Based on the remarkable true story of Matthew Henson. When orphan Matthew Henson ran away from his violent stepmother to find a new life in the big city, no one could have predicted that he would become the first man to reach the North Pole but back home in America his achievements were ignored due to the colour of his skin.

Lesson 1 To make predictions about what might happen in a text. To summarise the main events in a text. First, remind children of what ‘powerful predictors’ do. Warm up by making predictions about the front and back cover of the story. Also find out about the real Matthew Henson. Shared reading/questioning as a class of the first 5 pages of chapter 1. Children continue the chapter with their reading partner. Summarise the events of the chapter by cutting up and sorting the strips of paper. Finally, make a prediction about the next chapter. Lesson 2 To read with increasing fluency. To make inferences about a character, supported by evidence from the text. Teacher to model reading with accuracy, with expression and at an appropriate pace. Remind children what inference is. Children to look for evidence to support a statement about a character’s personality in chapter 2. Then, make inferences about a character’s feelings. Lesson 3 In pairs, read Chapter 6. Then select 3 words from the cards on the sheet to describe life aboard the ship. Children to justify their answers with evidence from the text. If time allows, children to choose their own creative activity, i.e. letter writing, role play or an artist’s sketch. At the end of the lesson, point children in the direction of other real-life adventure stories.