essay openers ks2

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• Sentence Starters Ks2 Worksheets Resources

Sentence openers – Best KS2 worksheets and resources

Help children improve and vary sentence openers in creative, persuasive and essay writing with these activities, ideas, lessons and more…

What are sentence openers?

How to use sentence openers in your classroom, sentence starters classroom display, ks2 sentence starters game, six ways to open a sentence video, sentence starter examples sheet.

Sentence openers, also known as sentence starters, are a word or phrase used to begin any given sentence. It’s useful for children to learn to work on these to vary their language and therefore improve their writing.

Just like people, sentence openers come in many shapes and sizes. Some are a classroom staple and useful for many writing opportunities. Others are created for a more specific purpose. They can help to:

• activate prior knowledge
• give examples
• summarise 

You can use them at any point in the lesson to structure meaningful conversation. They can be useful at the beginning of a piece of writing, in the middle, or even towards the end – whenever you think they will clarify learning or aid progress.  

Lose those exasperated refrains of “I don’t know what to write”, and get pupils off to a flying start with these irresistible sentence openers for KS2 from Collette Waddle…

I’ve been a teacher for nearly 20 years, and almost every educator I know has suffered this pain: delivering what you believe is an engaging, stimulating, practically BAFTA-winning introduction to writing, only to be met with “I don’t know what to write,” or “What are we doing?”.

So often, the difficulty comes not from writing in general, but rather getting pupils to  start  writing. Enter sentence openers for KS2.

We all know those pupils that struggle to write, and often it’s the ones that don’t read a lot. There are many reasons for this correlation, but I think one key factor is that they don’t have that bank of imaginative ideas that reading provides, to dip into.

Sentence openers are great for providing these ideas that allow children to get going. For me, they’ve been a game-changer.

I made up a few within a lesson one day and popped them on the working wall . It was a ‘spur of the moment’ idea, but it really worked.

“Sentence openers are great for providing these ideas that allow children to get going”

The less confident children used them, found a voice and began to engage, safe in the knowledge that they were on the right track. Others even added their own suggestions.  

So, how did it work?  

If you haven’t come across them much before, sentence openers, also known as sentence stems, give all pupils the chance to contribute, orally or in writing, while using complete sentences.

They’ll help the children begin their composition, while (sneakily) encouraging practice of the vocabulary and grammar conventions you want them to learn.   

Using sentence openers successfully

Create .

When thinking about writing genres, create your starters and always include genre-related key vocabulary, phrases and language structures. Start small and keep sessions speedy, oral and fun at first. 

Adapt 

Once pupils have mastered using them,  download these ready-made sentence starter clipboards .  Use as they are, or adapt to suit your style, teaching, children or aims. You choose. Just be sure to build in progression. 

Model 

Show pupils how to use sentence starters. Don’t just focus on the writing, but the thinking, the choosing, and the ‘hmmm, that one doesn’t quite work, I need to change it’ moments.

Model changing your mind, and the messy planning and writing process: just do it with the sentence starters as part of the journey. 

Practise 

Review the starters you use regularly, and provide examples of how children could potentially complete some of them (oral or written). Complete a couple deliberately wrong and watch the fireworks!

Can children identify what’s wrong with the rest of the sentence? Can they correct it? Create opportunities for practice.   

Review 

Once pupils are confident with sentence starters, they can share their ideas. You can critique results, giving kind, constructive feedback.

A crucial piece of advice to give to pupils is: “Vary your sentence starters.” Even with strong sentence openers, writing becomes bland if they overuse the same ones. Encourage variation.

Write your own bland version and read it out in a monotone voice, just to drive home the point. 

Revisit (regularly) 

Plan regular revisits. To encourage progression, challenge pupils with sentence starters that are just above their current assessment level. Make them work for it!  

Sentence openers activities to try

As well as making sure you’re following the right processes, engaging activities can also help bring your writing lessons to life. These are my favourites for helping pupils use sentence starters:  

Connections 

Cut out (or just mix up on a worksheet) a selection of sentence starters and endings. Pupils need to match up each starter with the correct ending.

Are there any starters that work with more than one ending? Why? This activity is great for provoking discussion on the ways we use language.  

Upgrade 

Prepare some sentence starters and give a copy to each pupil. Then, give them two to three minutes to complete each one, using information from recent learning.

After three or four minutes, the children should swap their sentences with a partner and add to or edit the information on their partner’s sheet. After another three or four minutes, pupils should then swap back and review their edited list.  

Sentence starters reboot 

Get pupils to choose a paragraph from an old piece of writing that they want to improve, and  have them redraft it  using sentence starters.

Encourage them to focus on choosing the starters that are going to provide the best flow, will have the best impact, and will make their writing the best it can be.

This is a good opportunity to discuss who the intended audience of the writing is, and whether children can figure out which type of sentence starters will work best.

