Year 4/5 Mixed Age English Planning
Choose the block you wish to teach
We’ve been busy spring cleaning our poetry blocks.
Our revised summer poetry blocks should be on the site in May, the autumn ones in July, and the spring ones in September.
Autumn Blocks
The wonderful World of Varjak Paw, from the noisy bustling city to the warm and peaceful dreamland of Mesopotamia, is explored through shared reading and close analysis of extracts from the novel. Learn about dialogue and relative clauses.
Adventure Stories: Adventure stories : Varjak Paw
Capture your class’s imagination with the entertaining and fascinating You Are History: From the Alarm Clock to the Toilet, the Amazing History of the Things You Use Every Day by Greg Jenner. Investigate expanded noun phrases and fronted adverbials. Write reports for a new book, We are History.
Reports: You Are History
Enjoy sharing short stories from Joyful, Joyful: Stories Celebrating Black Voices, curated by Dapo Adeola. Analyse openings, investigate language use and plot a short story on a mountain diagram. Practise dialogue punctuation and using modal verbs. Write and publish a class book of short stories inspired by Chasing Joy.
Short Stories: Joyful, joyful
Explore and discuss the features of the graphic novel Saving Sorya: Chang and the Sun Bear by Trang Nguyen. Learn how to compose and use expanded noun phrases and adverbials for cohesion. Have fun role-playing an interview with a journalist and writing a personal recount in the role of Chang.
Recounts: Saving Sorya
Spring Blocks
Plunge your class into the mysterious, quirky and dangerous world of Beetle Boy by M.G. Leonard. Explore tension, and summarise plot events. Create vivid settings using expanded noun phrases. Investigate adverbs of possibility to speculate, order and blame. Finally, have a go at writing the next chapter!
Mystery Stories: Beetle Boy
Discover more about our incredible world using The Earth Book by Jonathan Litton. Create information pages and write blogs. Learn how to use parenthesis and create cohesion between paragraphs. Finish the block by writing an explanation text before scripting and recording a podcast.
Instructions and Explanations: The Earth Book
Using two of Nicola Davies' wonderful stories about growing up in the country, compare and contrast with Shaun Tan's Tales from Outer Suburbia. Grammar includes dialogue punctuation and modal verbs. Draw together the learning from this block by writing a sequel.
Stories on a Theme: Rural and Suburban Life
Inspire your class with the incredible stories of marvellous mathematicians: Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, Paul Erdos and Albert Einstein, among others. Study the features of biographies, write persuasively to 'sell' an idea for a biopic and learn how to use adverbials to link ideas across paragraphs.
Biographies: Mathematicians
Summer Blocks
Learn about characterisation and narrative devices through this moving story of Aya and her family. Write letters and magazine articles. Grammar includes paranthesis and adverbials.
Modern Fiction: No Ballet Shoes in Syria
Explore the world of zoos and consider the pros and cons of keeping animals in captivity. Be inspired to write persuasively, deliver speeches and hold a debate.
Persuasive Writing: Animals in Captivity
Read and enjoy Malorie Blackman's incredible book, Cloudbusting. Explore character and plot development and ideas of identity and personal growth. Grammar includes punctuating dialogue and relative clauses.
Poems by the Same Poet: Cloud Busting
Unleash your class's creativity with this wonderful block using the fantastic picture books Journey and The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. Grammar includes expanded noun phrases and writing and punctuating dialogue.
Creative Stories: Creative Stories
Explore the power of our incredible earth in this block all about volcanoes and earthquakes. Write instructions and fact files, create glossaries and produce reports. Grammar includes parenthesis and conjunctions, prepositions and adverbs.
Instructions and Explanations: Earth-shattering Events
Enjoy learning about Japan through poetry and artwork. Write descriptions, journey stories and haiku inspired by nature. Grammar includes using paragraphs and adverbs of possibility.
