I am an experienced English teacher and Literacy Coordinator. All of my resources are organised, engaging, ready to teach and designed to save you - the teacher - your valuable time!
Please have a look at all of my resources - at least 20% of which are free.
I am an experienced English teacher and Literacy Coordinator. All of my resources are organised, engaging, ready to teach and designed to save you - the teacher - your valuable time!
Please have a look at all of my resources - at least 20% of which are free.
Engaging and ready to teach one hour lesson to cover chapter five of ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ by John Boyne. This lesson teaches students the difference between direct and indirect characterisation (with an exercise to practise writing their own examples). It then prompts them to consider the characterisation of Father. Students then write a personal response to an emotional extract from the text in which Father expresses his opinion on the Jewish people in Auschwitz.
Learning Objective: Write a personal response explaining how I feel about an extract.
Learning Outcomes:
Bronze: Describe how you feel about an extract.
Silver: Explain the reasons for your feelings.
Gold: Ask questions and make links between what you know from the text and your other background knowledge.
Lesson Overview:
Do It Now: True or false questions about the Holocaust
Starter: Indirect vs direct characterisation – explanation and whole-class activity.
Activity 1: Popcorn reading and class discussion of how Father is characterised.
Activity 2: Write a personal response to an extract from the text.
Plenary: Think-pair-share: how did this extract make you feel? What do you think the author wants us to feel?
Freebies:
Two pre-reading lessons to introduce students to the context of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is available for free here.
A lesson on chapter 1 of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is available for free here.
A scheme of work for teaching the entire novel is available for free here.
If you find this lesson useful, please consider purchasing this ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ Bundle or have a look at other resources available in my shop. .
Leave a review and choose any other resource of up to the same value for free from my shop.
Engaging and ready to teach one hour lesson to cover chapter twelve of ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ by John Boyne. This lesson prompts students to consider how John Boyne shows Bruno and Shmuel’s innocence and requires them to compare and contrast the two characters.
Learning Objective: Compare and contrast Bruno and Shmuel.
Learning Outcomes:
Bronze: Create a timeline of Bruno and Shmuel’s life so far.
Silver: Find the similarities and differences between them.
Gold: Explain why John Boyne has created similarities between these two characters.
Lesson Outline:
Do It Now: Venn diagram of Bruno and Shmuel.
Starter: In chapter 12, how does John Boyne show the innocence of Shmuel and Bruno? (Reading focus).
Activity 1: Think-pair-share – quote inference activity.
Activity 2: Students complete a timeline comparing and contrasting Bruno and Shmuel’s lives.
Peer assessment
Plenary: One minute recall challenge: what are the main similarities between Bruno and Shmuel?
Freebies:
Two pre-reading lessons to introduce students to the context of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is available for free here.
A lesson on chapter 1 of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is available for free here.
A scheme of work for teaching the entire novel is available for free here.
If you find this lesson useful, please consider purchasing this ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ Bundle or have a look at other resources available in my shop. .
Leave a review and choose any other resource of up to the same value for free from my shop.
Engaging and ready to teach one hour lesson to cover chapter ten of ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ by John Boyne. This lesson introduces students to STEAL analysis as a way of understanding a character. Students complete STEAL analysis of Shmuel and then make predictions on what they think will happen in the text.
Learning Objective: Use STEAL analysis to understand Shmuel as a character.
Learning Outcomes:
Bronze: Find appropriate quotes from the text to analyse Shmuel.
Silver: Infer details from the quotes.
Gold: Make links between parts of the text.
Lesson Outline:
Do It Now: Make a prediction based on the chapter title.
Starter: Reading focus – how is Shmuel described?
Activity 1: Discussion of STEAL analysis
Activity 2: STEAL analysis poster in pairs
Peer assessment
Plenary: Now that Shmuel and Bruno have met, what do you predict will happen?
Freebies:
Two pre-reading lessons to introduce students to the context of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is available for free here.
A lesson on chapter 1 of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is available for free here.
A scheme of work for teaching the entire novel is available for free here.
If you find this lesson useful, please consider purchasing this ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ Bundle or have a look at other resources available in my shop. .
Leave a review and choose any other resource of up to the same value for free from my shop.
A detailed year 6 lesson to prepare them for the transition to secondary school. Students will consider what they already know and what questions they have. They will then watch a video from a Year 7 form tutor and work together to consider how they could prepare for secondary school.
