A whole-class guided reading unit of eight lessons based on the brilliant short story ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’ by Ambrose Bierce. This is a perfect fiction unit of guided reading lessons aimed at Year 6 pupils. Lesson 1: Like all the guided reading planning on Class Helper, the first lesson is a knowledge harvest. In this lesson the pupils will mindmap their associations with the words in the title before making initial predictions of what will happen in the story. Lesson 2: In this lesson we are shown the opening scene of the story, with the main character about to be hanged from the side of a bridge, for crimes we haven’t yet discovered. Pupils will note down everything they know so far from this extract, giving them a firm understanding of the setting and prompting them to make predictions. Lesson 3: Pupils will answer retrieval questions on the text, using P.E.E. (point, evidence, explain) that is introduced in this lesson. Learning and practising P.E.E. is a useful skill, not just for answering guided reading questions, or for SATs questions, but is a great skill to hone for writing essays and forming strong paragraphs. For a display poster that works alongside this lesson, click here. Lesson 4: The class will discover the crime that Peyton Fahrquhar committed and describe and contrast the emotions of the main character between the flashback and him standing on the bridge, awaiting his punishment. Lesson 5: We read more of the story and see how Peyton falls to his death, but at the last second, the rope breaks and he falls into the water below. The pupils will underline and annotate the text and then use this information to draw a picture of the main character in the water now he’s miraculously saved. Lesson 6: In this lesson, pupils will underline the adjectives used in the text and use thesauruses to find synonyms and antonyms of these words. Lesson 7: Peyton has managed to get free of the noose and is swimming away from the bridge as cannons and rifles hit the water around him. The class will take this tension-filled moment to consider the character’s thoughts and emotions by hot-seating the character. Lesson 8: The final lesson will see one of the greatest twists in fiction. The main character reaches his home, and is about to embrace his wife, when a sudden darkness hits him, and we realise he was only imagining his escape while falling from the bridge. The class will plot his emotions onto a graph (worksheet provided with the download) and explain why they have made their choices. The download includes fully editable Word document success criteria for every lesson, text extracts for each lesson, PowerPoints and a unit plan for guidance, along with display items you can put on your guided reading board.

All of the reading expectations for year 2 pupils drawn from the new national curriculum. It’s been split into three columns: working towards, working at and working above the expectations for the year group. I use these after completing end of term tests and date or tick the aspects in the grid that they have achieved independently, helping you to gain a more accurate picture of what the pupil understands and find any gaps in their knowledge. Reading targets for Years 1 - 6 can be found on my profile and all of these can be purchased in a bundle for the bargain price of just £4 (saving you enough money for a couple of celebratory sausage rolls from Greggs)! Alongside this, similar assessment grids are available on my profile for maths, writing, science and foundation subjects. In conjunction with these grids, I have several whole class guided reading units that are guaranteed to engage your pupils - with texts that cover everything from the history of Spam through to war poetry.

Every GPS definition you’ll need to display to your class of little angels (or devils - cohorts do vary after all). All display resources are given as both a PDF and an editable .pub. Buy KS1, LKS2 and UKS2 for £2 each (click on my profile to find the individual display packs) or buy the whole set for the reasonable sum of £5 - saving yourself £1 that could be used to buy a long stick with which you could pat yourself on the back for buying such a fantastic display resource.

Every GPS definition you’ll need to display to your class of little angels (or devils - cohorts do vary after all). The display resource is given as both a PDF and an editable .pub. This is part of a GPS definition set for a whole school. Buy KS1, LKS2 and UKS2 for £1 each or buy the whole set for the reasonable sum of £2.50 - saving yourself enough money that could be used to buy a long stick with which you could pat yourself on the back for buying such a fantastic display resource.

Every GPS definition you’ll need to display to your class of little angels (or devils - cohorts do vary after all). The display resource is given as both a PDF and an editable .pub. This is part of a GPS definition set for a whole school. Buy KS1, LKS2 and UKS2 for £1 each or buy the whole set for the reasonable sum of £2.50 - saving yourself enough money that could be used to buy a long stick with which you could pat yourself on the back for buying such a fantastic display resource.

Every GPS definition you’ll need to display to your class of little angels (or devils - cohorts do vary after all). The display resource is given as both a PDF and an editable .pub. This is part of a GPS definition set for a whole school. Buy KS1, LKS2 and UKS2 for £1 each or buy the whole set for the reasonable sum of £2.50 - saving yourself enough money that could be used to buy a long stick with which you could pat yourself on the back for buying such a fantastic display resource.

