Annotated WAGOLLs · Year 1 to Year 6
Annotated Model Texts
Year-group exemplar texts (WAGOLLs — What A Good One Looks Like) with colour-coded annotations for grammar, punctuation, spelling and text-type features. Show the clean version on the board, then toggle annotations to teach the choices behind it.
How to use these
Each model text has a clean version the children can read as a finished piece of writing, and an annotated version that highlights the grammar, punctuation, spelling and text-type features that make it work. Read the clean version first as a class. Then reveal the annotations to teach the moves the writer made. Children can write their own version of the same text type, then return to the model when they revise.
Year 1
3 model texts written to meet the Year 1 expected standard.
The Rainy Walk
A short narrative about a walk in the rain. Models simple sentence structure with capital letters, full stops, and the conjunction 'and'. Meets Year 1 expected standard for writing.
RecountOur Trip to the Farm
A first-person recount of a school trip. Uses past tense, time markers (First, Then, After that, Last), and a clear opening, middle and end. Meets Year 1 expected standard.
InstructionsHow to Plant a Bean
Simple instructions for planting a bean. Models numbered steps, imperative verbs, and basic time connectives. Meets Year 1 expected standard.
Year 2
3 model texts written to meet the Year 2 expected standard.
The Lost Key
A short story about finding a mysterious key in the garden. Uses subordinating conjunctions, expanded noun phrases, and a range of sentence types including questions and exclamations. Meets Year 2 expected standard.
InstructionsHow to Make a Bird Feeder
Instructions for making a simple bird feeder. Models bullet-pointed equipment list, numbered steps, imperative verbs, and time connectives. Meets Year 2 expected standard.
LetterA Letter to Grandma
A short personal letter to a grandparent. Models the structure of a letter (address, greeting, body, sign-off), past tense, and a question. Meets Year 2 expected standard.
Year 3
3 model texts written to meet the Year 3 expected standard.
The Stone Keeper
A short story about a child who finds an unusual stone in the woods. Uses fronted adverbials, prepositional phrases, conjunctions, paragraphing for sequence, and direct speech. Meets Year 3 expected standard.
Non-chronological ReportThe Amazing Octopus
An information text about octopuses. Models subheadings, formal tone, present tense, and topic-related vocabulary. Meets Year 3 expected standard for non-chronological reports.
ExplanationHow Volcanoes Erupt
An explanation of how volcanoes erupt. Models cause-and-effect connectives, technical vocabulary, present tense, and paragraph organisation. Meets Year 3 expected standard.
Year 4
3 model texts written to meet the Year 4 expected standard.
The Secret Tunnel
A short narrative about three children who discover a hidden tunnel beneath their school. Uses fronted adverbials with commas, expanded noun phrases, dialogue with new speaker on new line, and the apostrophe for plural possession. Meets Year 4 expected standard.
Persuasive WritingSave Our School Pond!
A persuasive letter to a head teacher arguing for the school pond to be kept. Models rhetorical questions, emotive language, facts and statistics, and direct address to the reader. Meets Year 4 expected standard.
BiographyThe Story of Mary Anning
A short biography of fossil hunter Mary Anning. Models past tense, time connectives, paragraphs by life stage, and quotation. Meets Year 4 expected standard.
Year 5
3 model texts written to meet the Year 5 expected standard.
The Cliff House
Atmospheric narrative opening about a child arriving at an isolated cliff-top house. Uses relative clauses, modal verbs, semicolons, brackets and dashes for parenthesis, and integrates description with action. Meets Year 5 expected standard.
Diary EntryThe Night of the Storm
First-person diary entry from a child evacuated during World War 2, written the night they arrive at their billet. Uses first-person past tense, emotional reflection, time markers, modal verbs, and direct rhetorical questions. Meets Year 5 expected standard.
PersuasionWhy You Should Read Every Day
A persuasive piece arguing for daily reading. Models rhetorical questions, modal verbs, statistics, emotive language, and a clear call to action. Meets Year 5 expected standard.
Year 6
3 model texts written to meet the Year 6 expected standard.
The Last Bus Home
Suspense narrative about a girl on the last bus of the night who realises something is wrong. Uses semicolons and colons within sentences, hyphens for compound modifiers, integrated dialogue with action, the active and passive voice, and tightly controlled sentence variety. Meets Year 6 expected standard.
Newspaper ReportMystery Light Stuns Village
Newspaper report about an unexplained light witnessed by villagers. Models headline, byline, formal tone, passive voice, direct quotations, the inverted pyramid structure, and integration of multiple sources. Meets Year 6 expected standard.
Setting DescriptionThe Abandoned Lighthouse
An atmospheric setting description of a derelict lighthouse. Models figurative language, complex sentence structures, semicolons, dashes for parenthesis, and ambitious vocabulary. Meets Year 6 expected standard.
About model texts (WAGOLLs)
A WAGOLL — What A Good One Looks Like — is a piece of writing that meets the year group's expected standard. Showing children a strong example before they write helps them notice what makes it work: the punctuation choices, the sentence variety, the genre-specific features.
The texts here are written to meet (not exceed) the National Curriculum 2014 expected standard for each year group. They use vocabulary, grammar and structures appropriate to that age. The annotated version names the moves the writer made — useful for teaching, modelling shared writing, or guiding a child's editing.
What we don't do
These aren't "perfect" texts and they aren't templates to be copied. They're examples of what a strong piece of work for that year looks like. A child's own writing will draw on different vocabulary and topics — what we want them to take from these is the moves, not the words.
Each text is also free to print — the print view shows annotations as colour-coded text in the margins. No sign-up needed, no member walls.