Lesson overview, printing instructions and worksheets are all included.
If you find this lesson useful, have a look at other resources available in my shop.
A fun, detailed and ready-to-teach lesson which prepares students for the changes in friendships they will most likely encounter when moving to secondary school.
Students will roleplay different scenarios using scrips provided to act out how they could have healthy conversations with friends. They will then complete a table with ideas for strategies they could use when they are feeling certain emotions.
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This bundle contains:
A scheme of work overview for this three lesson unit.
A detailed ready-to-teach lesson preparing students for the transition to year 7.
A detailed ready-to-teach lesson which specifically focuses on the organisational skills required for secondary school such as using a planner, making a homework plan etc.
A detailed ready-to teach lesson which focuses on the changes in friendships and prepares students for how to manage this in year 7.
A transition guide that can be used by parents and/or teachers to support students emotionally as they prepare for the transition to secondary school.
I really value all the feedback I receive. Leave a review and choose any other resource of up to the same value for free from my shop.
A fun, detailed and ready-to-teach lesson in which year 6 students will reflect upon their organisational strengths and areas for improvement. They will then discuss strategies for improving their organisation and then complete a planner quiz which prompts them to problem-solve when using a planner.
This is designed to last an hour but could be spread out over two one-hour lessons if more discussion time is given.
This includes:
A 27 slide PowerPoint with all teacher instructions and two different quizzes for students to complete.
I really value all the feedback I receive. Leave a review and choose any other resource of up to the same value for free from my shop.
A 22 page year 6 to year 7 transition guide containing discussion prompts, creative writing tasks and poetry to help year 6s navigate their journey to secondary school. This can be taken home by families to use with their children or it can be used within a year 6 or year 7 classroom.
The first section of this guide should be used as year 6s prepare to leave primary school and the second part should be used once they have started year 7.
Part of this guide involves discussion of poems from Steven Camden’s anthology Everything All At Once. This is widely available from bookshops and libraries.
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This is an engaging and fully-resourced one hour lesson to introduce students to the characters of the witches and some of the key themes in Act 1 Scene 1 of ‘Macbeth’ by William Shakespeare.
This resource includes a full PowerPoint including all teacher instructions that is ready to download and teach straight away. Students will consider pathetic fallacy and the paradox of ‘fair is foul, and foul is fair’.
Students will work in groups to complete an engaging worksheet and then will work individually to write an analysis paragraph (which is scaffolded with an example paragraph included).
Students will also have the opportunity to stage the opening scene and consider how they could increase the fear for the audience.
Lesson Objective: Analyse how Shakespeare creates fear at the start of Macbeth.
Learning Outcomes:
Understand how the opening scene introduces some important themes in Macbeth.
Evaluate Shakespeare’s use of literary devices.
Distinguish between the reactions of a Shakespearean audience and a modern audience.
Lesson Outline:
Do it now: Questions for students to consider how a Shakespearean audience would have reacted to the witches.
Starter: Think – Pair – Share about witches in Shakespeare’s time.
Activity 1: Read act 1 scene 1 and students complete worksheet to identify language techniques with answers provided.
Activity 2: Students write an analytical paragraph to answer the question ‘how did Shakespeare create fear for a Shakespearean audience?’ They will see a modelled paragraph first and peer assess afterwards.
Activity 3: In groups of 3, consider how they would stage and direct the scene to really terrify a Shakespearean audience.
Plenary: How would a modern audience react differently to the opening of Macbeth? Do you think it is still as scary even though the belief in witchcraft isn’t as widespread?
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An hour long engaging lesson in which students are introduced to the main characters and themes in Macbeth. Through individual and group work, students will practise reading skills - in particular comprehension, inference and summarising - and collaborate with each other to share information that they have gleaned from profiles about the key characters in the play.
Students will also be shown images representing Macbeth and prompted to infer themes they think will be evident in the play.
Learning Objective: Get to know the main characters and themes in Macbeth.
Learning Outcomes:
Find and highlight key information about your character in the play.
Re-write information about your character and share it with others in your own words.
Question others about their characters and make connections between different characters.
Lesson Outline:
Do it now: Think – Pair – Share question about ambition
Starter: Students look at five images representing Macbeth and infer themes from them.
Activity one: Students are assigned a character from Macbeth. They read the information sheet and take bullet points notes in their graphic organiser.
Activity two: Students circulate around the room swapping facts until they have completed all five character profiles.
