A 3-week, fully resourced primary literacy unit based on The Empty Pot by Demi. KS1 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 retelling-style folktale in which an honest child is given an impossible test by a powerful ruler and is rewarded for telling the truth. Pupils write a structured narrative with a clear opening (the kingdom and the test), a middle (the child tends the seed and worries when nothing grows), a turning point (the brave moment of bringing the empty pot), and a resolution (the truth is revealed and honesty wins). The piece uses past tense, subordination with ‘because’ and ‘when’, expanded noun phrases describing the imperial garden and the empty pot, and exclamation marks for the dramatic moment of revelation.

Grammar features (Year 2 NC-aligned)

• Expanded noun phrases for description and specification.
• Subordination using ‘because’ and ‘when’.

Themes explored

Honesty is rewarded, The courage to fail and tell the truth, Chinese folktale tradition and the wisdom of the emperor.

Key vocabulary

Honest, Emperor, courage, tended, seed, ashamed, rewarded, truth.

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 2 (KS1).
• 15 sessions over 3 weeks (≈45–60 minutes per lesson).

Tags

KS1, Year 2, English, fiction, Demi, reading and writing, complete unit, differentiated, NC-aligned, lesson plans, resources, the empty pot