Beyond the Page: What the DfE Writing Guidance Gets Right, and What Schools Still Need

By Route Education

“They just stare at the page.”

It’s a line we hear often. Not because students lack ideas, but because the path between thought and sentence is blocked.

Something’s missing.

The new DfE guidance on writing, released this summer, finally recognises a truth most teachers already know: writing is complex. It’s not absorbed by osmosis; it must be explicitly taught, practised, and supported.

And while the guidance makes progress, it doesn’t go far enough.

A Welcome Step Forward

This guidance is rooted in research. It clarifies that writing draws on fluency, grammar, vocabulary, talk, and purposeful practice, and that these strands must be taught directly.

It also nudges us away from the idea that writing is just an English teacher’s job. That shift opens the door for more joined-up conversations about writing across all key stages and subjects.

But good guidance still relies on how schools interpret and implement it.

Writing Isn’t a Toolkit

Here’s the risk: schools take the recommendations and build a checklist.

✅ Talk more ✅ Re-teach handwriting ✅ Drill grammar ✅ Set more writing tasks

All valid. But by themselves, they don’t solve the problem.

Writing isn’t a toolkit. It’s an engine: a system where each part powers the next. If one component falters, the whole thing stalls.

You can teach planning, but if students don’t have the vocabulary to express their ideas, the sentence control to shape them, or the stamina to sustain them, they’ll struggle. And they’ll often do so silently.

What’s Missing?

The guidance touches on many key areas, but one vital piece remains largely unspoken:

Morphology: the structure of words.

When students understand how words are built: that rupt means “break” or struct means “build”, they stop guessing. They spell more confidently. They use richer vocabulary. They make meaning across the curriculum.

Morphology isn’t just a phonics tool. It’s a critical building block for older learners, especially those still catching up in KS3 and beyond. Yet it’s barely mentioned.

How We Do It at Route Education

At Route Education, we treat writing as the output of a well-tuned system.

Our Word Roots programme starts with morphemes and builds outward, connecting vocabulary, grammar, talk, and sentence fluency. Only then do we ask students to write in extended forms.

Because for many learners, that’s the missing step. They haven’t stalled from lack of effort, they’re stuck without the ignition key.

What Now?

The DfE guidance gives schools a stronger map. But if we want students to write fluently and with confidence, we need to build the full engine:

• Prioritise the connections between talk, grammar, vocabulary, and composition

• Reintroduce morphology as essential, not optional

• Make writing a whole-school, whole-system endeavour

The students staring at blank pages don’t need louder encouragement.

They need power under the bonnet.

Let’s give it to them.