examples of creative writing ks2

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7 techniques for generating story writing ideas in ks2, key stage 2 is a great time for children..

Typically, they will have settled into the flow of learning new subjects, and as KS2 teachers you get to help them flourish by practising, repeating and refining their learnt skills. When it comes to teaching literacy this also means encouraging your class’s creativity. 

However, on occasion creativity can be hard to come by and story writing lessons might not produce the outcomes you were hoping for. To help you combat this, here are some techniques and ideas to help you inspire your class with creative writing tasks.  

1. Create a Classroom Story Generator 

Write the ideas on paper and cut them out, then fold them up so you can’t see what’s written on them.

Find three bags (or any kind of container). Place all the folded character ideas in the first bag, the scenes in the second and the situations/tasks in the third. Ask each pupil to come up and draw a folded piece of paper from each bag. This will be the start of their story. Alternatively, you could build up five story-starting sentences from the bags and write them on the board. Your class could then choose which story they want to write.

Here are some examples to get you started:

You can tailor the ideas to suit your pupils’ abilities, age and preferences, which should really help to spark their imaginations.

2.  Watch or Listen

It doesn’t have to be long or have any dialogue, but showing a short film to your class may help to trigger inspiration. Luckily there are literally millions of free videos available for this kind of thing. Vet them first to make sure they are completely suitable for your class, then turn down the lights and press play. You can show the video more than once, maybe asking the children to write notes on the second viewing which will help to inspire their stories. 

Alternatively try playing a piece of instrumental music and ask your class to imagine what might be happening. Write their ideas and thoughts on the board and ask them to use this as the inspiration for a story.

3.  Folklore and Fairy Tales 

4.  Storyboards

You’re not asking your class to be artists; they can use simple stick figures and words to get their ideas down on paper. But asking your class to draw out their ideas will help them generate some interesting story twists. By getting the structure of their stories down on paper in a sequence, they will know the beginning, middle and end of their stories so when they come to start writing it out there’s not an ounce of KS2 writers block in sight!

5.  A Newspaper Clipping

Newspapers can be a huge source of inspiration. Interesting or unusual stories can be cut out and stuck into a scrap book to bring out and show your class in times of creative need! Alternatively, you could show your whole class a newspaper clipping and ask them all to write a story about the same extract.

6.  Rewrite A Known Story 

Rewriting a known story with a different ending or a different character is a great way to generate inspiration. This technique for generating story ideas can’t fail to produce results since the possibilities are endless!

For example:

• What if Little Red Riding Hood lived in a jungle instead of a forest?
• What if the three little pigs were the three little wolves instead, and the big bad pig wanted to eat them for his dinner?
• What if Hansel and Gretel were actually the bad ones and wanted to eat the old lady?
• What if you asked your class to swap the characters in one story with the characters in another – Snow White and the Magic Beans, Jack and the Seven Dwarves. Let your class’s imaginations run free and look forward to reading the end results!

7.  Let the Children Choose

Set some homework for the children to go away and think of something they care about, something they are interested in, something which makes them happy, sad or angry and why that is. You could ask them to find a picture or a news story themselves which sparks their interest or emotion.

From the ideas generated at home, ask them to write a story in class. Passion is a wonderful muse after all, so if the children choose a topic that they really care about you should end up with some very good results!

Excited to teach imaginative writing in a new way? Mighty Writer can help!

Founder Emma Ralph discusses how mighty writer allows children to plan and write their own stories using just pictures. 30sec

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32 good story starters for KS2 and free writing

We’ve put together some good story starters for KS2 to help your pupils with writer’s block. We’ve also got KS1 story starters covered too, if you have some younger pupils.

Read past the story starters and you’ll also find a guide to free writing that you can use alongside the story starters. Jump start your story writing lessons in KS2 today!

What are story starters?

A word or words that begins a story. Intentionally opened ended, they point children towards a particular theme or situation and can remove the tricky initial phase of story writing.

