A teacher and tutor with more than thirty years' experience working in both mainstream and independent schools. I have an Honours degree in English Literature and Linguistics from UEA and have written a dissertation about encouraging children to write. I am a mother of three and interested in all things green. I am in the process of setting up my TES shop and hope to launch my "Spagbag" resources which are suitable for both Primary and Secondary aged pupils.
A teacher and tutor with more than thirty years' experience working in both mainstream and independent schools. I have an Honours degree in English Literature and Linguistics from UEA and have written a dissertation about encouraging children to write. I am a mother of three and interested in all things green. I am in the process of setting up my TES shop and hope to launch my "Spagbag" resources which are suitable for both Primary and Secondary aged pupils.
This animated power point is an informative profile about bats with related questions. It includes a short poem which highlights why some people find bats scary creatures.
This resource would suit a younger audience and would be ideal to use around Halloween. Hopefully the audience will realise there is nothing to be scared of at all.
Suitable for ages 5-7
Three Power Point presentations bundled together on how to write a persuasive speech, Martin Luther King's " I have a dream" speech and biography and how to write for different audiences.
This bundle of resources will prove a useful revision tool and will suit pupils aged 11 to 16
This Power- Point presentation takes Scrooge as its initial focus and then questions our notion of Christmas and how it has changed from the idyllic view of the Victorian era to the modern day commercial excesses. With reference to the migrant crisis and the quest to feed the world in challenging circumstances this presentation will make audiences think about the true meaning of Christmas and what issues should really be at the forefront of our minds at this time of year. The Australian bush fires are brought to mind with flaming imagery.
This resource could be used as an assembly piece or to initiate a debate or discussion with the audience. This would be particularly useful for those students who are studying Dickens or other Victorian novelists. Global warming as an issue that affects us all, both rich and poor, at this time of year.
Suitable for ages 7+
This power point presentation gives an overview of what a Victorian Christmas was like including customs of the day such as The Christmas Tree, Parlour Games and Festive Food. Particular emphasis is given on how Dickens' novels A Christmas Carol and The Pickwick Papers helped to make Christmas more popular with the general public than other festivals.
This resource will prove useful when studying Dickens' novels and thinking about historical context. Suitable for ages 10+
This power point explains the use of proper nouns and asks students to supply the missing capital letters in well known people, places and things. A more challenging activity is provided where the students are given a passage regarding Victorian theatre and are required to re-write it identifying all proper nouns.
This resource will make an ideal revision tool when revising grammar but also when studying information texts regarding Victorian Britain.
Included is a more general spelling, punctuation and grammar quiz where proper nouns is just one of the topics featured.
This resource is suitable for ages 10+
I have bundled together five resources which cover different aspects of grammar and punctuation which should prove useful when it comes to revision. All answers are provided for ease of marking.
Suitable for ages 10+
I have bundled four resources together which will provide valuable material when it comes to answering context questions when studying Victorian novelists such as Dickens. The resources include key themes of the Victorian novel, how Christmas was made so popular by Dickens' work and how Christmas has become so commercialised today and has lost its true meaning. Included also is a poetry analysis of No! which depicts an enveloping smog, so evocative of Victorian London.
This power point showcases some famous Victorians such as Faraday and Darwin, engineers such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel and authors such as Charlotte Bronte and Charles Dickens. The presentation also includes an infamous Victorian: Jack the Ripper and the people who were suspected of being this notorious serial killer.
Brief biographical details are given and an overview of major achievements/incidents given.
Suitable for ages10+
This power point explores anger issues and how being more mindful of our words and actions can be beneficial. A story is told of a young boy who is given a bag of nails by his father. Each time he says something hurtful to his family he has to hammer a nail into the tree at the bottom of the garden. As he discovers ways to control his temper, the nails are used less and less and eventually his father asks the boy to pull them out. The boy discovers that the nails have left holes in the tree trunk, just as his unkind words have left wounds in others that will take time to heal. Students are asked questions surrounding the story and asked to share strategies for dealing with anger. Suggestions are made at the end for using hand templates to pass round to friends to write kind words on and display ideas suggested. Talking therapies for dealing with mental health issues and mindfulness meditation are promoted as strategies for dealing with stress.
This resource would be useful as an assembly or in tutor time and of particular importance around exam periods. It is suitable for ages 10+
This power point is a simple narrative about a hamster called Spock. Pupils are required to read the short story and then answer the related questions. They are required to use dictionary skills to define trickier words from the story. The pupils are then required to choose an option to write about: describe their ideal pet or design a des res for a hamster like Spock.
