.

If your child sits the Kent Test. The writing exercise will not be marked, but may be used by a local headteacher panel as part of the headteacher assessment stage. Forty minutes are allowed for the writing task, including ten minutes' planning time. It does not contribute a standardised component score. Complete it carefully because it may be considered at that assessment stage.

If your child sits Sutton Grammar's shared second stage. Sutton Grammar School states that the shared second stage test comprises a maths paper and an English paper, that these are not multiple choice and contain no reasoning, and that each runs around 45 minutes to 1 hour. The four standardised scores (SET English and maths multiple-choice items, plus second-stage English and maths papers) are weighted in the ratio 2:2:3:3, with an age allowance added. That is Sutton Grammar's current published FAQ ratio; other Sutton schools use their own rules. Its determined 2027 policy also specifies adjustments for age and the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI). The FAQ does not explain how its formula interacts with that adjustment, so ask the school about a final-score calculation rather than converting a practice mark yourself. The detail is on the Sutton Grammar admissions FAQs, and the arithmetic of weighting is explained in our piece on standardised scores and age weighting.

If your child sits the Medway Test. Medway Council lists English, mathematics and reasoning papers. The English paper lasts 30 minutes and covers comprehension, punctuation and grammar. The published paper list does not include a separate extended-writing paper. Check the Medway Council page for arrangements for your entry year.

Other schools may set their own writing task or use a different selection process. Check the current admissions guidance for each school rather than assuming a format from another area.

School marking and KS2 teacher assessment are different

Use a published school or consortium writing scheme where one is available. For example, CSSE publishes a sample writing scheme, and The Latymer School publishes its own writing scheme. A scheme from one school is not automatically the scheme used by another.

The current official KS2 teacher assessment guidance serves a different purpose. For the 2026 to 2027 academic year, statutory writing judgements draw on a broad range of evidence, including pupils' independent written work over time. The framework is not an 11+ mark scheme and cannot grade one practice story or predict an admissions result.

Consequently, the examples below are teaching comparisons. They do not establish that a child is at the expected standard or greater depth, and they do not predict an admissions score. To give useful feedback, identify one specific choice that helps the reader and one change to try next.

Story and descriptive writing: examples to discuss

All examples below are original. A and B are sample openings; C to H are short outlines of writing choices, not complete model answers or assessed scripts.

Prompt: "The Last Bus"

Example A: a straightforward opening

The bus stop was cold and empty. Maya looked at her watch again. It was ten past eleven and the last bus was late. "Where is it?" she said to herself. A fox crossed the road and stared at her. She felt scared so she pulled her coat tighter and waited.

What it does: the setting and character are described, with an attempt at atmosphere. Possible improvements: "She felt scared" states the emotion rather than building it; the dialogue repeats information already given; and the piece uses little punctuation beyond full stops and speech marks. In "She felt scared so she pulled her coat tighter", a comma before "so" would help separate the two clauses.

Example B: a more developed opening

The shelter smelled of wet metal and old chip paper; beyond it, the road ran black and empty towards the roundabout. Maya checked her watch for the fourth time: eleven minutes past. "You could always walk it," she told herself, in her mother's voice, which was not encouraging. A fox slid out of the hedge, looked at her with complete indifference, and carried on.

Choices to discuss:

• The smell and the dark road establish a particular place rather than merely calling it frightening.
• The semicolon joins two complete, closely related clauses; the colon introduces what Maya sees on her watch. Neither mark earns an automatic bonus simply for appearing.
• The casual spoken line contrasts with the narrator's description. Ask how that contrast changes the reader's impression of Maya.
• The fox's lack of concern leaves the reader to consider Maya's feelings without being told exactly what to think.

Prompt: describe a market at closing time

Approach C: imagine a draft that lists sights and sounds in sequence, each sentence beginning with a noun phrase. It may be accurate but feel flat.

Approach D: imagine a draft that follows one moving observer, shifts formality once (a stallholder's shouted half-sentence against a measured narrator), and uses a dash for an aside. In a descriptive task, consider how the form and register suit the prompt rather than adding an incident just to create a plot.

Extract continuation and non-fiction: examples to discuss

Extract continuation. Where a paper asks a child to continue a passage, read the prompt for which features of the original passage to keep. Usually that means matching its tense, narrative person and register, unless the instructions ask for a change.

Approach E: imagine a continuation that follows the plot but slips from past to present tense and from a formal Victorian narrator into modern idiom ("the man was really annoyed").

Approach F: an outline for a continuation that holds the tense and register, with a line of dialogue intended to reveal character and move the scene forward. Ask whether the reader can see both effects. The quoted idea appears in KS2 teacher-assessment guidance, which has a different purpose from an 11+ mark scheme.

Non-fiction. For a letter or speech, consider the audience and purpose. A diary entry may use a more personal voice.

Approach G: an outline for a persuasive letter to a headteacher, with an example phrase ("it would be well annoying if") that may not suit the audience. Discuss whether the wording supports the purpose and voice.

