Writing insight that moves every learner forward

How Our Lady and St Philip Neri Catholic Primary School is reducing marking workload while helping teachers turn writing insight into focused teaching

Located in Sydenham, south-east London, Our Lady and St Philip Neri Catholic Primary School has made writing a sustained priority within its school improvement plan. Leaders have focused on strengthening sentence construction, securing clear progression and ensuring feedback moves learning forward while keeping workload manageable.

The Challenge: Maintaining Precision Without Unsustainable Workload

Although moderation processes were strong, marking extended writing in upper Key Stage 2 was time-intensive.

“The sheer volume of marking in upper Key Stage 2 is intense,” says Writing Lead Marie Ann Barlow. “We want feedback to be precise and helpful, but it also has to be manageable.”

Year 6 teacher Abebi Odele describes a detailed approach to marking that became difficult to sustain for longer pieces.

“I marked with a strong grammatical focus, refining verb choices, improving sentence construction and tightening structure,” explains Abebi. “It is effective, but for longer pieces it takes a huge amount of time.”

Leaders also reflected on progression and the importance of planning for the explicit teaching of writing.

“We were sometimes asking children to manage too much too early,” Marie Ann explains.

The school responded by introducing a structured, sentence-level curriculum informed by the Writing Revolution. As teaching became more explicit and consistent, leaders looked for an assessment approach that aligned with this clarity.

Adopting stylus

stylus was introduced to support accurate assessment while reducing workload.

“I wasn’t sure whether it would fully understand the writing,” Abebi reflects. “However, the feedback was detailed and meaningful. It looked at the writing as a whole and gave clear next steps I could use immediately.”

Teachers submit work as PDFs and receive reports for individuals and the whole class, while professional judgement remains central.

“It doesn’t replace the teacher,” Marie Ann emphasises. “It sharpens what we already know.”

Impact

Teachers often review the class report first to identify patterns before looking at individual pupils. Year 5 teacher Elizabeth Piggott highlights the clarity this provides.

“The report highlighted common errors across the class. It pinpointed pupils who struggled to make dialogue purposeful and those still missing key punctuation.”

Year 5 teacher and Local Authority Writing Moderator Aisling Armstrong also sees value for planning.

“stylus has been useful for reviewing moderated writing and identifying next steps. Whole-class targets help teachers address feedback through teaching.”

Although redrafting time can be limited in upper Key Stage 2, teachers have still used stylus feedback to support improvement.

“Redrafting can be difficult to timetable in upper Key Stage 2,” says Aisling. “With stylus, Year 5 were able to submit a redraft, with some feedback reinforced and new targets emerging.”

Pupils read their reports before editing their work, strengthening ownership of improvement.

“Children feel a real sense of achievement when they receive their feedback,” Abebi notes, “because it highlights what they’ve done well as well as what to improve.”

“They feel seen,” Marie Ann reflects. “And that makes a difference.”

Summary

At Our Lady and St Philip Neri Catholic Primary School, stylus now supports the teaching cycle by strengthening the link between assessment and instruction while reducing the burden of marking in upper Key Stage 2.

As Marie Ann concludes: “It sits inside the teaching cycle and that is exactly where it should be.”