Welcome. My resources include CPD self-study units for teachers as well as whole units of work specifically designed for the English classroom. Whole units come with detailed teacher notes, teaching PPTs and all student resources. I hope you enjoy using them as much as I have. Questions are very welcome and I can be contacted at roseandmay2@virginmedia.com.
Best wishes, Sam
Welcome. My resources include CPD self-study units for teachers as well as whole units of work specifically designed for the English classroom. Whole units come with detailed teacher notes, teaching PPTs and all student resources. I hope you enjoy using them as much as I have. Questions are very welcome and I can be contacted at roseandmay2@virginmedia.com.
Best wishes, Sam
English Teaching Poetry Unit: Carol Ann Duffy 'War Photographer’
Perfect for teaching the AQA Poetry Anthology ‘Power and Conflict’ cluster, this short unit explores Duffy’s ‘War Photographer’ and develops students’ ability to write analytically using a specific, taught paragraph structure. It is collaborative in nature with lots of opportunities for paired, group and class discussion. It includes a well presented 41 slide teaching PPT as well as all 13 student resources and a set of detailed teacher notes explaining how you could deliver the unit. Outcomes include an analytical PETAL paragraph which can be extended into a longer essay using the structure provided and a comparative essay as an extension activity. Please note that all resources are in both Word and pdf formats with the teaching Powerpoint in PPT and pdf formats.
You might also like:
William Blake’s ‘London’
Seamus Heaney’s ‘Storm on the Island’
Wilfred Owen’s ‘Exposure’
Ted Hughes’ ‘Hawk Roosting’
English Teaching Poetry Unit: Seamus Heaney’s 'Follower’
This short GCSE unit is designed to introduce and explore Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘Follower’ as well as develop students’ ability to write analytically using a specific, taught paragraph structure. This unit is collaborative in nature with lots of opportunities for paired, group and class discussion. It includes a very nicely presented 32 slide teaching PPT as well as all 16 student resources and a set of detailed teacher’s notes explaining how you can deliver the unit. Outcomes include an analytical PETAL paragraph which could be extended into a longer essay using the structure provided. Please note that all resources are provided in PPT and Word as well as pdf format. Ideal for GCSE Anthology study.
You may also like the following poetry units:
You might also like:
William Blake’s ‘London’
Seamus Heaney’s ‘Storm on the Island’
Seamus Heaney’s ‘Digging’
Wilfred Owen’s ‘Exposure’
English Teaching Poetry Unit: Seamus Heaney’s 'Digging’
This short unit is designed to introduce and explore Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘Digging’ as well as develop students’ ability to write analytically using a specific, taught paragraph structure. This unit is collaborative in nature with lots of opportunities for paired, group and class discussion. It includes a very nicely presented 30 slide teaching PPT as well as all 12 student resources and a set of detailed teacher’s notes explaining how you can deliver the unit. Outcomes include an analytical PETAL paragraph which could be extended into a longer essay using the structure provided. I have also included a free self-study professional development unit on teaching poetry. Please note that all resources are provided in pdf format and units on other Heaney poems are available. These include ‘Follower’, ‘Storm on the Island’, ‘Mid-term Break’ and 'An Advancement of Learning.
You might also like:
William Blake’s ‘London’
Seamus Heaney’s ‘Storm on the Island’
Wilfred Owen’s ‘Exposure’
Ted Hughes’ ‘Hawk Roosting’
Seamus Heaney’s ‘Follower’
Seamus Heaney’s ‘Death of a Naturalist’
This short unit is designed to introduce and explore Seamus Heaney’s poem as well as develop students’ ability to write analytically using a specific, taught paragraph structure. This unit is collaborative in nature with lots of opportunities for paired, group and class discussion. It includes a very nicely presented 39 slide teaching PPT as well as all 14 student resources and a set of detailed teacher’s notes explaining how you could deliver the unit. Outcomes include an analytical PETAL paragraph which can be extended into a longer essay using the structure provided. Please note that the teaching PPT is fully editable and all resources are in pdf and editable word format.
You might also like:
William Blake’s ‘London’
Seamus Heaney’s ‘Storm on the Island’
Seamus Heaney’s ‘Digging’
Wilfred Owen’s ‘Exposure’
This self-study unit offers support and guidance in teaching the speaking and listening component of English entry level courses in an interesting and engaging way, helping to ensure your programmes of study and lessons are relevant, motivating and develop the key skills necessary for success at this level. It is full of practical teaching approaches to key aspects of speaking and listening including group work, role-play and teaching the individual presentation - it is relevant to all exam boards.
This self-study unit offers support and guidance in teaching the non-fiction writing component of these courses in an interesting and engaging way, helping teachers ensure their programmes of study and lessons are well-pitched, relevant and motivating and develop the key skills necessary for success at entry level. Suggested approaches are practical and can be easily differentiated for entry level 1 and 2 students making it ideal preparation for planning an entry level course and schemes of learning. It is generic and relevant to all main exam boards who offer this qualification.
