*NEW* Billy’s Bucket – Story Writing Unit (7–8 Sessions)

Inclusive English planning with sensory storytelling and creative writing
This engaging and practical English unit is based on Billy’s Bucket by Kes Gray and Garry Parsons — a humorous and imaginative story about a boy who chooses a bucket as his most important birthday present. Through prediction, inference, sensory exploration and modelled writing, pupils build understanding of narrative structure before creating their own original story about what might be found inside a special bucket.
The sequence is designed for learners working across Pre-Formal, Semi-Formal, Formal and Formal+ pathways and supports meaningful access to story structure, character feelings and descriptive language, using symbol communication, AAC and practical exploration. Success criteria link directly to SOLAR/EHCP outcomes.
The unit also supports communication through choice-making, social interaction, curiosity and sustained engagement with text.

What’s included
• 7–8 fully planned sessions (reading, discussion & writing tasks)
• Weekly structure:
• Reading session
• Task session
• Family communication session (letter home writing)
• Progressive learning sequence:
• Prediction through object exploration
• Inference from facial expressions and illustrations
• Opinion sharing and sentence building
• Creativity through bucket design and descriptive vocabulary
• Sorting and grouping key information
• Story mapping using time adverbials and key images
• Final written bucket story
• Detailed outcomes and success criteria for all pathways
• Attention Autism incorporated weekly
• Tuff tray sensory provision with linked vocabulary
• Modelling and scaffolded adult support built in
• Clear photographic evidence capture guidance for SOLAR
Curriculum and skill development
• Understanding and recalling events in a familiar story
• Building descriptive vocabulary linked to concrete objects
• Early writing using mark making through to full sentences
• Recognising, sequencing and retelling key events
• Applying punctuation and phonics strategies (Formal+)
• Emotional literacy linked to Zones of Regulation
• Developing independence in reading routines and book handling
• Real-world communication: writing a letter home

Intended outcomes
By the end of the unit, pupils will have:
• Engaged deeply with the text and understood Billy’s feelings about the bucket
• Used visual and environmental prompts to make predictions and inferences
• Mapped the story using key events in sequence
• Created and described their own ‘special bucket’
• Written or co-created a short story using familiar structure and vocabulary
• Demonstrated measurable progress in communication and literacy