Greek Myths (Full Scheme)

A complete and engaging Year 7 scheme of work exploring Greek myths and epic storytelling, designed to build reading, analysis and writing skills through rich texts and structured assessment.

This 11-lesson Scheme of Work: Greek Epic & Myths is a fully resourced unit that introduces students to the power, purpose and lasting influence of Greek mythology while explicitly developing core English skills. The scheme is carefully sequenced so that knowledge, vocabulary and analytical confidence build lesson by lesson, making it suitable for full-term planning, departmental use or confident delivery by non-specialists.

Students begin with a genre study of Greek myths and epic narratives, exploring creation myths, the Olympians and key belief systems before moving on to extended stories such as Pandora, Heracles and his Labours, and Homer’s The Odyssey. Across the unit, pupils study key episodes including the Cyclops, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, and the Suitors, allowing them to track character development and themes across a whole text rather than in isolation.

Throughout the scheme, students develop a secure understanding of key vocabulary such as hubris, wrath, epic, epithet, pantheism, pious and gravity, alongside regular opportunities for retrieval practice, discussion, annotation and inference. Lessons explicitly model how to annotate texts, identify language techniques and write analytical responses using the WHAT, HOW, WHY structure, ensuring students are well supported in developing extended written analysis.

Creative tasks, role play, paired discussion and low-stakes quizzes are embedded to maintain engagement while reinforcing knowledge and skills. The unit also encourages students to explore the moral messages of myths, the cultural and religious beliefs of Ancient Greece, and the lasting influence of these stories on modern literature and language.

Assessment is built in through a formative writing task focused on character presentation, followed by a final summative assessment in which students respond to the question: How does Homer present Odysseus across the text? By the end of the scheme, students are able to write confident, structured analytical paragraphs using evidence and subject terminology, making this an ideal KS3 foundation for GCSE-style literary analysis.

This classroom-tested scheme is ready to teach, clearly structured and designed to stretch and support mixed-ability Year 7 classes while keeping pupils genuinely engaged with powerful and memorable stories.