The Standards and Testing Agency (STA) publish details of expectations and exemplification of pupils' work in relation to the expected standards for KS2. Explore these documents to understand the KS2 expectations in writing in order to inform your KS3 curriculum planning and the pitch for teaching in Year 7. Bear in mind that pupils have achieved the standards at a key point in their school career and that primary teachers work extremely hard to support their pupils to meet the standard. This does not mean that once a standard has been met, pupils continue to work at that pitch of excellence in every piece of writing without prompting. Pupils in Year 7 often require reminders and support to ensure that they continue to produce written work that matches the standards they have already achieved in primary school, and it is their secondary teachers' job to ensure that pupils understand exactly what is expected of them in each piece of work, that they are given sufficient time, and that the necessary scaffolds are in place to support pupils to produce their best work.

More exemplification collections that have been used to train Year 6 teachers and writing moderators are available in the primary section of open resources here.