Engage your Year 6 pupils with this Real Writing unit based on an original narrative by published children’s author Jon Mayhew. The story follows Charles Darwin on board The Beagle and provides a vivid, first-hand perspective of his famous voyage.
Pupils will read, analyse and respond to the model text before planning and writing their own narrative inspired by Darwin’s discoveries.
The unit is designed to run over two to three weeks and follows a carefully mapped framework, including detailed lesson plans, teacher notes, teaching slides and activity sheets.
Curriculum links and objectives
This unit develops key Year 6 writing objectives while offering meaningful cross-curricular links. Pupils will practise using synonyms to enrich their writing and explore relative clauses beginning with who, which, where, when, whose and that.
They'll revisit essential skills, including punctuating speech, using adverbials, creating expanded noun phrases, writing relative clauses and structuring paragraphs. Pupils will also use dialogue to convey character, describe settings and advance action.
The unit links naturally to science, particularly topics on evolution and inheritance, as pupils investigate Darwin’s discoveries on the Galapagos Islands. History and geography links appear when pupils explore the contexts of Victorian scientific voyages and the locations Darwin visited.
Resources
The unit provides a complete set of teaching materials:
- Model text (plain, illustrated, annotated)
- Annotated and non-annotated PowerPoint slides
- Vocabulary cards and matching activities
- Image cards of Charles Darwin, The Beagle and the Galapagos
- Journey story poster and margin planners
- Writing task posters, teaching slides and activity sheets
- Full teacher notes and lesson sequences
Vocabulary
- Tier 2 words: conical, discover, plume, dread, lurch, voyage
- Tier 3 words: specimen, observe
- Year 6 spellings: foreign, develop, physically, muscle, controversy
Key teaching activities
Begin by showing pupils images of Charles Darwin, his discoveries and The Beagle, prompting discussion about Victorian scientific beliefs and Darwin’s contributions.
Pupils will research his life and the Galapagos Islands, recording key facts in a class fact file. They'll read the model text together, examining narrative structure, characterisation and descriptive language.
Next, pupils will explore vocabulary and grammar, practising synonyms and relative clauses. They'll analyse how the author conveys Darwin’s feelings and experiences through description and dialogue.
Pupils will write short paragraphs and diary entries, using noun phrases, adverbials and dialogue to enhance their narratives.
Finally, pupils will plan their own journey story using the margin planner, draft narratives over several sessions and proofread and edit their writing.
Outcomes
By the end of this unit, pupils will:
- write a coherent journey narrative inspired by Darwin’s voyage
- use expanded noun phrases, adverbials, relative clauses and dialogue effectively
- apply precise vocabulary and a range of punctuation marks, including semi-colons and colons
- plan, draft, edit and proofread writing with attention to tense consistency
- demonstrate understanding of historical and scientific contexts in their narrative
This unit equips pupils with the skills and confidence to produce engaging, scientifically informed narratives while reinforcing key Year 6 English objectives.