This year 3/4 unit of work is based on Alba The Hundred Year Old Fish by Lara Hawthorne, and also requires A Planet Full of Plastic by Neal Layton.

Alba spends her days collecting precious items that make their way to the ocean floor. But over time, Alba’s underwater home changes and becomes polluted with litter. This beautifully illustrated text tells the story of a little fish and how she helped to save her home: the coral reef. To extend pupils’ understanding of plastic pollution, this unit uses the additional text, ‘A Planet Full of Plastic’. This insightful non-fiction text explains how plastic was invented, why it doesn’t biodegrade and how this can be dangerous for humans and animals.

Our mixed age planning was written to support a variety of school settings.  From one mixed age class to a school with several mixed age classes, the planning can be flexibly adapted using a range of cycles to suit. Cycles of mixed age planning are available for years 1/2, 3 /4, 4/5 and 5/6. They have been carefully thought out to ensure progression and coverage of skills for each of the year groups whilst retaining high quality texts suitable for the age range. We are always happy to advise on different configurations of classes and how Pathways to Write can be adapted to suit any circumstance.

The unit comprises 15 sessions of English planning and focuses on mastering key writing skills (grammar, vocabulary and punctuation) from the national curriculum. Opportunities to develop reading comprehension, writing composition and spoken language skills are also woven throughout the unit.

This unit can be used individually or as part of a whole-school themed project on Environment with our other units on this theme.

Mastery skills:

Year 3:

• Use a or an according to whether the next word begins with a vowel or a consonant
• Build a varied and rich vocabulary
• Group related ideas into paragraphs
• In non-narrative material, use simple organisational devices including headings and sub-headings to aid presentation
• Use punctuation correctly, including apostrophes for the possessive (singular)

Year 4:

• Propose changes to grammar and vocabulary to improve consistency, including the accurate use of pronouns in sentences
• Build a varied and rich vocabulary
• Organise paragraphs around a theme (to organise and sequence more extended narrative structures)
• Indicate possession by using the possessive apostrophe with plural nouns
• Recognise the grammatical difference between plural and possessive ‘s’

Short writing opportunities:

• Explanation
• Letter
• Setting description
• Character description
• Diary entries

Resources: PowerPoints, lesson planning, abridged methodology.

The supporting texts for the units of work can be purchased at Peters Ltd at 30% off the RRP price of the books*:
Please contact Oonagh Towse oonagh.towse@peters.co.uk 07815 557646
Or, place your order online using discount code ‘LITCO30’ Click here for details
*You will receive 30% discount off the RRP on the vast majority of books ordered for the Pathways to Read and Pathways to Write programmes. Items excluded from this offer: book packs, plus short discount items (a small number of academic titles, big books, and audio titles). This offer may not be used in conjunction with any other promotion.

If you are an existing Pathways to Write school and wish to order any additional units, please download and complete the order form above to access your Pathways Literacy discounted prices.