Set in an unnamed country, this is a timely and important book, which illuminates the realities of life as a refugee. The first-person narration simply but powerfully conveys Shif’s terror at the violence and cruelty he encounters, as well as his sense of loss. The horrors he is escaping are all too real, but this is ultimately a story about the power of kindness and the strength of the human spirit.
This six-week English unit of work has been written for Years 5 and 6 (aged 9-11). It contains 30 x 1 hour English lesson plans, which include differentiated, engaging activities and top teaching tips. The scheme includes all the resources you will need ready for you to print off including differentiated activities, success criteria, WAGOLLs (writing models) and word mats.
During the unit many vocabulary and grammar techniques are covered: emotive and figurative language; semicolons, colons and dashes; and cohesive devises. The children will have regular shorter writing tasks such as letter writing from the main character to his little sister, a recount and free verse poetry. The children will also have a longer writing task (a biography of the main character) to embed their grammar learning.
If that wasn’t enough, our scheme includes beautiful hand-drawn images and bespoke teaching videos to engage your children further.
This heart-wrenching and uplifting book will stay with you and your class forever.
*Please note that this is week 1 of the 6-week scheme. The whole scheme can be downloaded from Teaching From Text’s website. *
Pushkin Children’s Books, author - Ele Fountain, cover designer - Katie Everson
Efua Traoré wrote ‘Children of the Quicksands’: a thrilling adventure story set in Nigeria filled with magic, myths, legends, goddesses, culture, music, courage, pride and friendship.
Teaching From Text absolutely loved writing this six-week scheme of work to accompany Efua Traoré’s book, ‘Children of the Quicksands’. This download is Week 1 from the scheme.
The full six-week scheme of work has followed the DfE’s June 2021 guidance by creating plans and resources which encourage the children to complete shorter writing tasks to allow pupils to focus on sentence structure. Throughout the 30 English lessons, the children will be completely immersed in the rich and challenging text! They will get to know the characters, setting and storyline through grammar activities such as expanded noun phrases; relative clauses; commas, dashes and brackets to indicate parenthesis; modal verbs and adverbs to indicate degrees of possibility and learning about active and passive verbs. Their lessons will be engaging and varied including drama, links to art and a debate.
Alongside shorter writing tasks, the children will apply their grammar skills in a letter from the main character to her mother and a persuasive argument based around an emotive decision in the book.
As with all our schemes of work, our resources are fully differentiated, illustrated with hand-drawn images of the incredible characters, all lesson plans are detailed (but easy to follow) and include bespoke teaching videos using themes and characters from the book to help you teach tricky grammar concepts.
The whole scheme can be downloaded from Teaching From Text’s website.
Front Cover design by Helen Crawford-White
This is WEEK 1 of a 6 week scheme of work which has been centred around ‘Breaker’ by Annemarie Allan. It tells the story of twins, Tom and Beth, who have recently moved to a coastal town where a tanker has collided with a rock, leaving it at risk of creating a huge oil spill! The twins befriend a rather intriguing character – a Professor – who leads them to become involved within interesting environmental adventures throughout the text. This 30 x 1 hour English Scheme of Work is written for Years 5 and 6. All Learning Intentions come from the National Curriculum for Reading, Writing, Vocabulary, Grammar and Punctuation for Upper Key Stage 2.
During this unit, the children have three extended writing tasks:
• News Report
• Narrative Writing
• Persuasion Text
Many grammar objectives are also covered throughout the scheme in engaging and informative ways. These include expanded noun phrases, direct and indirect speech, modal verbs, perfect form of verbs, devices to build cohesion, selecting appropriate grammar and vocabulary, as well as identifying spelling and punctuation errors.
In addition to this, the scheme also covers many of the Years 5 and 6 reading objectives, including drawing inferences, predicting, summarising, identifying how language, structure and presentation contribute to meaning and exploring the meaning of words in context.
This scheme will save teachers a lot of planning and preparation time! Every single resource you will need for the whole six weeks is provided within the scheme. This includes differentiated activities, research sheets for the children, posters for the Working Wall, handouts for the children, success criteria checklists and high-quality written examples of the extended writing expectations. Finally, all resource illustrations are hand-drawn, and the scheme also includes bespoke teaching videos to engage the children.
Annemarie Allen also provides virtual author visits via the Cranachan Publishing website.
The whole scheme can be downloaded from Teaching From Text’s website.
About this Scheme of Work
This is week 1 of a seven- week scheme of work.
This English seven-week scheme of work has been centred around ‘The Leopard in the Golden Cage’ by Julia Edwards. It is a fantastically engaging text which tells the story of young Joe, who mysteriously time travels back to Roman Britain when he visits the ruins of a Roman Palace! Here, he forms a strong friendship with Lucy – a daughter from an important Roman family who lived in the Palace during Roman times. With Joe travelling back and forth, without control, the story unfolds containing many twists and turns! This 35 x 1 hour English Scheme of Work is written for Year 4. All Learning Intentions come from the National Curriculum for Reading, Writing, Vocabulary, Grammar and Punctuation for Lower Key Stage 2.
During this unit, the children have three extended writing tasks:
• Letter Writing
• Non-Chronological Report
• Narrative
Many grammar objectives are also covered throughout the scheme, which have been designed to engage the children as they develop their understanding. These objectives include adverbs or manner and time, fronted adverbials, expanded noun phrases, time and cause conjunctions and using and punctuating direct speech.