Approach H: opens with a concession ("I understand the timetable is already crowded"), holds a courteous register throughout, uses a colon to introduce a three-part list, and closes by naming a specific, costed request. Compare which version better suits the intended reader; these outlines are not graded scripts.

One useful question is: who is this for, and what kind of voice suits the purpose?

Practice planning for different time windows

A fixed planning split will not fit every task. These are practice options; follow the actual task instructions.

Twenty-minute practice task: 1 minute reading the prompt, 2 minutes planning, 15 minutes writing, 2 minutes checking. For a story, one possible plan uses five bullets: opening image, what a character wants, complication, turn and a possible ending. You can note the ending before drafting, then change it if the story takes a better direction.

Forty-minute practice based on Kent's published allowance: the council says the writing exercise includes 10 minutes for planning. One practice split is 2 minutes to think of possible approaches, 1 minute to choose, 5 minutes to note the main idea of each paragraph and 2 minutes to choose useful words. That makes 10 minutes of planning, followed by 25 minutes writing and 5 minutes checking. Adapt it to the actual test instructions.

Forty-five to sixty-minute English paper (Sutton Grammar's published stage-two range): use the school's instructions to decide how to divide time across the paper. The split is a practice choice, not a school rule.

These timings are practice suggestions, except for Kent's stated planning allowance. Follow the real test's instructions. Check meaning, sentence boundaries and tense before considering an extra punctuation mark; use one only where it improves the sentence.

To practise, the timer below draws one of the 25 prompts from this guide and runs a 20- or 40-minute practice plan. It tells your child what to do at each stage; they write on paper. These are practice timings, not a substitute for a school's test instructions.

25 practice prompts by task type

Story titles (1-8): The Last Bus; The Locked Door; A Promise I Could Not Keep; The Day the River Froze; Found in the Attic; The Wrong Address; Three Minutes Early; The Visitor Nobody Saw.

Opening lines to continue (9-13): "By the time I noticed, the tide had already reached the steps."; "He had not spoken since Tuesday."; "The letter was addressed to someone who had never lived here."; "We agreed never to mention the fire again."; "The lights in the hall went out one row at a time."

Descriptive (14-18): a market at closing time; a hospital waiting room at 3am; the moment before a storm breaks; an empty school in the holidays; a station platform in fog.

Personal and diary (19-21): a day you changed your mind about someone; the diary entry of someone who has just moved country; a moment you were braver than you expected.

Non-fiction and persuasive (22-25): a letter to your headteacher arguing for a change to the school day; a speech to your year group about a cause you care about; an article advising younger children about starting secondary school; a balanced piece on whether homework should be set at weekends.

These are original practice prompts, not official test questions. Use the task instructions and timing published by your target school or admissions authority.

How to mark your child's writing at home

Use these questions for informal feedback, not a statutory standard or exam grade. Discuss a specific example from the piece and choose one manageable revision.

1. Is the form right for the purpose and audience, and sustained to the end?
2. In narrative, are setting, character and atmosphere described rather than announced?
3. Does dialogue reveal character, move the action or suit the voice? Consider revising lines that do not help the piece.
4. Is the register consistent, and is any shift in formality clearly deliberate?
5. Does the punctuation make the meaning clear, without forcing in a mark just to display it?
6. Are paragraphs used to mark shifts in time, place or focus?
7. Is spelling of common and taught words secure, and is handwriting legible at speed?

Useful things to check include an ending that feels abrupt after a long opening, dialogue that does not help the piece, and vocabulary that does not fit its meaning. An ambitious story may be hard to finish within the allowed time; for some writers, a smaller scene can be easier to shape.

You could choose one piece to discuss, name one specific strength and one possible revision, then try that revision if it would help. Progress-tracking pages show results from supported Maths, English, verbal-reasoning and non-verbal-reasoning activities; they do not currently track this article's writing-feedback checklist. Our broader 11 plus English guide covers writing alongside comprehension and grammar, and its companion guide to 11 plus maths topics and question types covers maths practice.

11 plus creative writing FAQs

How long should the piece be? Follow the actual paper's instructions. If it does not set a word count, practise a length your child can plan, write and check in the time available.

Does handwriting count? If a marker cannot read part of a script, that part may be difficult to assess. Check the school's marking guidance and any agreed access arrangements; a statutory KS2 descriptor is not automatically the school's exam rule.

Should my child memorise a story to adapt? A memorised story may not fit the prompt or the paper's instructions. It can be more useful to practise flexible ingredients, such as a setting you can describe, precise verbs and a simple way to organise ideas.

Is creative writing worth preparing for if our test does not mark it? Check the local process. In Kent, the writing exercise is unmarked but may be used by a local headteacher panel as part of its assessment. The council does not describe a separate writing score or promise an outcome based on it.

Where do we start if we are new to all this? Confirm your admissions authority's format first, then choose practice that matches it. Our 11+ parent guide covers the sequence, and the free creative-writing library has prompts and teaching examples. The timer on this page is a separate practice tool; it does not reproduce a school's writing paper.

Check every regional detail above against your own admissions authority and the exam body's current materials before you plan, including the Kent County Council Kent Test pages, because arrangements are reviewed annually.