This article explores the following questions: What do Year 5 teachers identify as factors affecting students' writing performance in schooling?; Collectively, what do the teacher-generated factors tell about the different ways that student writers may be situated to engage with the school writing requirements?; What do the factors tell about how teachers may be situated to assess writing performance?; And, what are the implications for practice and literacy education policy, given the prevailing narrow construction of teacher accountability as being centrally concerned with measurable outcomes?