Ideal story starters for KS2

• The three of them peered into the dark cave.
• Suddenly, it turned around and faced her.
• Time stopped. People stopped. Cars stopped. Everything around me paused, frozen in time.
• The creature screamed and ran towards them.
• Her stomach dropped.
• I had never seen an alien. But I guess there’s a first time for everything.
• Am I in hell?
• As he walked along the cold, dark night, a rustling began from the trees…
• Then, a flash.
• Ben is 8, but in his world, that means something very different.
• This time she woke up early to try and catch it out. The clock struck 7. It was time…
• A hot, tingling sensation worked it’s way up my spine. It couldn’t be, could it?
• It was exactly as I feared.
• “We’ve been waiting a long time” Mum said. “Where on earth has he got to?”
• I sat on the grass and watched as it flailed in the wind.
• It was the smell that hit her first. She knew, long before she could see it, exactly what was next.
• He dashed down the stairs, as fast as his legs could carry him. The post had arrived, but was it what he’d hoped for?
• “Help!” A frightened shriek came from inside. I crept towards the door…
• “Can you see that?” He asked. I could barely believe it, but…
• It was a cold and miserable morning. The clouds were low and chill and setting in. But still, we couldn’t stop due to the weather.
• “Welcome.” We all looked round in awe. “This is the future.”
• That familiar feeling returned, as if I was being watched. What was out there?
• The rumours were true. The warnings were real and the time has come. Were we ready for what was about to happen?
• The three friends set out on their journey, with nothing but each other to help them for what lied ahead.
• The car lurched down the road when suddenly a thud came from below.
• The tap on my shoulder woke me. “Shhh” she said with a finger pressed to her lips. “Follow me”.
• Outside, the sun was shining, with children and adults alike basking in its warm glow. For Caroline, she could only watch on with her nose pressed against the window.
• Sally looked around the spaceship, eyes widening with each step. She had never seen anything like it.
• “Will you keep it down!” Grandpa thudded from downstairs with his walking stick. But of course, it wasn’t me making all the noise.
• It was the first time I’d been on holiday. I stood for a moment and took it all in. The first thing I noticed was…
• Outside, the leaves were falling and the grass was turning into a murky brown. Out went summer barbecues and in came Autumn dew.
• I felt an odd sensation in my shoe.

All children need is a tiny prod in the right direction and they will come back with the most amazing tales for you to laugh, cringe, wince or cry at! Feel free to expand upon and adapt our examples; we are only prodding you to get the creative juices flowing.

Free writing to help with story writing

If after you have given children story starters, they are still struggling, it could be a confidence issue. Free writing is a fantastic way of freeing children of their own worries over their own writing.

Principles of free writing

Free writing is pretty much what it says on the tin. But there are some principles to stand by to ensure free writing has the desired effect of kick-starting creative juices. Children are given a writing implement (whatever they feel most comfortable with) and something to write on and told to write. Just write. Here’s a few pointers to make clear to children before they begin.

• Don’t stop writing during the allotted time.
• You’re going to time the free write and encourage those who stop to think to keep going.
• If that means writing the same word or letters over and over until a new thought comes into the writer’s head, then so be it.
• The work won’t be marked, or even looked at if the writer doesn’t want it to.
• Spelling, punctuation and grammar doesn’t matter.

Last tip: if your class are adhering to the rules okay, have a go yourself! It’s really good practice to have a go at the activity you expect your pupils to have a go at, plus it’s really enjoyable!

It’s good to start off with short one-minute bursts of free writing in the beginning. Demonstrate you mean what you say with marking, SPaG and reading out: it’s an unusual experience for pupils for their work not to be scrutinised. This activity will help pupils empty their head of worries, ruminating thoughts and distractions from their writing. It might also provide them with inspiration for story writing. Have a go at free writing before beginning any creative writing session, or even use it to begin a story. Provide them with the story starter and then get them to continue the story writing during the free write. It’s only a minute or two and could make all the difference to their writing.

Amber Vaccianna

Hope Education writer

Ideas for Teaching & Learning | Primary

23 september 2020.

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KS2 Descriptive Writing Paragraph Model - Volcano!

Subject: English

Age range: 7-11

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

12 March 2024

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KS2 Descriptive Writing Paragraph -Volcano Eruption

Creative/descriptive writing example.

Key Features:

Modelling creative language choices/figurative language; kS2 grammatical features such as varied sentence starters and structures; fronted adverbials; expanded noun phrases; varied punctuation.

Used when working with small groups of Year 6 pupils tasked with writing their own short narrative paragraph(s).

Suitable for KS2.

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• 6 Inspiring Writing Templates For Ks1 And Ks2 English

Writing template – 6 inspiring templates for KS1/2

Six PDF writing templates and a PDF cover sheet guide

When children are struggling to get their thoughts down on the page, a little structure via a writing template can work wonders, says Rachel Clarke…

Whichever type of writing I’m doing, it’s the getting started that’s the hardest thing to do. This is why a writing template can be so useful. It helps inexperienced writers get started and to write for a variety of purposes and audiences.

We’ve got a writing template here for both KS1 and KS2 – two for KS1, two for lower KS2 and two for upper KS2. And because not all children are the same, we’ve differentiated three of these templates (one for each age group).

Writing template downloads

Passing through the portal – y5/6, reading magnifying glass – y5/6, knock, knock jokes – y3/4, top trumps character profiles – y3/4, book review – y1/2, swimming pool writing prompt – y1/2.