This is the third lesson in a six-lesson unit of whole class guided reading which focuses on war poetry from World War 1. Perfect for KS2 (I personally delivered these lessons to my class of years 5/6). Individual lessons are priced at £1 but the full unit of lessons is only £4. Each lesson includes all the resources ready to deliver a fantastic session: a PowerPoint presentation (with difficult language already explained), any worksheets or texts needed for the children and differentiated Success Criteria! Also, remember that all PowerPoint presentations can be opened using ActivInspire (send me a message if you need help exporting the file!) The unit will cover the following areas: Lesson 1 - discussing the genre and predicting the features of the poems Lesson 2 - summarising the events in Wilfred Owen’s 'Dulce et Decorum Est’ Lesson 3 - pupils will take learning into their own hands and study one of Siegfried Sassoon’s famous war poems: ‘How to Die’, ‘Suicide in the Trenches’ or ‘Absolution’ Lesson 4 - in this lesson, the class will be comparing the poems they’ve already read with Jessie Pope’s pro-war poem ‘The Call’. This is a great lesson for discussions on the themes of pro and anti-war poetry! The questions are scaffolded with the sentence stems provided for their answers Lesson 5 - for a different twist on the theme, this lesson will be looking at Ted Hughes’ ‘Platform One’ and the children will be visualising the poem by drawing key scenes from it Lesson 6 - one final look at the work of Wilfred Owen and the fantastic ‘The Sentry’. Pupils will develop their ability to skim, scan and close-read by working out if the statements are true or false

This is the first lesson in a six-lesson unit of whole class guided reading which focuses on war poetry from World War 1. Perfect for KS2 (I personally delivered these lessons to my class of years 5/6). Individual lessons are priced at £1 but the full unit of lessons is only £4. Each lesson includes all the resources ready to deliver a fantastic session: a PowerPoint presentation (with difficult language already explained), any worksheets or texts needed for the children and differentiated Success Criteria! Also, remember that all PowerPoint presentations can be opened using ActivInspire (send me a message if you need help exporting the file!) The unit will cover the following areas: Lesson 1 - discussing the genre and predicting the features of the poems Lesson 2 - summarising the events in Wilfred Owen’s 'Dulce et Decorum Est’ Lesson 3 - pupils will take learning into their own hands and study one of Siegfried Sassoon’s famous war poems: ‘How to Die’, ‘Suicide in the Trenches’ or ‘Absolution’ Lesson 4 - in this lesson, the class will be comparing the poems they’ve already read with Jessie Pope’s pro-war poem ‘The Call’. This is a great lesson for discussions on the themes of pro and anti-war poetry! The questions are scaffolded with the sentence stems provided for their answers Lesson 5 - for a different twist on the theme, this lesson will be looking at Ted Hughes’ ‘Platform One’ and the children will be visualising the poem by drawing key scenes from it Lesson 6 - one final look at the work of Wilfred Owen and the fantastic ‘The Sentry’. Pupils will develop their ability to skim, scan and close-read by working out if the statements are true or false

This is the sixth and final lesson in a six-lesson unit of whole class guided reading which focuses on war poetry from World War 1. Perfect for KS2 (I personally delivered these lessons to my class of years 5/6). Individual lessons are priced at £1 but the full unit of lessons is only £4. Each lesson includes all the resources ready to deliver a fantastic session: a PowerPoint presentation (with difficult language already explained), any worksheets or texts needed for the children and differentiated Success Criteria! Also, remember that all PowerPoint presentations can be opened using ActivInspire (send me a message if you need help exporting the file!) The unit will cover the following areas: Lesson 1 - discussing the genre and predicting the features of the poems Lesson 2 - summarising the events in Wilfred Owen’s 'Dulce et Decorum Est’ Lesson 3 - pupils will take learning into their own hands and study one of Siegfried Sassoon’s famous war poems: ‘How to Die’, ‘Suicide in the Trenches’ or ‘Absolution’ Lesson 4 - in this lesson, the class will be comparing the poems they’ve already read with Jessie Pope’s pro-war poem ‘The Call’. This is a great lesson for discussions on the themes of pro and anti-war poetry! The questions are scaffolded with the sentence stems provided for their answers Lesson 5 - for a different twist on the theme, this lesson will be looking at Ted Hughes’ ‘Platform One’ and the children will be visualising the poem by drawing key scenes from it Lesson 6 - one final look at the work of Wilfred Owen and the fantastic ‘The Sentry’. Pupils will develop their ability to skim, scan and close-read by working out if the statements are true or false

This is the fifth lesson in a six-lesson unit of whole class guided reading which focuses on war poetry from World War 1. Perfect for KS2 (I personally delivered these lessons to my class of years 5/6). Individual lessons are priced at £1 but the full unit of lessons is only £4. Each lesson includes all the resources ready to deliver a fantastic session: a PowerPoint presentation (with difficult language already explained), any worksheets or texts needed for the children and differentiated Success Criteria! Also, remember that all PowerPoint presentations can be opened using ActivInspire (send me a message if you need help exporting the file!) The unit will cover the following areas: Lesson 1 - discussing the genre and predicting the features of the poems Lesson 2 - summarising the events in Wilfred Owen’s 'Dulce et Decorum Est’ Lesson 3 - pupils will take learning into their own hands and study one of Siegfried Sassoon’s famous war poems: ‘How to Die’, ‘Suicide in the Trenches’ or ‘Absolution’ Lesson 4 - in this lesson, the class will be comparing the poems they’ve already read with Jessie Pope’s pro-war poem ‘The Call’. This is a great lesson for discussions on the themes of pro and anti-war poetry! The questions are scaffolded with the sentence stems provided for their answers Lesson 5 - for a different twist on the theme, this lesson will be looking at Ted Hughes’ ‘Platform One’ and the children will be visualising the poem by drawing key scenes from it Lesson 6 - one final look at the work of Wilfred Owen and the fantastic ‘The Sentry’. Pupils will develop their ability to skim, scan and close-read by working out if the statements are true or false