There's been a murder! This exciting, engaging investigation activity allows students to control the direction of their own learning, through speaking, listening, discussing, and reasoning. I initially created these resources to provide something interesting for the students to engage with for their Functional Skills Speaking and Listening discussions, but it has since been used across Citizenship and PSHE departments, as well as by form groups, as a catalyst for social and moral discussions. Students play detectives aiming to solve the case of a death of an old lady. Using a range of evidence, from video clips, to interviews with key suspects, to positioning events on maps, students work in teams to try and solve the case. They must use skills of communication, to decide which leads to prioritise, and which evidence to discount. They also need to use their skills of literacy, to read and understand key evidence, and skills of numeracy to ensure that they keep their case within budget! Included in this resource pack are: - Full PowerPoint lesson talking students through the case; - A range of 'Exhibits' - evidence that the students use to build a case, including video clips; - A map of the local area, to help visualise the events leading up to the death; - Budgetting and recording sheets to track their progress; - A prime supsects list; - Clue cards containing interviews with prime supsects; - Full teacher guidance. Considering the time and effort that it took to create these resources, I think that they offer exceptional value. Whenever I have used this activity before, it has taken at least 2-3 lessons, including the introduction, investigation, conclusions, and evaluation. I orignally have used this with lower ability Year 8,9, and 10 groups, but colleagues have adapted it easily for students of all key stages. All images have been cited at the end of the PowerPoint presentation and are licensed for commercial use.

This resource is perfect for enabling students to build both their persuasive writing and their speaking and listening skills. Based upon the popular BBC series 'Dragons' Den', students have the opportunity to research, design, pitch, and evaluate arguments for their own inventions, whilst simultaneously analysing persuasive pitches, revising persuasive techniques, structuring arguments and articulating convincingly. Included is a 16 page booklet (I would say at least 4-5 hour lessons of tasks) that lead students to: - Introduce themselves and their interests; - Watch persuasive pitches (links included) and identify persuasive devices; - Analyse why persuasive devices are effective; - Structure an analysis appropriately; - Brainstorm ideas for an invention using imagination and helpful aiding questions; - Formulate an argument by considering key questions and counter arguments; - Write and present a persuasive pitch; - Peer-evaluate and self-evaluate persuasive pitches. I have also provided some examples of news stories featuring the worst and best pitches from the den, in order to provoke discussion about what makes a strong pitch. All images are licensed for commercial use and are cited throughout.

This resource booklet contains a wide range of age-appropriate, engaging, and meaningful comprehension activities for use throughout the reading of Benjamin Zephaniah’s ‘Refugee Boy.’ Teachers have found them particularly useful in comprehension or guided reading sessions. They are perfect for aiding the progress of children towards meeting the KS3 expectations within the new National Curriculum framework. Children have found these resources extremely engaging, and for teachers there is explicit information within each task regarding which comprehension strands the task is designed to demonstrate. They also relate to key extracts, characters, and themes from the story, ensuring that children gain a deep understanding of the text. Activities within the booklet include: ‘Context: Eritrean-Ethiopian War’ - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: ‘Know the purpose, audience and context of the writing and drawing on this knowledge to support comprehension.’ ‘Zephaniah’s Description’ - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: ‘Know how language, including figurative language, vocabulary choice, grammar, text structure and organisational features, present meaning.’ ‘Mr and Mrs Fitzgerald Character Profile’ - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: ‘Study setting, plot, and characterisation, and the effects of these.’ ‘Vocabulary Inspector’ - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: ‘Learn new vocabulary, relating it explicitly to known vocabulary and understanding it with the help of context and dictionaries.’ Plus many, many more activities (the booklet is 23 pages in length!) I’ve also added it as a PDF in case the formatting differs on your computer. All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on a separate document (included).

This resource booklet contains a wide range of age-appropriate, engaging, and meaningful comprehension activities for use throughout the reading of Michael Morpugo’s ‘War Horse.’ Teachers have found them particularly useful in comprehension or guided reading sessions. They are perfect for aiding the progress of children towards meeting the KS3 expectations within the new National Curriculum framework. Children have found these resources extremely engaging, and for teachers there is explicit information within each task regarding which comprehension strands the task is designed to demonstrate. They also relate to key extracts, characters, and themes from the story, ensuring that children gain a deep understanding of the text. Activities within the booklet include: ‘Context: World War I’ - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: ‘Know the purpose, audience and context of the writing and drawing on this knowledge to support comprehension.’ ‘Morpugo’s Description’ - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: ‘Know how language, including figurative language, vocabulary choice, grammar, text structure and organisational features, present meaning.’ ‘Captain Nicholls Character Profile’ - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: ‘Study setting, plot, and characterisation, and the effects of these.’ ‘Vocabulary Inspector’ - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: ‘Learn new vocabulary, relating it explicitly to known vocabulary and understanding it with the help of context and dictionaries.’ Plus many, many more activities (the booklet is 23 pages in length!) I’ve also added it as a PDF in case the formatting differs on your computer. All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on a separate document (included).

