Introduce your Year 6 pupils to an engaging narrative writing unit from our Real Writing collection. This unit uses Stuck, a first-person story by published children’s author Jon Mayhew, centred on a young chimney sweep in Victorian Britain.
The model text is available as a PDF in three versions – plain, illustrated and annotated – alongside annotated and non-annotated PowerPoint slides.
Pupils will read and analyse the text, then plan and write their own story about a child working as a chimney sweep. All units follow a carefully mapped framework and include two to three weeks of detailed lesson planning, teacher notes, slides and activity sheets to support teaching.
Curriculum links and objectives
This unit develops key Year 6 writing objectives while providing opportunities to link learning across subjects. Pupils will explore vocabulary by adding suffixes such as -ance and -ant, learn to maintain consistent tense in their writing and practise punctuation including semi-colons, colons, hyphens and commas.
They'll revisit essential skills such as punctuating direct speech, creating expanded noun phrases, using fronted adverbials, forming relative clauses and structuring paragraphs.
Pupils will also develop composition skills, using dialogue to convey character and advance action and cohesive devices to improve clarity.
Cross-curricular links include history, where pupils research Victorian child labour, leisure and social norms, and geography, when considering locations a chimney sweep might travel to, such as urban streets or local landmarks.
Resources
You'll receive a complete set of teaching materials, including:
- Model text (plain, illustrated, annotated)
- Annotated and non-annotated PowerPoints
- Vocabulary cards and matching activities
- Image cards of Victorian chimney sweeps and tools
- Story structure posters and sequencing cards
- Margin planners and research sheets
- Full teaching notes and lesson slides
Vocabulary
- Tier 2: annoyance, flue, hearth, hesitant, labour, modesty, tolerant
- Year 5/6 statutory spelling words: bruise, hindrance, nuisance
Key teaching activities
Begin by showing images of Victorian chimney sweep tools and children at work, prompting discussion on historical child labour and contrasting pupils’ lives today.
Pupils will then read the model text together, examining the wishing story structure, exploring plot, character and narrative voice. They'll research Victorian life to add historical accuracy to their own writing.
Next, pupils will investigate vocabulary, suffixes and grammatical features, completing matching and dictionary activities. They'll explore character through role play and develop character profiles using evidence from the story.
Pupils will write short descriptive pieces, diary entries and paragraphs that integrate dialogue, noun phrases and adverbials to enhance cohesion.
Finally, pupils will plan their own chimney sweep story using the margin planner, draft narratives over several sessions and proofread and edit their work.
Outcomes
By the end of this unit, pupils will:
- write a coherent wishing story with a clear narrative voice
- use expanded noun phrases, adverbials and dialogue effectively
- apply a wider range of punctuation accurately, including semi-colons and colons
- plan, draft and edit their writing to ensure tense consistency
- demonstrate historical understanding of Victorian child labour and society
This unit equips pupils with the skills and confidence to write engaging, historically grounded narratives while reinforcing key Year 6 English objectives.