For example, are they trying to:

• introduce  something?
• support an  argument?
• give  examples ?
• summarise  a point of view? 

News at 10 

This follows on well from ‘sentence starter reboot’, and involves pupils presenting their writing as a news report, using the appropriate sentence structures.

You could even turn your classroom into a news studio and have the children take it in turns to read their work, and give each other constructive feedback.  

Prior knowledge tap 

For this activity, give the children a time limit and see how many sentence starters they can come up with. You could try prompting them with questions like: “ How many sentence starters that you would expect to see in a set of instructions can you write in four minutes?”  

Interactive dice 

Try adding sentence starters for KS2 onto interactive dice, so pupils have a fun way to practise their vocabulary. In groups of three or four, depending on the size of your class, each pupil takes a turn rolling the die, and then the rest of the group need to come up with different possible endings to the starter that has been rolled.

The bonus is that these are easy to adapt, depending on your class needs or learning aims.  

Collette Waddle is a UKS2 teacher and resource creator. Follow her on Twitter  @ColletteR .

This classroom display pack from Plazoom features a set of six posters illustrating different ways to begin a sentence, using eye-catching images surrounded by example sentences – verb, adverb, simile, preposition, conjunction and onomatopoeia.

Plus, blank versions of the posters are also included, so children and teachers can add their own text suggestion.

With this KS2 grammar game from Plazoom you can help children explore different ways of starting sentences.

In it, there are two sets of cards: the blue cards contain examples of adverbs , conjunctions, onomatopoeia, prepositions, questions, similes and verbs that can be used to start a sentence, while the yellow cards contains clauses which can be added to the blue sentence starters.

If you don’t mind the overly dramatic American narrator, this video handily walks children through opening sentences with the subject, where or when something happens, questions, an ‘-ing’ phrase, verbs ending in ‘-ed’ and ‘-ly’ words.

Each one is backed up with examples and is clearly explained for students to follow and use.

This eight-page PDF of sentence openers sorts its examples into six different styles of writing, such as diary writing , information texts and recounts, then provides a selection of options for each.

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To vary sentence openers

Switch to our new english teaching resources.

Slide decks, worksheets, quizzes and lesson planning guidance designed for your classroom.

Lesson details

Key learning points.

• In this lesson, we will be introduced to fronted adverbials and think about how to use them in order to make our writing varied. We will also self-assess our own work as tool for reflection.

This content is made available by Oak National Academy Limited and its partners and licensed under Oak’s terms & conditions (Collection 1), except where otherwise stated.

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Unit english / the bird and the forest fire: recycled story (middles).

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Sentence Openers Posters for Creative Writing Inspiration - KS2 Classroom Displays

Resource Collection Classroom Display

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This classroom display pack contains a series of six posters illustrating different sentence starters in KS2 that could be used when writing: with an adverb, conjunction, preposition, simile, verb or with onomatopoeia. Each poster combines an image prompt and several clear examples to support grammar explanations and writing activities at KS2.

Blank versions of each poster are also included for pupils to add their own examples as part of a working wall .

What are good sentence starters?

Sentences can begin in a number of ways using a range of sentence openers . This classroom display provides examples of a variety of ways that sentences can begin.

• Adverbs (words that modify verbs and also adjectives, other adverbs or whole sentences)

Soon, a crowd gathered to watch Milo.

Slowly, the seconds ticked past.

• Conjunctions (words that link words, phrases or clauses and can be co-ordinating or subordinating)

While Barney handed over the present, the lion pounced.

Since the lion rarely had visitors, he got excited when Barney arrived.

• Onomatopoeia (a word that sounds like the sound it names)

Click went the lever as it was released.

Whoosh - the rocket whizzed into the air.

• Prepositions (words that shows the position, direction, timing or link between a noun, pronoun or noun phrase to the rest of the sentence)

Before the fall, the day had been very quiet.

On the street below, bystanders stared in disbelief.

• Similes ( a figure of speech comparing one thing to another using the words ‘like’ or ‘as’)

Like wounded birds , the tomato slices dropped to the counter.

As fast as lightening, the blade cut through the air.

• Verbs (words that identify an action, thought or feeling in a sentence)

Smiling happily, Jennifer took the picture.

Clicking constantly, Jennifer took hundreds of photographs.

What is included in this sentence starters classroom display pack?

• 6 complete, illustrated A4 posters, each showing one approach to starting a sentence with up to six written examples.
• 6 Blank A4 posters , to which students can add their own sentence starter suggestions as part of an English working wall.
• PDF assets containing designed headers, example sentences and blank speech/thought bubbles to use with the blank posters.
• Giant versions of the A4 posters to create larger classroom displays
• Teacher notes

Visit our Classroom Display Collection for more inspiring resources to support teaching and learning in your classroom.

