Refugee Boy - KS3 Unit of Work - teaching resource

Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah – KS3 English Teaching Unit

Explore Benjamin Zephaniah’s Refugee Boy with this comprehensive 17-lesson KS3 English unit, designed for Year 8 and Year 9. Featuring a 199-slide PowerPoint and 10 printable worksheets, this resource guides pupils through the complete novel, developing reading, analytical writing and speaking and listening skills.

Following Alem’s journey from Ethiopia and Eritrea to England, pupils explore how Zephaniah presents identity, belonging, prejudice, friendship, family, grief and hope. Carefully structured activities encourage pupils to look beyond labels and consider the individual experiences of refugees and asylum seekers.

The unit includes:

• Background to the Ethiopia–Eritrea conflict and key vocabulary
• Chapter-by-chapter reading questions with suggested answers
• Varied starters, including sequencing tasks, matching activities, quotation challenges, a word search and a team quiz
• Exploration of character, language, narrative voice, structure and themes
• Evidence and inference activities, analytical paragraph tasks and model responses
• Three diary-writing tasks tracing Alem’s changing experiences and feelings
• Hot-seating, courtroom dramatisation and storyboard activities
• Analysis of newspaper headlines and their influence on readers
• A persuasive letter to an MP and a group TV news report
• A final persuasive speech arguing for the novel’s place in KS3 English
• Support prompts, challenge tasks and opportunities for constructive feedback

With clear instructions and model answers throughout, this Refugee Boy scheme of work supports thoughtful discussion alongside close reading and creative responses. Activities provide a sensitive framework for exploring displacement, discrimination and loss while recognising the importance of kindness, education and community.

The editable PowerPoint allows teachers to adapt the lessons to suit their classes. Pupils will need access to copies of the novel.

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