This engaging and highly-purposeful lesson enables children to write about emotions and feelings using vivid imagery. Children learn how to show, not tell in their writing, focusing on precise details relating the senses. This helps to make their writing more immersive - painting an image in the mind of the reader with their words. Children learn through: -Defining and understanding what is meant by showing, not telling; -Considering how each of the major emotions/ feelings can be shown; -Turning their ‘showing’ simple sentences into compound and complex sentences; -Editing and enhancing their showing sentences through consideration of precise verbs, adverbs and the use of analogies. Provided in this resource pack are: -Colourful and comprehensive PowerPoint presentation, offering a step-by-step guide through the lesson; -Showing Emotions table template; -Showing Emotions helpsheet (for LAP students). The worksheets/ templates are provided as Word (for ease of editing) and PDF (to prevent formatting issues between devices). The lesson was originally created for children in upper KS2, however with minor adaptations could easily be suitable for those in lower KS2 or lower KS3.

This stimulating and informative lesson aims to improve students’ ability to adapt the style of their writing to suit their audience and purpose. In particular, they attempt to meet the purpose of writing diary entries. Students follow a clear and logical learning journey, in which they: -Define diaries and their key content features; -Read extracts of diaries, and explain which content features different writers employ; -Work collaboratively to ascertain the language and structure features of diary entries; -Create a success criteria for effective diary writing (although a ready-made success criteria is included) -Write a diary entry for a famous character from their favourite movie, using the techniques that they have learnt; -Peer/self-assess their diary writing attempts. There are enough resources here really for two lessons, including: -Visually engaging whole-lesson PowerPoint; -Diary extracts x 4 (Adian Mole, Anne Frank, etc.) -What's in a Diary Entry worksheet; -Success Criteria; -Step-by-step lesson plan. All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on the final page of the slide.

This resource booklet contains a wide range of age-appropriate, engaging, and meaningful comprehension activities for use throughout the reading of Susan Hill's 'The Woman in Black.' Teachers have found them particularly useful in comprehension or guided reading sessions. They are perfect for aiding the progress of children towards meeting the KS3 expectations within the new National Curriculum framework. Children have found these resources extremely engaging, and for teachers there is explicit information within each task regarding which comprehension strands the task is designed to demonstrate. They also relate to key extracts, characters, and themes from the story, ensuring that children gain a deep understanding of the text. Activities within the booklet include: - 'Context: The Rural North' - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Know the purpose, audience and context of the writing and drawing on this knowledge to support comprehension.' - 'Hill's Description - The Horse and Trap' - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Know how language, including figurative language, vocabulary choice, grammar, text structure and organisational features, present meaning.' - 'Mr Jerome' and 'The Woman in Black' - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Study setting, plot, and characterisation, and the effects of these.' - 'Vocabulary Inspector' - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: 'Learn new vocabulary, relating it explicitly to known vocabulary and understanding it with the help of context and dictionaries.' Plus many, many more activities (the booklet is 21 pages in length!) I've also added it as a PDF in case the formatting differs on your computer. All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on a separate document (included).

This engaging and stimulating lesson enables students to create travel brochure texts containing appropriate and imaginative language choices, utilising a range of different language techniques with subtlety in order to craft writing that serves the dual purpose of being descriptive and persuasive. In particular, students learn how descriptive language such as of similes, metaphors, and personification, in addition to persuasive devices such as statistics, rhetorical questions, and personal pronouns, can help to create truly authentic and effective travel brochure pieces. The lesson follows a clear, logical, bite-size learning journey, which guides students towards differentiated learning objectives. Over the course of this journey, they become able to: - Define what travel brochures are and understand their purposes; - Identify the persuasive and descriptive language devices that travel brochure writers employ - Analyse the effects of the language in a model travel brochure text; - Utilise a clear and challenging success criteria document in order to construct their own travel brochure pieces; - Self/Peer assess travel writing attempts. This resource pack includes: - A visually engaging whole-lesson PowerPoint presentation; - An interesting and ambitious travel writing extract (with a highlighted version for teachers): -A logical and challenging worksheet, encouraging students to analyse key features; - A detailed lesson plan, complete with what the teacher and students should aim to achieve at each stage of the lesson. All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on the final slide of the PowerPoint.