Plenary: Mini quiz based on the characters in the lesson.
This lesson contains a 16-slide PowerPoint and five printable character profiles.
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A detailed PowerPoint with accompanying printable worksheets for students to explore the context of Shakespeare’s Macbeth before embarking on their reading of the play. This lesson prompts students to dive deep into the historical and cultural backdrop of the play while honing critical skills like summarising, analysis, and collaboration.
The lesson includes a thorough exploration of Macbeth’s context, including the reign of King James I, the Gunpowder Plot, witchcraft and the supernatural, family life, and gender roles. Through teacher modelling, students learn effective summary writing techniques, equipping them with the tools to distill complex information into concise and impactful summaries. They then put this into practice by using one of the worksheets to summarise information on their given topic.
Students then engage in a carousel activity, where they delve into each of the context topics, learning from their peers, and collaboratively constructing their understanding.
Learning Objective: Summarise contextual information about British society in the Jacobean period.
Learning Outcomes:
Students will read and comprehend new information and life in Jacobean times.
Students will summarise this information in their own words.
Students will clearly articulate what they have learned to your classmates.
Lesson Outline:
Do it now: Students think – pair – share about the importance of understanding a text’s context.
Starter: Walkthrough of how to write an effective summary using an example text about James I.
Activity 1: Students write their own summary of one of the contextual topics (King James I and the Gunpowder plot, Witchcraft, Family Life and Gender – these are differentiated by ability as shown by notes on PPT slide). Students spend 15 minutes creating their summary and then self-assess.
Activity 2: Summary carousel – students move around the classroom sharing their summaries and taking notes on the various topics.
Plenary: Mini whiteboard questions on the topic from this lesson.
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A GCSE/IGCSE revision quiz on the social and historical context of Of Mice and Men as assessment preparation.
The rounds included in the full quiz are:
Context
Setting, Structure and Symbols
Literary Devices
Descriptions - Name the Character
Animals
Character Names and First Lines
George and Lennie
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapters Five and Six
If you find this useful, please leave a review and consider purchasing the full 100 question quiz with 12 rounds or this Of Mice and Men revision bundle (more free resources in there too!)
This treasure hunt activity is a great way for you and your students to check their understanding of how to use different punctuation marks and simple, compound and complex sentences.
For this treasure hunt, each student starts of at a station with a question. Their task is to find the next card with the correct answer. That card will give them the next question. They will know that they have completed the task with the correct answers once they are taken back to their original station.
You can either arrange these cards on clearly-identifiable desks around the room or you can hide them. The latter works particularly well as a fun end-of-term activity.
This works well for Key Stage 3, but Key Stage 4 students have also enjoyed it as a fun activity to practise writing skills for their GCSE revision.
I really hope you and your students enjoy this! Leave a review and choose any other resource, of up to the same value, for free from the LikeAnExpert shop.
This bundle contains 20 resources that can be used and adapted for key stage 3 English lessons. It contains resources that cover reading, writing and speaking skills.
All lessons are ready to download and teach immediately. This bundle contains the following:
Writing Skills
Lesson on colons vs semi colons
Lesson on commas, dashes and brackets
Lesson on complex sentences
Lesson on compound sentences
Writing skills (SPAG) knowledge organiser
Writing skills for key stage 3 assessment with answer rubric included.
Figurative language - writing similes and metaphors
Lesson on punctuating dialogue
Lesson on assonance
Lesson on sibilance
Lesson on personification
Reading Skills/Poetry
12) Booklet to help students create their own poetry anthology
13) Lesson on the features of poetry and prose
14) 2 lessons on successful annotation and analysis of poetry.
15) Lesson on how to write a slam poem
16) Reusable lesson to embed close reading skills
17) Introduction to poetry knowledge organiser
18) World Book Day reading quiz
19) Poetry analysis lesson on ‘The Lesson’ by Roger McGough
Speaking and listening skills
20) Introduction to group discussion lesson
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Unlock your students’ critical thinking skills with this 90-minute, fully resourced lesson focused on teaching inference through crime scene investigation. Designed to captivate students’ imagination, this lesson challenges them to propose solutions to a fictional crime based on evidence found at the scene, before creating their own crime scene scenarios. The lesson ends with students inferring information about their classmate’s criminals based on the clues at the crime scene.
