Literacy – Character Portraits

This term in Literacy, pupils will continue to develop their reading, writing and oracy skills through high‑quality texts linked to our topic. Our main writing focus will be creating a detailed character portrait, using the fictional character Blodeuwedd from Welsh mythology as our inspiration.

Children will explore the story of Blodeuwedd, learning how this character is created from flowers and plays a central role in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi. Through shared reading, discussion and drama activities, pupils will analyse how the author presents Blodeuwedd’s appearance, actions and personality. They will also begin to infer her thoughts, motives and feelings, gaining a deeper understanding of how character is developed in traditional tales.

When writing their own character portrait, pupils will learn to:

• describe appearance, personality and behaviour
• use expanded noun phrases and descriptive vocabulary
• select powerful verbs and adjectives to create vivid imagery
• show emotion through actions, thoughts and dialogue
• organise writing into clear, cohesive paragraphs

Children will be encouraged to think carefully about how to make Blodeuwedd feel lifelike and believable, using language that helps the reader clearly visualise the character. Oracy tasks such as role‑play and hot‑seating will provide opportunities for pupils to explore the character’s emotions, choices and relationships through spoken language as well as writing.

As the term progresses, pupils will apply these descriptive skills in other genres, such as story writing or diary entries written from a character’s point of view. They will continue to edit and improve their work, focusing on grammar, punctuation, vocabulary choices and sentence structure.

How You Can Help at Home

Talk about Blodeuwedd

Discuss the character together:

• What kind of person is she?
• How do we know how she feels?
• What choices does she make? Why?

Explore descriptive writing

When reading at home, point out strong descriptive phrases and discuss how they help you picture a character.

Encourage imagination

Invite your child to:

• describe Blodeuwedd in their own words
• draw the character from the story
• think about how she might react in different situations

Support organisation of ideas

Help your child plan by thinking about:

• what she looks like
• how she behaves
• what she might say, think or feel

Build vocabulary naturally

Use a rich range of words during conversations, especially adjectives and verbs that could help describe characters effectively.