A 3-week, fully resourced primary literacy unit based on Code Name Bananas by David Walliams. KS2 Fiction. National-Curriculum-aligned grammar, WT/ARE/GD differentiation, and ready to teach.

What’s inside

This complete English unit gives you everything for three weeks of high-quality teaching, designed to match the standard of leading primary schemes (Literacy Tree, Write Stuff, Power of Reading).

• 15 lesson PowerPoints — illustrated cover slides, success criteria, vocabulary previews, modelled writing, “big questions” (Bloom’s-laddered), differentiation tiers, plenary, and reflection.
• 15 differentiated resource sheets — Working Towards, Age-Related Expectations, and Greater Depth, with sentence frames, word banks, and writing frames.
• Complete teacher unit plan — unit overview, key themes, model texts, full session-by-session plans, key questions, assessment focus, and vocabulary focus.
• Child-friendly mark scheme — “I can…” success criteria for the final writing piece, ready for self- and peer-assessment.
• 3 weekly exit tickets — 5 multiple-choice questions per week, with teacher answer keys.

Final writing outcome

A wartime-comic narrative: the story of Eric, an eleven-year-old boy living in Blitz-era London, who attempts a daring midnight rescue of Gertrude the gorilla from London Zoo before she is put down for fear of bombs releasing dangerous animals onto the streets. Pupils write the planning of the rescue and the rescue itself, in two clear paragraph groups, with comic-tender voice, real dialogue between Eric and his Uncle Sid, and the threat of the Blitz felt above their heads.

Grammar features (Year 3 NC-aligned)

• Subordination using the conjunctions ‘when’ and ‘because’.
• Inverted commas to punctuate direct speech.

Themes explored

Wartime London and the Blitz, Kindness shown to animals in wartime, Family bonds across generations, Comic adventure under fear.

Key vocabulary

Blackout, evacuation, siren, blitz, enclosure, wartime, courageous, stowaway.

Format & compatibility

• Editable PowerPoint (.pptx) and Word (.docx) files.
• UK English spelling.
• One printer-friendly A4 page per resource sheet.
• Compatible with Literacy Tree, Write Stuff, and Power of Reading planning approaches.

Year groups & key stage

• Year 3 (KS2).
• 15 sessions over 3 weeks (≈45–60 minutes per lesson).

Tags

KS2, Year 3, English, fiction, David Walliams, reading and writing, complete unit, differentiated, NC-aligned, lesson plans, resources, code name bananas