This self-study unit offers support and guidance in teaching the creative writing component of entry level courses in an interesting and engaging way. It will help ensure your programmes of study and lessons are well-pitched, relevant and motivating and develop the key skills necessary for success at entry level. Suggested approaches can be easily differentiated for entry level 1 and 2 students making it ideal preparation for planning an entry level course and schemes of learning. It is generic and relevant to all main exam boards who offer this qualification.
This unit is aimed at English teachers and departments who wish to develop their practice in relation to teaching narrative and descriptive writing for IGCSE. It is a self study unit which includes lots of practical ideas for the IGCSE classroom as well as opportunities for reflection and activities to help translate what you have learned into practice. The unit covers approaches to teaching key elements of narrative and descriptive writing including planning, structure, sentences and vocabulary as well as specific techniques such as ‘show not tell’. It comes with extras such as planning frames and tasks to inspire imaginative writing.
You may also like:
[Cambridge IGCSE English: Narrative and Descriptive Writing Unit - Gothic Fiction] (https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/resource-12591942)
[Pearson Edexcel IGCSE English Language: Imaginative Writing Unit - Gothic Fiction] (https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/resource-12592363)
This sel-study CPD unit explores some of the most effective approaches and practical strategies that English teachers can take directly into the classroom to create a stimulating and engaging learning environment in which boys can flourish as writers. Although the strategies focus on how you can engage boys with writing, they represent good practice which can improve the learning for both boys and girls.
Developing Literacy is a clearly a key element of a TAs role. In this unit you will explore how best to support pupils with reading. As we live and work in an environment in which the printed text is so important, the skill of reading is vital in helping pupils to make progress and ensure they don’t fall behind their peers. This unit aims to provide lots of practical strategies which TAs can use in the classroom or during intervention work with individual or small groups of students to help them become more experienced readers and ultimately more independent learners.
Speaking and listening activities in the classroom are an important part of the learning process, helping to develop key communication skills required not only at school but also by colleges and employers. In the classroom, this will involve pupils participating in whole-class discussion, group work (with perhaps three or four pupils working together), paired work and in making individual presentations to the class. By promoting inclusion, teaching assistants can have a major impact on the success of these activities and a pupil’s learning outcomes. In this unit you will explore a range of activities which help you consider how best to support the teacher in explicitly teaching about spoken language and developing a pupils’ critical thinking skills and confidence as participants. This resource has also been published by Pearsons as a mobile CPD app.
This unit is specifically designed for English teachers who wish to develop their teaching of non-fiction in the secondary or upper primary classroom. It takes you through a range of active approaches to promote engagement with non fiction texts such as travel writing, news reports, feature articles,speeches and formal letters, as well as ways of linking reading with pupils’ own writing. It includes tasks and opportunities for personal reflection and is ideal for teachers preparing to teach non-fiction in the English classroom.
The aim of this training session is to support secondary teaching assistants in developing a set of key strategies for teaching pupils how to learn and retain spellings. It contains lots of paired activities and could be led by the SENCO or an English specialist. It is designed for a training session lasting approximately 1 hour 15 minutes.
Some pupils find spelling a real challenge - the role of a TA is to reassure them, provide them with spelling rules and strategies and support them with active approaches to learning spelling. This training package will help them to achieve this. It will also help TAs to provide support for pupils in using and developing a subject-specific vocabulary which is vitally important for their writing.
This unit is specifically designed for English teachers who wish to develop their teaching of Shakespeare in the secondary or upper primary classroom. It takes you through a range of active approaches including practical drama activities to promote engagement with the themes, characters and ideas of the plays as well as suggestions for writing creatively about Shakespeare. This unit will support you in developing a repertoire of teaching strategies which you can apply to any of Shakespeare’s plays. They are based on the principles of ‘Active Shakespeare’ and includes lots of activities and advice which will help make the learning both enjoyable and effective. It includes tasks and opportunities for personal reflection and is ideal for teachers preparing to teach a Shakespeare play.
AQA Step Up to English: Grammar and Punctuation Starters
This resource was designed as a series of starters for my Step Up to English group though it is could be used more widely for those requiring support with improving sentences. It focuses on sentences structure and punctuation and provides opportunities for students to apply new skills. It takes a visual approach to teaching simple, compound and complex sentences and provides texts and writing activities which help provide a context rather than the more traditional method of writing out individual sentences. As well as sentence structure, it covers punctuation including use of commas and punctuating direct speech. It perfectly complements Step Up Component 2 units which require narrative or descriptive writing as many of the examples and tasks are fiction based. Included is a 68 slide teaching PPT plus all ten resources in both word and pdf formats as well as a detailed set of teacher’s notes. I hope you enjoy using these starters and that they help your students to improve their grammar and punctuation.
