Macbeth | Year 6 English Unit | 15 Complete Lessons + Resources + Mark Scheme

A 3-week, fully resourced primary literacy unit based on Macbeth by William Shakespeare (retold for children — Marcia Williams or Andrew Matthews edition recommended). KS2 Fiction. National-Curriculum-aligned grammar, WT/ARE/GD differentiation, and ready to teach.

What’s inside

This complete English unit gives you everything for three weeks of high-quality teaching, designed to match the standard of leading primary schemes (Literacy Tree, Write Stuff, Power of Reading).

• 15 lesson PowerPoints — illustrated cover slides, success criteria, vocabulary previews, modelled writing, “big questions” (Bloom’s-laddered), differentiation tiers, plenary, and reflection.
• 15 differentiated resource sheets — Working Towards, Age-Related Expectations, and Greater Depth, with sentence frames, word banks, and writing frames.
• Complete teacher unit plan — unit overview, key themes, model texts, full session-by-session plans, key questions, assessment focus, and vocabulary focus.
• Child-friendly mark scheme — “I can…” success criteria for the final writing piece, ready for self- and peer-assessment.
• 3 weekly exit tickets — 5 multiple-choice questions per week, with teacher answer keys.

Final writing outcome

A suspenseful third-person narrative of the banquet scene in which Banquo’s ghost appears to Macbeth, followed by a formal letter of warning from Lady Macduff to an unnamed thane, urging him to flee Scotland before Macbeth’s tyranny consumes him.

Grammar features (Year 6 NC-aligned)

• The passive voice to shift agency and deliver shocking news (e.g. ‘Banquo had been struck down on the heath.’).
• The subjunctive mood for hypothetical and formal warning (e.g. ‘Were he to remain at court, all that he loves would be lost.’).

Themes explored

Ambition, guilt, fate.

Key vocabulary

Ambition, tyranny, prophecy, treachery, remorse, spectre, usurper, foreboding.

Format & compatibility

• Editable PowerPoint (.pptx) and Word (.docx) files.
• UK English spelling.
• One printer-friendly A4 page per resource sheet.
• Compatible with Literacy Tree, Write Stuff, and Power of Reading planning approaches.

Year groups & key stage

• Year 6 (KS2).
• 15 sessions over 3 weeks (≈45–60 minutes per lesson).

Tags

KS2, Year 6, English, fiction, William Shakespeare (retold for children — Marcia Williams or Andrew Matthews edition recommended), reading and writing, complete unit, differentiated, NC-aligned, lesson plans, resources, macbeth