News22nd July 2025

Ark shares new free Sentence Mastery Sequence for primary schools

The Department for Education (DfE) launched its writing framework this month, a new standard for writing instruction which puts sentence-level teaching centre stage.

Ark Curriculum Plus

The DfE framework sets out to ‘outline a common approach to teaching writing based on evidence and existing good practice.’

At Ark we know that sentences are the building blocks of writing. A strong understanding of sentences – how to build them, expand them, connect them together – underpins success in writing.

To support this, we have produced the Ark Sentence Mastery Sequence. This Sequence was developed for use in Ark Schools by our experts from Ark Start and Ark Schools, as well as the English Mastery Primary programme team at  Ark Curriculum Plus.

It aims to support the development of teacher subject knowledge and confidence in sentence building and shows how sentence knowledge skills can be taught effectively from reception right through to Year 7.

To help schools respond to the DfE writing framework, we’re now making this sequence available for free.

Drawing on our 20 years of expertise in education, and designed for practical classroom use and curriculum planning, the ready-to-use sentence plan provides:

1. Cumulative sentence progression from Reception to Year 7;
2. Stronger curriculum coherence across year groups and key stages;
3. Micro-steps that are carefully sequenced to help build fluency and accuracy;
4. Practical strategies to support long term retention and sentence accuracy;
5. Consistent definitions and examples to build shared language across classrooms and year groups.

Ark’s Network Lead for Primary English Madeleine Roberts said, “Teaching the art of the sentence is no easy feat. To teach syntax effectively, schools need to have a common language across year groups and key stages.

“Teachers need to know what to teach, in which order, and when. And children need consistent and accurate definitions and examples throughout their writing journey.”

AC+ Head of Subject for Primary English Sarah Spink said, “Our free progression plan provides a practical resource for teaching sentence-level writing.

“By making sentence construction teachable, visible and systematic, we hope it will support all schools to build confident, fluent, and accurate writers – sentence by sentence. 

“And if schools need more support at KS2 or KS3 level then we have our AC+ English Mastery programmes, which can also help to implement elements of the sequence.”

AC+ subject excellence programmes, curriculum resources and training are developed and tested in Ark schools and support 300,000 students nationally.

You can find out more about the English programmes here.