I include an extra revision aid which could be used to strengthen writing skills and provides an opportunity for descriptive writing concerning animals and pets.
This resource is suitable for ages 7+
This Power Point contains ten slides reminding pupils how to write an argumentative response. The use of rhetorical questions, statistics, emotive language and logical structure are encouraged amongst other techniques. Finally students are required to produce either a leaflet arguing against animal testing or a letter supporting testing cancer drugs on rats.
I include a resource which includes mixed grammar revision and an opportunity to describe a favourite animal or pet.
This resource is suitable for pupils aged 12+
This bundle contains four resources aimed at improving writing skills. Students will learn how to appreciate the tools writers use to create an effect, how to vary the length and type of sentence so that it suits its purpose and how to write an argumentative piece of their own based on animal testing.
Suitable for 12+
This animated Power Point takes five extracts from J'K'Rowling's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and asks students to identify deliberate spelling mistakes. The answers will magically appear. One of the extracts has punctuation removed and requires the students to re-write the dialogue between Harry and Sirius Black, inserting the correct punctuation.
Finally, inspired by the passages they have read, pupils are required to split into houses to perform their own writing challenge. They can choose from writing a review of a lesson from a student teacher who can transform into an animal of his own choosing, a report of a Quidditch match, an argument about how Harry's parents died or a descriptive piece about the discovery of an invisibility cloak.
This resource will prove useful when revising aspects of spelling and punctuation and will inspire the writing of reviews and reports in particular. Included is an informative resource about the development of the racing broom for Quidditch enthusiasts.
Suitable for pupils aged 10+
This bundle of Harry Potter themed resources will give a new twist to grammar lessons as the exercises are based on the Prisoner of Azkaban story. A more general quiz is included for good measure.
Students can test their knowledge and will hopefully be inspired to widen their reading as they dip into passages written by J.K.Rowling.
Suitable for ages 10+
I have bundled together five resources which explore the techniques of writing to inform, persuade, describe and entertain. These resources explore different formats and structural devices and give ideas for students to write and develop their own style to suit various real life scenarios and a range of different audiences.
Suitable for ages 10+
This animated Power Point discusses how descriptive writing is used in travel brochures and autobiographies to describe places and events. Extracts are taken from works by J.K.Rowling, Anthony Bourdain , Susan Hill and Mary Shelley and pupils are asked to focus and discuss how techniques such as similes, metaphors, personification and pathetic fallacy are used for effect. Students are reminded to use Point, Evidence and Explain when commenting about an author’s writing. Finally, pupils are asked to match examples of figurative language to explanations and examples. They are required to provide examples of their own such as a metaphor to describe the moon or alliteration to describe a ticking clock in an examination.
Worksheets are available show-casing these extracts which could be used alongside or separate from the Power Point.
This resource is suitable for 14+ years (one of the extracts is quite graphic and describes the slaughter of a pig)
I have bundled together three resources which I think will be useful when studying Victorian literature. Two are over views of the period as a whole and give a broad brush stroke of the times. Thomas Hood's Poem brings the focus down to a walk through the smog on a cold November day.
This bundle will provide useful background information and a sense of context when studying the Victorian novel or poetic works of that time-frame. Suitable for ages 10+
I have bundled together four resources which concentrate on the use of adjectives and nouns, including abstract, concrete and proper.
A comprehensive collection ideal for revision purposes.
Suitable for ages 10+
I have bundled together four resources which focus on identifying sentence forms and structure and also strategies for improving students' knowledge of spelling , grammar and punctuation more widely.
You will find presentations,quizzes and comprehensions that will be useful for revision purposes.
This animated Power Point tells the story of a broken pot, which despite its obvious flaw, enables wonderful flowers to grow along the path's edge. This is a heart warming story which will inspire students to accept their weaknesses but aspire to keep trying and fulfil their potential as life-long learners. There are activities included such as questions about the story, analysing and ordering the key words, some discussion opportunities about identifying our own potential and that of others. Words beginning with pot are introduced and students have to match these with their definitions. They will discover that certain words can mean different things according to whether they are used as a noun, a verb or even a proper noun.
Included is another resource about working hard to get results. Ideal when reviewing achievements and progression made so far.
This resource is suitable for ages 10+