When the Pevensey children discovered Narnia, they did so by opening the door of the wardrobe. Similarly, Alice stole her first glimpse of Wonderland after falling down the rabbit hole and peering through the keyhole. Authors frequently use doors and portals to structure fantasy stories, making them useful devices for KS2 descriptive writing.

When planning to use portals with children, first work out what the portal will be, where it is located and what it looks like. As a class you should then decide where in the narrative to introduce the portal, what is on the other side and how you’ll use the portal to return to the original setting.

When it comes to describing what is on the other side, most children benefit from working as a class or group to examine images of settings and brainstorming descriptive phrases about them. Once they’ve done this, they’re ready to invent their own settings .

Using a ‘magnifying glass’ to analyse text is a pupil-friendly way to promote close reading skills. If you’ve not followed the structure of this type of activity before, it’s a technique that promotes deeper understand of text through re-reading.

On the first reading, encourage pupils to articulate what the text is about and to notice its organisational features. Then direct them to read the text again; this time noticing the author’s use of words and phrases and the effectiveness of these.

Finally, ask pupils to read the text a third time; this time taking account of the author’s point of view and commenting on how they connect with the text personally.

To many children, the rules and conventions of direct speech are an unfathomable challenge of where and when to use commas, inverted commas, full stops and capital letters. Enter the humble knock, knock joke.

First off, knock, knock jokes feature two speakers, so there’s no need to contrive an awkward conversation for children to ‘turn into speech’. Secondly, the page layout mirrors the rules of dialogue with a new line for each line of the joke. And thirdly, children like knock, knock jokes.

The resource sheet accompanying this article uses a small-steps approach to slowly scaffold children through the rules and conventions of dialogue. In the first instance simply ask pupils to rewrite knock, knock jokes in speech bubbles.

Once they’ve got the hang of this, encourage them to write the name of the speaker and ‘said’ before each speech bubble. The second level asks pupils write each line of the knock, knock joke using inverted commas.

Each example on this sheet starts with the reporting clause before the dialogue, which enables pupils to practise adding a comma after the reporting clause.

Additionally, encourage pupils to use a range of synonyms for ‘said’ at this point. Once secure in setting out and punctuating direct speech with the reporting clause before the dialogue, show pupils how to add the reporting clause after the dialogue.

This means learning to use a comma before the closing inverted commas and not capitalising the first word after the inverted commas – unless, of course, it’s a name. So many rules!

Creating characters using the popular Top Trumps format is a useful way to encourage pupils to think beyond the appearance of their characters and whether they’re adventurous, brave, cowardly or cruel, for example, and to consider their feelings, thoughts and motivations.

As we’ve already seen in this article, using and punctuating direct speech is a significant objective for pupils in lower KS2.

By including space to plan what characters say, the Top Trumps Character profile encourages pupils to include direct speech in their narratives and so create characters with physical presence beyond their appearance.

I find it’s always best to model using a writing template such as this one so that pupils know how to get the most from it.

Once I’ve completed a planning profile with pupils, I then model using it to write effective character descriptions, showing how to include aspects of character through my descriptions of actions, thoughts and dialogue.

Writing book reviews enables pupils to offer opinions based on first-hand experiences. Naturally, you shouldn’t expect pupils to review every book they read, but from time to time encouraging them to reflect on their reading is a useful activity.

As pupils are required to offer opinions when reviewing their reading, book reviews provide valuable practice at using the subordinating conjunction ‘because’. This makes them particularly useful teaching tools for meeting the writing requirements of KS1.

Use stories the class have heard, activites you’ve shared or artefacts and images you’ve looked at to stimulate writing opportunities. This paddling pool writing prompt enables children to write from a visual cue.

First off, encourage children to talk about what they can see in the picture. You may need to expand their vocabularies by naming objects such as the hosepipe and the stool.

You may also want to draw on the prior knowledge of children who have played in a paddling pool, sharing their experiences such as splashing in the water, taking care not to slip as they got in and out and shivering if the water felt chilly.

Encourage children to phrase their observations as sentences and model writing these on the flipchart or whiteboard. Now ask children to write about the picture using the keywords to help them where necessary.

Rachel Clarke is the director of Primary English Education Consultancy Limited . She works with schools across the UK and is the author of several books. Browse more creative writing prompts .

Similar resources

• Town is by the Sea – Creative activities for KS1/KS2
• Handa’s Surprise activities – Fruity word mat
• Play script – Ten one-page scenes for early readers and EAL
• A Child of Books – Cross-curricular activities for KS2
• Fact file – How to teach informational writing in primary school

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