English
Autumn 1
🌟 Year 6 English: Star of Fear, Star of Hope
This term, Year 6 will be exploring the powerful and moving picture book Star of Fear, Star of Hope as part of our Pathways to Write learning.
We will use the story to develop our reading and writing skills while thinking carefully about friendship, courage, hope and the experiences of others.
📖 What will we be learning?
Throughout the unit, we will:
- Explore the characters, setting and events in the story.
- Make predictions and ask questions about what we are reading.
- Find clues in the text to understand characters' thoughts and feelings.
- Discuss how writers create atmosphere and emotion.
- Learn how to choose ambitious and effective vocabulary.
- Use figurative language, including similes, metaphors and personification.
- Develop our use of expanded noun phrases and precise descriptive language.
- Use a range of sentence structures to make our writing interesting and effective.
- Practise using punctuation accurately, including commas, brackets, dashes and colons.
- Develop our understanding and use of cohesive devices to link ideas across a piece of writing.
- Think carefully about how we can write from a character's point of view.
✍️ Our writing outcomes
By the end of the unit, we will have created a range of different pieces of writing. These may include:
📝 A diary entry
We will write from a character's point of view, showing their thoughts, feelings and experiences.
🌆 Descriptive writing
We will create vivid descriptions of settings and characters, using carefully chosen vocabulary and figurative language.
💬 Dialogue and character writing
We will explore how characters might speak, think and respond to events, using dialogue effectively.
📖 A longer narrative
We will use everything we have learned to create an engaging piece of storytelling, developing atmosphere, character and emotion.
🔎 Reading like a writer
We will look closely at the author's choices and ask questions such as:
- Why has the author chosen this word?
- How does this make the reader feel?
- What can we infer about the character?
- How has the writer created tension or atmosphere?
- How could we use a similar technique in our own writing?
🎯 Our Year 6 English skills
We will be working towards becoming confident Year 6 writers by developing our ability to:
Vocabulary – choose precise, ambitious words that have an impact on the reader.
Sentence structure – use a variety of sentence types and lengths for effect.
Punctuation – use punctuation accurately and confidently.
Cohesion – link ideas clearly so that our writing flows smoothly.
Organisation – structure our writing so that it is clear and engaging.
Editing – reread, improve and polish our work, making choices that make our writing even better.