5 practical tips on how to be successful at ICAS Writing

Despite the arrival of powerful AI tools, writing remains a crucial skill for everyone – especially young people.

It’s one of the main ways we communicate with each other in every walk of life – academically, professionally, and personally – so being able to write clearly and effectively is an essential skill. And always will be!

If your child is putting their skills to the test in our upcoming ICAS Writing competition, these are some time-tested tips for them to achieve their best possible score.

1. Write, write, write

When learning a new skill, practise does a number of amazing things in the brain. It builds stronger connections between nerve cells, builds “insulation” around nerve pathways, and stores repeat movements for easy access, all of which allow the brain to send signals quicker and faster. So if your child constantly practices writing, the signals that their brain is firing (millions of them per second!) become more and more efficient, slowly turning them into better writers.

If you’d like your child to hone their writing skills, practice is the number one way to do it.

2. Read widely

Reading is the second most effective way for your child to become a better writer.

When they read lots of well-written books for around their age group, both fiction and non-fiction, their brains absorb the good sentence structures, pleasing rhythms and cadences, different writing styles, and new words and phrases. And if they read actively, regularly thinking about why they enjoy how something is written, they can adopt and adapt it for their own.

In addition, reading can encourage children to evaluate arguments, identify weak points, and strengthen their sense of logic – all essential critical thinking skills that can help them become not just better writers, but better problem solvers.

3. Practice the tested formats for ICAS Writing

ICAS Writing assesses children using one of these formats:

1. Persuasive writing – composing a review, advert, formal argument, or another form of prose that is written to influence the reader.
2. Narrative – writing a certain stage of a story, like the orientation, complication, a series of events, or resolution.

To improve their chances of getting a high score in ICAS Writing, your child can practice these two styles of writing however they like. You can find more information and examples on the two forms as well as how they’re marked in our assessment framework.

4. Try our three practice tools

We understand that many children strive to excel in ICAS Writing and other subjects, so we’ve created three practice tools to support them.

The first tool is our ICAS past papers. These digital mock tests are compiled from previous ICAS questions and answers, covering the exact skills and knowledge areas assessed in the ICAS exam. This makes them one of the most effective ways to prepare.

The second is RiSE+, an online platform offering dedicated ICAS-style practice tests. Like our past papers, these tests focus on the same core competencies as the actual ICAS assessments, providing targeted and effective preparation to help students achieve higher scores.

The third tool is our sample tests, which familiarize students with the ICAS test environment. While they don’t build test-related skills or knowledge, they help students become more comfortable with the platform’s layout and functionality, ensuring they know what to expect on test day.

5. Don’t take the competition too seriously!

ICAS is designed to challenge and motivate academically curious children – not to stress them out. We know that your child may want to achieve a great result, but the purpose of the competition is really to promote healthy competition among their peers, and have fun while doing it. Our assessment team lovingly creates fresh test questions each year with these goals in mind.

Our advice? Try to follow Saskia’s (left) motivations – a double-medal winner from ICAS 2024:

“[I like ICAS because] it’s fun to exercise my brain and answer questions that are different to school.”