Perfect for a range of settings, this versatile lesson can be easily adapted for different age groups and abilities. It provides a balanced mix of independent and group work, with both oracy and writing activities included to reinforce learning. Ideal as part of a detective fiction unit, a precursor to crime writing, or as a standalone lesson dedicated to honing inference skills.
This resource includes:
An 18-slide PowerPoint presentation guiding the entire lesson.
A scaffolded inference worksheet for individual student use.
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This dynamic one-hour lesson is designed to engage students in understanding how Macbeth is introduced as both a violent and loyal character. Perfect for exploring themes and character development, this lesson encourages students to think critically and creatively and prepares students to analyse how Macbeth changes later in the play.
What’s Included:
A complete PowerPoint with ready-to-use teacher instructions, allowing you to download and teach immediately.
Interactive activities where students will order the events of the battle and craft a compelling news war report based on the scene.
Ideal for:
Enhancing comprehension of Macbeth’s character and motivations.
Encouraging students to connect with the text through creative writing and discussion.
Lesson Objective: Write a news report about the battle in Act 1 Scene 2.
Learning Outcomes:
Read the scene multiple times to decipher the orders of events in battle.
Infer details about Macbeth’s character.
Add imaginative details to create a news report about the battle in this scene.
Lesson Outline:
Do it now: Think – Pair – Share What are the key features of a news war report?
Starter: Reading focus – as you read the scene as a class, students write down quotes that describe Macbeth’s character followed by an activity to list adjectives that describe him.
Activity 1: Re-read the scene in pairs and put the events in the correct order.
Activity 2: Students discuss features of a news report and then write their own based on Act 1 Scene 2.
Plenary: What are your predictions about Macbeth now that you know more about his as a character?
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Enhance your students’ analytical skills with this comprehensive lesson on Macbeth, designed to deepen their understanding of Shakespeare’s use of tension, dramatic irony, and paradox. This 90-minute lesson (or two one-hour lessons) guides students through key segments of Acts 3 and 4, helping them unpick the Bard’s meaning with structured support and discussion prompts. Ideal for Key Stages 3 and 4, this lesson is perfect for exploring how Macbeth’s ambition begins to consume him as the witches’ prophecies unfold.
Resource Highlights:
27 Fully-Prepared Slides: All the resources you need for a complete, engaging lesson.
In-Depth Literary Analysis: Focuses on Shakespeare’s use of tension, dramatic irony, and the impact of the witches’ prophecies.
Teacher Support: Detailed discussion questions and provided answers ensure you can guide students effectively.
Learning Outcomes:
Comprehensive Understanding: Students will read and interpret key scenes from Acts 3 and 4.
Collaborative Analysis: Encourages group discussions and class engagement to deepen analysis.
Focused Literary Device Exploration: Students will learn to identify and explain the effect of literary devices such as dramatic irony and paradox.
Lesson Breakdown:
Do It Now: A quick 90-second recall on Jacobean beliefs in witches to set the context.
Starter: Introduce key literary terms, followed by a guided reading and discussion of Act 3, Scene 1, leading to a 100-word student summary.
Activity One: Delve into Act 3, Scene 4 with student-led discussions and summary writing.
Plenary: Students reflect on how Shakespeare builds tension, using key vocabulary to articulate their thoughts.
Why Choose This Resource?
Designed for Confidence-Building: Helps students feel secure in their analysis of complex texts.
Ready to Use: Download and start teaching immediately with no prep required.
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This bundle contains:
A detailed knowledge organiser containing key quotes, facts about Shakespeare and a character summary!
An engaging lesson introducing the context of Macbeth.
A detailed lesson introducing the characters and themes of the play (including all teacher instructions).
A detailed lesson introducing the themes in act 1 scene 1.
A lesson introducing Macbeth in act 1 scene 2.
A detailed lesson on act 1 scenes 3 and 4.
A detailed lesson on act 1 scene 5 analysing Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy.
A lesson examining the persuasive techniques used by Lady Macbeth in act 1 scene 7.
A lesson guiding students to analysing Macbeth’s soliloquy in act 2 scene 1.
A lesson on independent STEAL analysis in act 2 scene 2.
A lesson on dramatic tension in act 2 scene 3.
An extension task/homework sheet for further application of the skills analysed in act 1 scene 7.
Detailed character profiles of the five main characters: Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, King Duncan, Banquo and the three witches.
A Shakespeare pub-style quiz with 40 questions about the Bard!
A homework menu to give students ownership over their extended study.
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