Teach this Year 6 Real Writing unit with confidence, knowing that every model text in the collection comes from a published children’s author and sits within a carefully mapped framework.
In this two-to-three-week sequence, you'll guide pupils through a rich exploration of Aesop’s Fables using Jon Mayhew’s retelling, The Trees and the Axe.
You get the model text in three PDF versions (plain, illustrated and annotated), along with annotated and non-annotated PowerPoint slides that help you introduce, model and analyse each part of the unit. You'll also link the learning to a history topic on Ancient Greece, giving pupils a meaningful context for retelling traditional tales.
What pupils will learn
Lead pupils through the features of fables, showing them how these traditional tales once travelled orally before they were written down. Pupils will investigate antonyms and learn how contrasting words strengthen characterisation.
They'll read a range of fables, compare features and write a précis of a selected story. By exploring dialogue, adverbials and expanded noun phrases, pupils will learn how these devices enhance cohesion and shape the moral message.
You'll also revisit key Year 6 writing skills such as semi-colons and colons, cohesive devices, paragraphing and accurate punctuation of speech.
Cross-curricular links enhance the sequence. Pupils will build their understanding of Ancient Greece and explore how stories survived through oral tradition. Drama and speaking opportunities strengthen performance skills as pupils rehearse and retell fables aloud.
Vocabulary used in the unit
Tier 2 words: arrogance, behaviour, calloused, grove, humility, smug
Common exception words: disastrous, familiar, foreign, variety, suggest
Resources included
- Model text in three formats
- Annotated and non-annotated PowerPoint slides
- Fables poster
- Vocabulary cards and matching activity
- Aesop image poster
- Fable image cards
- Storyboard template
- Margin planner
- Writer’s craft guidance sheet
- Teaching slides and activity sheets
Key teaching activities
Start with an image of Aesop to spark discussion. Use fable image cards so pupils can retell stories orally, just as they were first told. Read the model text together and annotate it using the fables poster.
Guide pupils as they match vocabulary to meanings and complete a vocabulary inference task. In role play, pupils will rehearse the model text using adverbials to shape cohesion. They'll examine how dialogue conveys character and write in role as the woodcutter to explore viewpoint.
In the application phase, pupils will study The Hare and the Tortoise, storyboard the plot and explore how they can adapt the characters or setting while keeping the moral intact.
They'll create expanded noun phrases for new characters, plan their own fable using the margin planner and draft their stories over several sessions.
Pupil outcomes
By the end of the unit, pupils will produce a clear, engaging fable that follows traditional features and communicates a moral with accuracy and control.
They'll use antonyms effectively to highlight character contrast, apply punctuation choices such as semi-colons and colons with confidence and create concise précis of longer texts.
They'll write expanded noun phrases, improve cohesion with adverbials and dialogue, and read their completed fables aloud using expression and clarity.