Year 5/6 English
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Autumn Blocks
Using The Proudest Blue and The Boy at the Back of the Class, explore the theme of difference. Use noun phrases to write evocatively. Write formal and informal letters before planning and writing a story on this theme.
Stories on a Theme: Difference
Starting with the excellent Undefeated explore the biographies of black sports people, activists and authors. Learn about cohesion and explore the subjunctive in formal writing before studying Coming to England and writing a short biography of Floella Benjamin.
Biographies: The Undefeated
Read and enjoy a selection of poems from this wonderful anthology. Focus on poetic features and language, looking at their effects on the reader. Explore synonyms and antonyms using dictionaries and thesauruses. Express ideas and thoughts creatively in their own poetry.
Poems on a Theme: Poems from a Green and Blue Planet
Explore this exciting adventure story, examining characterisation and descriptive language. Learn how to integrate dialogue and to use expanded noun phrases. Improvise, draft, write and perform a playscript based on the book.
Adventure Stories: The Girl Who Stole an Elephant
Explore the frozen wilds! Examine text organisation in Shackleton's Journey, write evaluatively using model verbs and punctuate lists. Summarise events depicted in The Great Serum Race and write a newspaper recount.
Recounts: Races in Frozen Places
Using the superb Book of Hopes this block teaches poetry terminology and appreciation. Use relative clauses to create magical places, revise commas and colons and work together to create a class Book of Hopes.
Poems on a Theme: Hope
Spring Blocks
Explore the characterisation and settings in the text and film of Howl's Moving Castle. Compare and contrast the two versions. Write film reviews and fantasy stories. Revise relative clauses and cohesive devices.
Fantasy: Howl's Moving Castle
Take a closer look at the persuasive language used by influencers and advertisers. Look at how degrees of possibility are created and the use of the subjunctive. Write persuasively and create blog posts.
Persuasive Writing: Advertising and Influencing
Be inspired by Philip Gross's wonderful collection of poems Dark Sky Park. Read, discuss and write poems about space, microscopic creatures, volcanoes and storms! Revise expanded noun phrases, colons and semi-colons along the way.
Poems on a Theme: Science
Taking inspiration from Chasing the Sun, study what makes a great short story. Examine characterisation, setting, structure and story 'hooks'. Revise relative clauses and formal and informal language.
Short Stories: African Stories
Starting with Catherine Barr's stunning book, Fourteen Wolves, learn about re-wilding. Revise paragraphs, cohesive devices and active and passive voice. Research and write a report about the reintroduction of a UK species.
Reports: Re-wilding
Using Rachel Rooney's collection, A Kid in my Class, study different poetic forms. Revise adverbs of possibility and modal verbs and use these to write school reports. Write portrait poems in response to those read.
Poems on a Theme: Portrait Poems
Summer Blocks
Explore the brilliant graphic novel When Stars are Scattered, learning about how characters are developed through images and words. Grammar includes writing speech as well as adverbs of possibility and modal verbs.
Graphic Novels: When Stars are Scattered
Discover more about kings and queens of Britain and write an information text about a chosen monarch. Look at formal and informal writing in different texts and learn about the active and passive voice.
Information Texts: Kings and Queens
Read and explore a selection of classic poems using drama and art and revise poetry terms. Revise adverbs of possibility and modal verbs and explore formal and informal register. Write a poem about childhood memories.
Classic Poems: Selected by Michael Rosen
Get lost in Katherine Rundell's wonderful book The Explorer, focusing on character and plot. Revise relative clauses and formal and informal language. Write an exciting new chapter inspired by the book.
Adventure Stories: The Explorer
Tackle the tricky issue of Fake News with this excellent block. Learn technical vocabulary, examine texts, carry out fact-checking and write a guide to help others. Incorporates modal verbs and adverbs and organisational devices.
Instructions and Explanations: Fake News