This informative and engaging double lesson aims to improve students’ ability to compare and contrast two different texts based on a similar subject. They will focus particularly on the purpose, audience, language, and structure of texts, and will learn to use comparing and contrasting connectives to highlight any similarities and differences. This has always been a crucial skill in English, but has an increased importance in the new GCSE for English Language, as there is a greater requirement for students to be able to make links and comparisons between texts. The lesson follows a clear and logical learning journey, with students learning to: - Understand the key terms 'compare' and 'contrast', and the importance of these skills in English; - Categorise the different features that they can compare, under the headings 'Purpose', 'Audience', 'Language' and 'Structure;' - Read (and identify the key features within) two morally and ethically intriguing texts, offering diverse views of young people in the media; -Compare the two texts, using a clear and concise template, and newly-acquired knowledge of different types of connectives; - Peer-assess each other's comparative essay attempts. Included in this resource pack are: - Whole double lesson, colourful and engaging PowerPoint presentation (Including assessment for learning referral slides) - Cards for card-sorting activity; - Two interesting and thought-provoking non-fiction media extracts (one a newspaper extract from The Evening Standard, and another a persuasive leaflet, both focused on the issue of how young people are perceived.) - Template for main comparative analysis task; - Full teacher guidance plan. All images are licensed for commercial use and are cited on the final slide of the PowerPoint presentation

This detailed and visually-appealing resource offers a complete reference point for students learning or revising William Shakespeare's 'Macbeth.' It contains comprehensive sections on: - Context; - Scene by Scene Summary (with quotes); - Main Characters; - Themes; - Dramatic Devices; - Features of Tragedy. Key words and ideas are underlined for easy reference. The resource is designed to be printed onto A3, and is provided as both a PDF and a Word version (so that you can edit if you want to). All images used are licensed for commercial use and are cited on a separate document (included).

This stimulating and informative lesson develops students’ skill in creating emails that precisely meet the needs of their audience and purpose. In particular, they gain an in-depth understanding of how emails should be structured, what information should be included within them, and what style they should be written in, in order to meet their audience and purpose. Students follow a clear and logical learning journey, in which they: -Understand when and where emails are an appropriate form of communication; -Establish the structural features of emails; -Work collaboratively to identify and analyse the content and language features in further model examples of emails; -Understand how email features are influenced by the purpose and audience of the email; -Create a success criteria for writing emails (although a ready-made success criteria is included); -Write their own emails, using a helpsheet (if needed) and the techniques that they have learnt; -Peer/self-assess their writing attempts. There are enough resources here really for two lessons, including: -Visually engaging whole-lesson PowerPoint; -Email examples x 3 -Email purpose and audience sorting cards; -Writing emails helpsheet; -Structure of emails worksheet; -Step-by-step lesson plan. All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on the final page of the slide.

This resource booklet contains a wide range of age-appropriate, engaging, and meaningful comprehension activities for use throughout the reading of Malorie Blackman’s ‘Noughts and Crosses.’ Teachers have found them particularly useful in comprehension or guided reading sessions. They are perfect for aiding the progress of children towards meeting the KS3 expectations within the National Curriculum framework. Children have found these resources extremely engaging, and for teachers there is explicit information within each task regarding which comprehension strands the task is designed to demonstrate. They also relate to key extracts, characters, and themes from the story, ensuring that children gain a deep understanding of the text. Activities within the booklet include: ‘Blackman’s Description’ - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: ‘Know how language, including figurative language, vocabulary choice, grammar, text structure and organisational features, present meaning.’ ‘Callum McGregor Character Profile’ - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: ‘Study setting, plot, and characterisation, and the effects of these.’ ‘Context: Jim Crow Laws’ - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: ‘Know the purpose, audience and context of the writing and drawing on this knowledge to support comprehension.’ ‘Vocabulary Inspector’ - to enable students to demonstrate that they can: ‘Learn new vocabulary, relating it explicitly to known vocabulary and understanding it with the help of context and dictionaries.’ Plus many, many more activities (the booklet is 23 pages in length!) I’ve also added it as a PDF in case the formatting differs on your computer. All images are licensed for commercial use.

This detailed and visually-appealing resource offers a complete reference point for students learning or revising John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men.' It contains comprehensive sections on: - Context; - Chapter by Chapter Summary (with quotes); - Main Characters; - Themes; - Literary Features; - The Origins of the Book Title. Key words and ideas are underlined for easy reference. The resource is designed to be printed onto A3, and is provided as both a PDF and a Word version (so that you can edit if you want to). All images used are licensed for commercial use and are cited on a separate document (included).

This writing resource is perfect for use in literacy/writing lessons across the curriculum. Bright, colourful, and realistic, this resource enriches students' writing experiences whilst enabling them to showcase the skills and knowledge that they have picked up throughout their learning. This lesson is also available as a part of a larger multi-media writing template bundle from TandLGuru that includes: Facebook page template, email template, messenger template, tabloid template, broadsheet template, and a postcard template. Most are easily editable and visually stimulating for students.