You might think that there isn’t a great deal of focus given to creative writing for the GCSE English syllabus, but it is included. Much of the emphasis in terms of teaching goes on text analysis as well as seen and unseen poetry.

Transactional Writing for English GCSE

The English language papers of the GCSE English syllabus, however, test something called Transactional Writing. This is non-fiction and might include the candidate writing words for a talk, an article or a persuasive piece of writing. Other tasks might be to identify the purpose, audience and form of a piece of writing.

Creative Writing in the English GCSE Syllabus

The AQA GCSE English Language exam paper includes a picture prompt and asks the candidate to use it to write a story. They may also work from a prompt such as ‘write a description of a forest’. This element of the paper contributes 40 marks (24 for content and 16 for technical accuracy).

Similarly, the Eduqas GCSE English papers have a section worth 40 marks that asks the candidate to write 450-600 words of a story. They might get a starting line, for example, ‘I had never really liked dogs…’. Similarly, they might be asked to ‘Write about a time when you took part in an event in bad weather’.

The iGCSE Edexcel English syllabus also has the option of doing a piece of creative writing coursework. This is worth 60 marks.

So, whether it’s knowing how to put together a persuasive piece of writing, structuring an article or including the fundamentals of imagery and story structure for a fictional piece, the English GCSE exams do contain these elements.

Creative Writing Support for English GCSE

If your child needs extra support with creative writing for GCSE English, please get in touch to find out how I can help. Storymakers offers 1:1 English and creative writing tuition both in person and online as well as creative writing groups for young teens.