A 3-week, fully resourced primary literacy unit based on Smith by Leon Garfield. 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

An eighteenth-century London narrative recounting the moment a young pickpocket realises that the document hidden inside his jacket is the very thing that has put a price on his head — written in formal historical register, weaving passive constructions, the subjunctive of suspicion, semicolons for parallel danger, and colons that open onto the next stage of the chase.

Grammar features (Year 6 NC-aligned)

• The passive voice for formal and historical register.
• The subjunctive mood to express doubt, condition and hypothesis.

Themes explored

Georgian London at its grittiest — the rookeries, the gin-shops, the gallows shadow, Child survival on the margins — Smith and his sisters in the cellars of Saint Giles, The document that means death — a single folded paper that puts a price on a child’s head, Kindness across class — the blind magistrate who cannot see Smith but learns to know him, Trust earned without sight — the moral test of judging a person by voice, gait and word alone.

Key vocabulary

Rookery, pickpocket, magistrate, fugitive, deposition, gallows, tallow, stagecoach.

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

Tags

KS2, Year 6, English, fiction, Leon Garfield, reading and writing, complete unit, differentiated, NC-aligned, lesson plans, resources, smith