More Step Up to English Resources
Complete courses and individual teaching units on all component 1 and 2 topics are available. They include teaching PPTs, all student resources and a set of detailed teacher’s notes and can be found at:
RoseandMay TES English Classroom Resources
New individual units:
AQA Step Up to English: Component 1 STYLE Unit
AQA Step Up to English: Component 2 CRIME Unit
New Complete Course
AQA Step Up to English: Complete Course (Leisure, Crime and Style Units)
You may also like:
AQA Step Up to English: Component 2 Creative Writing Unit
This unit of work is focused on developing the skills of reading between the lines and is based around extracts from the novel ‘Deep Water’ by Ann Turnbull. It is aimed at a first year Junior Cycle class and covers key skills such as inference and deduction, questioning the text, prediction and visualising the text. All short extracts are provided so you do not need a copy of the novel though you may wish to buy one to read and enjoy other sections with the class. I have included a 47 slide teaching PPT, all nine resources in word and pdf formats and a detailed set of teacher’s notes.
Learning outcomes (from Junior Cycle Specification) addressed in this unit include:
Reading
3. Use a wide range of reading comprehension strategies appropriate to texts e.g to retrieve information and to link to previous knowledge.
7. Select key moments from their texts and give thoughtful value judgements on the main character or a key scene.
8. Read their texts to understand and appreciate language enrichment by examining an author’s choice of words.
11. Identify and comment on features of English at word and sentence level using appropriate terminology.
Writing
3. Write for a variety of purposes e.g to imagine, explore, narrate.
I hope you enjoy teaching the unit.
Key Stage 3 English: Reading Between the Lines Teaching Unit
This unit of work is focused on developing the skills of reading between the lines and is based around extracts from the novel ‘Deep Water’ by Ann Turnbull. It covers key skills such as inference and deduction, questioning the text, prediction and visualising the text. It was written for my Year 8 lower ability English class though could easily be used for a year 7 group. All short extracts are provided so you do not need a copy of the novel though you may wish to buy one to read and enjoy other sections with the class. I have included a 47 slide teaching PPT, all nine resources in word and pdf formats and a detailed set of teacher’s notes. Hope you enjoy teaching the unit.
Key Stage 3 English Units also available
English Key Stage 3 Creative Writing Unit for Years 7-8
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/resource-12487013
This highly engaging and enjoyable unit of work is designed to help students write creatively with a particular focus on narrative and descriptive writing. It supports students in actively exploring and enjoying both descriptive and narrative texts, looking at excellent and varied models from a range of literature and identifying successful features before moving to composing their own creative responses.A very nicely presented 83 slide teaching PPT is included as well as a detailed set of teacher’s notes with suggested approaches and all thirteen classroom resources.
This very nicely presented unit of work is based on Sean Tan’s graphic novel ‘The Arrival’. It consists of 14 lessons which guide students through the novel chapter by chapter. It is discussion based and there are lots of opportunities for paired, group and class discussion with thinking points and scaffolds to support. It teaches students how to analyse images closely looking at aspects such as layout, character illustrations and colour. Written outcomes include creative responses as well as a final, analytical piece which can be formally assessed. There are also opportunities to read real and fascinating accounts from immigrants across the globe and consider how these help our understanding of the family’s story in ‘The Arrival’. All PPTs and lesson resources are included as well as a set of detailed teacher’s notes based on my experience of teaching this unit.
Please note that all files are in PDF format.
This half-termly unit of work is designed to help prepare students for the WJEC Eduqas GCSE in English Language Component 1 exam with a particular focus on narrative writing. It supports students in actively exploring excellent and varied models of texts and identifying successful features before moving to students planning and composing their own creative responses. A well-presented 51 slide teaching PPT is included as well as a detailed set of teacher’s notes with suggested teaching approaches and all nine classroom resources in both Word and PDF formats. I hope you enjoy teaching the unit.
English Key Stage 3 Creative Writing Unit for Years 7-8
This highly engaging and enjoyable unit of work is designed to help students write creatively with a particular focus on narrative and descriptive writing. It supports students in actively exploring and enjoying both descriptive and narrative texts, looking at excellent and varied models from a range of literature and identifying successful features before moving to composing their own creative responses. It is ideal for a Year 7-8 class. A very nicely presented 83 slide teaching PPT is included as well as a detailed set of teacher notes with suggested approaches and all thirteen classroom resources. Please see the Preview for a selection of slides from across the unit.
You may also like:
English Key Stage 3: Travel Writing (Literary Non-fiction) Unit for Years 8-9
This unit is designed to teach key reading and writing skills in the context of travel literature and to help build some of the key skills required at GCSE level when studying non-fiction texts. It moves from reading to writing and is based on the study of a number of short travel extracts from writers such as Paul Theroux, Jonathan Raban and Dervla Murphy. It is aimed at Year 9 as preparation for GCSE and would work equally well with Year 8 groups. Outcomes include analytical as well as creative writing.