National Curriculum English programme of study links

Years 3 / 4 Writing - composition

Pupils should be taught to : Years 5 / 6 Writing - composition

• evaluate and edit by assessing the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing and suggesting improvements

Pupils should be taught to :

• draft and write by selecting appropriate grammar and vocabulary, understanding how such choices can change and enhance meaning
• evaluate and edit by assessing the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing

This resource is part of the Classroom Display collection. View more from this collection

• teacher notes
• completed posters
• posters with no text
• giant posters

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Resources you can trust

Sentence openers placemat

A comprehensive sentence openers placemat for primary KS2 children to learn and use in their own work. This handy resource can be printed and used as a checklist in class on the wall or stuck into books.

What's included

• FREE printable placemat with a selection of sentence openers in five categories: time, adding detail, comparison, location, and organizing.
• An editable Word doc version for easy differentiation and customisation. (Subscribers only).

How to use the sentence openers

This sentence openers placemat can be printed and used as a wall checklist or stuck into books as a quick reference guide. Encourage students to refer to it during writing tasks to enhance their sentence structures and add variety to their work. This placemat is a valuable tool in helping students develop their writing skills.

Looking for more like this?

Discover more sentence resources in our Grammar collection, or try:

• Dinosaur sentences
• Sentence builder
• Sentence detective

A sample extract from the resource:

Location sentence openers

In the foreground

In the distance

In a distant land

At the end of

Opposite the

In front of

Adjacent to

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At Montpellier Danse, Leaning Into New Work as the Void Looms

The festival, the final one for its longtime director, started with a bravura work by Wayne McGregor that was at once otherworldly and deeply human.

By Roslyn Sulcas

Reporting from Montpellier, France

The abyss, the womb, the fathomless depths of sea and space. These are the settings for Wayne McGregor’s new “Deepstaria,” in which nine dancers float and spin, buckle and collapse, regenerate and reform, in a protean display of technical virtuosity and human fragility.

“Deepstaria” had its premiere on Saturday night as the opener of the 44th Montpellier Danse festival , one of the most important events on the European dance scene.

This year’s festival, which runs through July 6, is the last directed by Jean-Paul Montanari, who has been shaping Montpellier Danse since 1983, nearly the entirety of its history. (The festival was founded in 1981.) For his final turn, he has done something unusual for Montpellier: programmed almost entirely new or recently created work. Although it is difficult to think about the beauties of dance when “faced with the horrors of the world,” he writes in the program, artists live to make work: “A festival without creation isn’t a festival, it’s a catalog.” (There is no word yet on Montanari’s successor.)

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Persuasive Writing - Upper KS2 Knowledge Organiser!

Subject: English

Age range: 7-11

Resource type: Assessment and revision

Last updated

25 January 2022

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This clear, detailed and visually-appealing resource offers a complete reference point for upper KS2 children when writing persuasively. The organiser is also perfect for teachers, parents and English subject leaders - aiding their planning and supporting of children’s knowledge development for this writing text type.

The organiser has a particular focus on the content, language and structural features required to write effective persuasive texts at Years 5/6. It contains distinct sections covering:

-An Overview of Persuasive Texts; -Content: Adverts, Appeals, Speeches, Letters and Emails; -Language:Vocabulary Choices, Rhetorical Questions, Imperative Verbs, Alliteration, Personal Pronouns, Sentence Openers, Conjunctions, Punctuation Checklist and Word Mat; -Structure - Titles, Paragraphing, Images, Whole-Text Cohesion and other tips; -Key Vocabulary

The content is fully aligned with the age-related expectations for upper KS2 children in writing. The resource is designed to be printed onto A3, and is provided as both a PDF and a Word version (so that you can edit if you want to). All images used are licensed for commercial use and are cited on a separate document (included).

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Persuasive Writing - Primary Knowledge Organisers Bundle!

These clear, detailed and visually-appealing resources offer a complete reference point for primary teachers, parents and English subject leaders when delivering persuasive writing units. They also double-up as a handy help-mat for children throughout their persuasive writing planning and writing attempts. Each organiser has a particular focus on the content, language and structural features required to write effective traditional tales, and contain distinct sections covering: -An Overview of Persuasive Texts; -Content: Adverts, Appeals, Speeches, Letters and Emails; -Language:Vocabulary Choices, Rhetorical Questions, Imperative Verbs, Alliteration, Personal Pronouns, Sentence Openers, Conjunctions, Punctuation Checklist and Word Mat; -Structure - Titles, Paragraphing, Images, Whole-Text Cohesion and other tips; -Key Vocabulary The content is fully aligned with the National Curriculum age-related expectations for children across Years 1-6 in writing. They are designed to be printed onto A3 (although they can be printed onto A4), and are provided as both a PDF and a Word version (so that you can edit if you want to). All images used are licensed for commercial use.

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