Furthermore, the scheme also covers many of the Year 4 reading objectives, including inference, summarising, explaining the meaning of words in context, using words that capture a reader’s attention, retrieving and recording non-fiction information, predicting, participating in discussions, and finally, identifying themes across the text.
This scheme will save teachers a whole term of planning and preparation time for English lessons! Every single lesson plan and resource you will need for the whole seven weeks is provided for you. The scheme includes a variety of resources which are all ready to print off and use! This includes differentiated activities, research sheets for the children, posters for the Working Wall, handouts for the children, success criteria checklists and high-quality written examples of the extended writing expectations. And if this wasn’t enough, all of the resource illustrations are hand-drawn, as well as the scheme containing bespoke teaching videos, both of which engage the children.
Julia Edwards offers school visits and Zoom visits from her Scar Gatherer website.
The whole scheme can be downloaded from Teaching From Text’s website.
Welcome to our three-week fully resourced English planning based on ‘Omar, the Bees and Me’ by Helen Mortimer. The fifteen fully resourced English lessons have been specifically written for Year 2 children. Throughout the English scheme of work, the children will learn fascinating facts about bees and use their knowledge to write a non-chronological report about honey bees. Following this, your class will be buzzing with excitement when they get to make their own honey cake and write a set of instructions for other people to follow their recipe.
Our English plans are a hive of resources: teaching videos intricately linked to the text covering grammar concepts, differentiated activities, whiteboard slides, word banks and a whole hive of visual prompts and scaffolding for the learners in your class.
This fully resourced English scheme of work is beautiful as a stand-alone unit of work, or it might be just what you are looking for to link your English lessons to your topic if you are studying ‘Animals including humans’ or ‘Minibeasts’.
Please note that this download is lesson 1 and lesson 2. The whole scheme can be downloaded from Teaching From Text’s website.
Year 2 teachers, it’s time to unwrap your Christmas gift! Enjoy the enchanting book, ‘Where Bjorn Belongs’ by Samuel Langley-Swain, through our creative English Christmas planning for Year 2. Your class will be writing letters to Father Christmas as the main character Arthur, promising to keep his new polar bear safe. They will be creating posters about the Arctic, thinking of creative ways to keep Bjorn – the polar bear in the story – cold and will even transform into Father Christmas through role play.
So, take the pressure off the end of term and let the magic unfold!
This is lesson one from the week’s scheme. The whole scheme can be downloaded from Teaching From Text’s website.
Our Christmas gift to you, Year 1 teachers, is a free scheme of work based on the beautiful book, ‘Where Bjorn Belongs’ by Samuel Langley-Swain. Using our Christmas planning for Year 1, your class will be writing letters to Father Christmas as the main character, Arthur, asking for a new polar bear. They will be thinking of creative ways to keep the polar bear cold and will even be learning about the Arctic!
So, take the pressure off the end of term and enjoy this gift of time.
This is lesson one of the free week. The whole scheme can be downloaded from Teaching From Text’s website.
Our thirty fully resourced English lessons for Years 3 and 4 are based upon the enchanting book, ‘Nell and the Cave Bear’ by Martin Brown. This is a light-hearted, humorous and exciting book set in the Stone Age. Your class will step back into the Stone Age to follow Nell, a fiercely protective young girl who is determined to travel to the ends of the earth to protect her best friend, Cave Bear.
The FREE download includes the first five fully resourced lessons. The remainder of the fully resourced English planning can be downloaded from Teaching From Text’s website.
We invite you to download week 1 of our fully resourced rivers English planning based on ‘Song of the River’ for FREE. Times are tough for Cari and her mum. A violent storm has flooded the valley where they live, destroying their home and café business. Could reintroducing beavers to the area prevent another devastating flood?
About the full scheme
Within our fully resourced English planning based on the environmental novel, ‘Song of the River’ by Gill Lewis, we have 30 x 1 hour English lessons for Years 3 and 4 (P4 and 5). Our fully resourced English planning includes easy to follow lesson plans, teaching videos linking the text to tricky grammar concepts, modelled texts, engaging images and creative activities centered around adaptive teaching. Throughout the six weeks, your class will complete three extended pieces of work: a narrative, a non-chronological report and a persuasive text.
So come and join Cari as she fights to protect the landscape, her home and her mum’s livelihood.
You can download the six weeks of fully resourced English planning from www.teachingfromtext.com
When Ettie’s world gets turned upside down, she does everything she can to survive in Victorian London. Follow Ettie, and her brother Joe, as they navigate the harsh conditions for children, pick pocketing and … the consequences!
We have six-weeks of fully resourced English planning (based on ‘Fagin’s Girl’ by Karen McCombie) ready to make your trip back to Victorian Britain stress free! Included in the 30 x 1 hour lesson plans (written for Years 3 and 4 – P4 and P5) are teaching videos intricately linking the storyline with grammar teaching; modelled texts; creative activities with adaptive teaching strategies; and engaging images throughout. Your class will complete three extended pieces of writing over the six weeks: instructional writing, a non-chronological report and a newspaper article.
So, download now and transport your class back to London 1836.