Learning Map
EnglishWriting Compositionusually ages 6–10

Planning Ideas Before Writing

Plan before writing by saying aloud or noting down what will be written, writing down ideas and key words, and encapsulating ideas sentence by sentence before composing

How to tell they’ve got it

Tick these off as you see them — no test required.

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Try this together

Before your child starts a piece of writing, do they spend a few minutes planning — jotting down ideas, key words, or a rough structure — rather than jumping straight into writing the first sentence?

Where this sits on the map

Stuck here? Check the skills it builds on first. Confident? Here’s what it unlocks.

Builds on
Saying Sentences Before Writing Themages 5–6Planning writing builds on Y1 oral rehearsal
Writing Process Vocabularyages 5–8Planning before writing requires 'plan', 'draft', 'compose', 'sequence', and 'key words' as working vocabulary
Describing Aloudages 4–8Oral expression supports saying aloud what you'll write
Simple Stories with Beginning and Endingages 5–7Experience with narrative writing supports planning narratives
Building Writing Staminaages 6–7Planning before writing builds on earlier compositional skills
Organising Writing into Paragraphsages 7–10Planning skills build on earlier oral skills
Planning Ideas Before Writingthis skill · ages 6–10
Unlocks
Choosing Form and Tone for Your Audienceages 9–10Identifying audience and purpose before writing builds on general planning skills; the step up is from planning content to strategically matching form and tone to audience
Writing for an audienceages 9–11Producing coherent writing matched to task/purpose/audience builds on planning skills; learners must know how to plan before they can match organisation to purpose
Drawing conclusions from evidence (age 9+)ages 9–11Producing a well-organised science report depends on the planning and pre-writing strategies developed in English composition

solid = must come firstdashed = helps

Curriculum alignment

Candidate matches to official curriculum codes — machine-suggested, unreviewed (v0.1).

Show candidate curriculum codes · 3 ACARA · 2 NSW · 3 VIC

Australian Curriculum v9 candidate

AC9E3LY06low confidenceYear 3 · Literacy

plan, create, edit and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive written and multimodal texts, using visual features, appropriate form and layout, with ideas grouped in simple paragraphs, mostly correct tense, topic-specific vocabulary and correct spelling of most high-frequency and phonetically regular words

AC9E3LA04low confidenceYear 3 · Language

understand that paragraphs are a key organisational feature of the stages of written texts, grouping related information together

AC9E1LY06low confidenceYear 1 · Literacy

create and re-read to edit short written and/or multimodal texts to report on a topic, express an opinion or recount a real or imagined event, using grammatically correct simple sentences, some topic-specific vocabulary, sentence boundary punctuation and correct spelling of some one- and two-syllable words

NSW syllabus codes & stages only

EN1-CWT-01medium confidenceEnglish K-10 · Stage 1
EN2-CWT-01medium confidenceEnglish K-10 · Stage 2

Victorian Curriculum 2.0 codes & levels only

VC2EFLY13low confidenceEnglish · Foundation · Literacy strand
VC2E3LY11low confidenceEnglish · Level 3 · Literacy strand
VC2E5LY10low confidenceEnglish · Level 5 · Literacy strand

These are candidate alignments generated by semantic matching — machine-suggested and unreviewed (v0.1), not official or verified mappings. For official curriculum content see australiancurriculum.edu.au, curriculum.nsw.edu.au and f10.vcaa.vic.edu.au. Don’t rely on them for registration or compliance purposes.

Nearby on the map

Basic Informational Writingages 6–11 Building Writing Staminaages 6–7 Revising and editingages 6–7 Structured Opinion Writingages 6–11

All Writing Composition skills →