The Highland Falcon Thief

The Highland Falcon Thief

The Highland Falcon Thief was named Children’s Fiction Book of the Year at the 2021 British Book Awards. It was also the winner of the 2020 Books Are My Bag Readers’ Awards, nominated by independent booksellers and voted for by readers. It was selected as Waterstones’ Book of the Month for February 2020.

Harrison Beck is reluctantly joining his travel-writer Uncle Nat for the last journey of the royal train, The Highland Falcon. But as the train makes its way to Scotland, a priceless brooch goes missing, and things are suddenly a lot more interesting. As suspicions and accusations run high among the passengers, Harrison begins to investigate and uncovers a few surprises along the way. Can he solve the mystery of the jewel thief and catch the culprit before they reach the end of the line?

The entire story makes for terrific reading. The two authors, M.G. ‘Beetle Boy’ Leonard and Sam Sedgman have created a classic train-set mystery, with all the aspects that make it well-loved, fresh and modern for readers in your KS2 class.

Main Focus: Finding Evidence – Chapters 1-3

This resource is based on chapters 1 to 3 of ‘The Highland Falcon Thief’. Your LKS2 class will have to find and write the correct supporting evidence for each statement given. This activity will test your pupils understanding of the passage.

This resource has been differentiated 4 ways. Answers have been included.

Main Focus: Openers - Chapters 5-8

The author of ‘The Highland Falcon Thief’ uses a range of different openers  for effect. This activity will test your pupils to recognise the correct opener used, these include; nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, time connectives and prepositions.

This resource has been differentiated 4 ways.

Main Focus: Adjectives – Chapter 10

An adjective is a word that describes a noun. In this resource, students will identify the adjective/adjectives used in the extracts taken from chapter 10 of The Highland Falcon Thief book. Using the adjective/adjectives from the sentences, your pupils will then have to create their own sentences using the adjective in an appropriate way.

This is a great activity to target in on word class.

Main Focus: Past and Present Tense -Chapter 11

We have created this tenses literacy activity for your KS2 class to identify different tenses used in chapter 11 of the book. Your pupils will circle the past tense verbs then give the present tense of the verb.

This activity has been differentiated in 4 ways for different learning capabilities.

Main Focus: Apostrophes – Chapter 15

This activity focuses on punctuation and apostrophes and should be completed after reading chapter 15 of the book.

Your class will insert the apostrophes where required, then give the appropriate reasoning for the apostrophes given.

This resource has been differentiated 6 different ways for different learning capabilities. The answers have been included.

Main Focus: Comprehension – Chapter 16

This comprehension resource assesses your pupils’ understanding of the passage with comprehensive questions.

Your students will need to read Chapter 16 of ‘The Highland Falcon Thief’ and respond to the questions based on their understanding of the passage.

We’ve also included a bonus activity where your pupils will create their own list of items they would bring on a rail adventure with royal passengers.

We have differentiated this resource 3 different ways for different learning capabilities. The answers have been included.

Main Focus: Suffixes – Chapter 22

This resource has been created to further the understanding of the usage of suffixes within the context of the story.

A suffix is a group of letters which are added to the end of a word to make a new word. Your students will use the table created to sort the words that end in the suffixes -ing or -ed. Afterwards they will write as many words as they know which end in the suffixes -tion, -ful, -ly, and -ness.

We have differentiated this resource into 4 different ways for different learning capabilities.

Main Focus: Definitions Chapters 27-32

The author of ‘The Highland Falcon Thief’ uses a variety of very interesting vocabulary. Your Year 3 / Year 4 kids will read the sentences taken from chapters 27-32 to write their own definition of the word, before writing their own sentence including the highlighted word.

We have differentiated this resource into 3 different ways for different learning capabilities.

Main Focus: Inverted Commas – Chapter 32

Inverted commas are used when the author is conveying speech from a character in the book.

In this punctuation resource, your students will add the inverted commas into the appropriate places to show when speech has taken place.

We have differentiated this resource into 5 different ways for different learning capabilities. The answers have been included.

We have differentiated this resource into 3 different ways for different learning capabilities. An example diary entry has been included.

Main Focus: Writing a Diary Entry (Whole Book)

This resource is based on the whole book of ‘The Highland Falcon Thief’. Your class will write their own diary entry for the day that the mystery is solved and the criminals are identified. We have included a diary entry that could have been written by Hal on the day that he boarded the Highland Falcon with Uncle Nat.

Your class should write their diary entry by; writing in the first person, writing in the past tense, writing in chronological order, and include how the characters must have been feeling.