The Clockwork Sparrow | Year 5 English Unit | 15 Complete Lessons + Resources + Mark Scheme

A 3-week, fully resourced primary literacy unit based on The Clockwork Sparrow by Katherine Woodfine. 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 historical mystery narrative set in Sinclair’s Department Store in 1909, in which the writer’s young detective stumbles upon a clue, follows it through the gilded shop floors, and uncovers a thief at work. Pupils also produce a paired character profile of Sophie Taylor, explaining who she is, what she has noticed, and why she — a quiet shop girl — is the right person to solve the mystery.

Grammar features (Year 5 NC-aligned)

• Relative clauses (using which, who, that) to add description to setting and characters.
• Commas for parenthesis to add extra information about 19th-century items, places and people.

Themes explored

History (Edwardian London, 1909), mystery and detection, friendship and unlikely alliances.

Key vocabulary

Opulent, Edwardian, department, vitrine, suspicion, mannequin, clandestine, investigate.

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

Tags

KS2, Year 5, English, fiction, Katherine Woodfine, reading and writing, complete unit, differentiated, NC-aligned, lesson plans, resources, the clockwork sparrow