Takes control over language, beginning to choose words for effect and make conscious decisions about how to shape whole texts and individual sentences.
Pupils who are becoming active writers have relevant ideas that are developed with some imaginative detail. They are usually clear about the purpose of their writing, and are able to write in a form and style that matches it. They are beginning to organise their writing in paragraphs to give it an overall structure, and are starting to manage the development of their material effectively across the whole text.
Sentences usually link together well within paragraphs and show a variety of lengths, structures and subjects. There may be some examples where this variation has been consciously chosen for a particular effect. A wider range of connectives is now used to show the relationship between ideas. There may be a greater use of modal verbs to express shades of meaning. Reflective writers use a full range of punctuation. Sentence demarcation is mostly reliable, but punctuation within sentences often still poses problems, particularly in longer sentences.
Some words are chosen for effect and attempts at a wider, more ambitious vocabulary are often successful.