Writing at St Augustine’s College: Helping Boys Find Their Voice
At St Augustine’s College, we believe that the ability to write thoughtfully and purposefully is one of the greatest gifts we can give our students. Writing allows boys to express ideas clearly, think critically, and connect deeply with the world around them - both now and in the future.
Building Strong Foundations in Writing
In the Primary School, we’ve adopted a structured and evidence-based approach to writing known as the Writing Rope (Sedita, 2019). This model breaks down the writing process into key strands - from word and sentence construction through to full-text composition.
To support this approach, our teachers use the Writer’s Toolbox, an innovative program that provides real-time feedback and analytics on student writing. The tool helps students understand their strengths, identify areas for improvement, and track their progress over time. Teachers can also see trends across classes and cohorts, allowing them to tailor lessons to the needs of their students.
Research That Shapes Our Practice
Our approach is grounded in educational research. Empirical studies (Graham, 2020) show that explicit instruction in writing strategies, text structures, and sentence construction can lead to significant improvements in writing quality. For example, when students are taught how to construct effective sentences, writing quality can increase by as much as 21 percentile points.
Similarly, simply giving students more time to write leads to measurable gains - around a 12 percentile point jump in quality. That’s why, at St Augustine’s College, our Primary boys write for 60 minutes each day across a range of purposes - from persuasive and informative texts to creative storytelling, reflections, and scientific writing.
Measuring Growth and Success
Over the past 18 months, our Primary School writing program has shown outstanding results. Through explicit teaching, teacher professional development, and the integration of Writer’s Toolbox AI, we’ve seen measurable growth in both student engagement and outcomes.
Here are just a few highlights from the past year:
- Boys are writing more words per session – up from 86 in 2024 to 107 in 2025.
- Feedback-seeking behaviour has increased fourfold.
- Writing precision has risen from 49% to 51%.
- Average writing strength has improved from 57% to 60%.
- Student improvements made from AI feedback have soared from 11,721 to 45,180.
- Daily writing challenges have grown from 1,992 to 2,725.
- Average writing strength has more than doubled, from 63% to 135%.
These achievements demonstrate not only progress in writing skill but also a deeper enthusiasm for the craft of writing itself.
Cultivating Confidence and Purpose
By the time our boys complete Year 6, we want them to write with clarity and confidence - to persuade, inform, and imagine. More importantly, we want them to use writing as a way to think critically, explore ideas, and express their individuality.
As literacy educator Paula Bourque reminds us:
“Writing stretches our thinking, expands our repertoire for teaching, brings awareness to the craft, and instils empathy for our students. It is indeed a skill we learn best by doing.”
At St Augustine’s College, that philosophy is alive in every classroom, every lesson, and every story our boys write.
