Suitable for Key Stage 3 and designed for use during Tutor Time, but would be equally suited to small group reading intervention or being used in a specialised Drop Everything and Read class, this resource helps students focus on what it is like to use and build reading stamina. Some students will breeze this because they can read for hours and some may experience what it is like for the first time to concentrate on nothing but their reading for twenty minutes. Students do a shared read (they all take some responsibility for reading a sectio to their fellow readers) and because the turn taking can be randomised, they need to pay attention throughout. Uses a short story that is paid out sentence by sentence. You can build in your school rewards for those students who watch and listen throughout, who respond to their turn promptly and don’t fidget about or try to distract themselves.

Suitable for KS2, KS3 and lower ability KS4 VERSATILE—SUITS ANY FICTION Encourages evaluative thinking Encourages knowledge of character development Encourages evidence finding skills Encourages comparison of character across or within texts Encourages knowledge of character beliefs, qualities, world views and values Includes: Worksheet template Partial worked example of a KS3 novel to exemplify how the activity can be used Certificate for students to award once they’ve evaluated the character developments Follow up activity to encourage AO1 informed personal response and evidence and AO4 quality of expression. The ‘BEFAFTAS’ Awards Activities for Charting Character Development A light-hearted but fully effective set of activities that take some of the ‘grind’ out of tracing character development. This activity is like an award for an aspect of a character that changed the most dramatically from the before (the start of the story) to the after (the end of the story) the ‘BEFAFTA’ Award. Or, you could compare which character out of all the characters in a novel or fiction changed the most over the course of a story to ascertain who wins the ‘BEFAFTA’ Story-Lifetime Achievement Award!

The resource preview is presented as a series of samples of permutations of how this self-reflective tool can be used. Full resource on purchase has the mastersheet within it. The ‘Head, Heart …’ tool has been uniquely developed by me as part of my educational practice over the last ten years as a creative consultant and outstanding classroom educator and training deliverer. A generic tool to use during or after any learning sequence for junior students right through the secondary years and any CPD that you deliver or mentoring that you do. It aims to help you and your students understand what they are learning, how they are feeling about their learning, what they would like to change about the learning and what they think will help them in their next or future learning experiences. Based on the whole learner experience, not just who they are in their heads today, the tool helps the teacher get a deeper understanding of who their learners are, how they are responding to learning and the teaching and how they are shaping their learning futures. Enables teachers or trainers to open discussions on emotional well-being, cognition and learning to learn as well as build resilience and manage expectations. Simple for students to engage with and quick to administer either as mini-plenaries or as end of lesson or end of learning sequence plenaries. Potential for building vocabulary to name and separate thinking from feelings and emotions and learn to assert and voice their experience to build increasingly positive experiences in the future. Ways to use the ‘Head, Heart …’ Self-Reflective Tool: • As a basis for ‘voxpops’ • Self-reflective tool • Quick tests of the ‘temperature’ of your teaching for your self-refection • Student voice • Building future learning/career aspirations • Advocacy for the skills used in English and English Literature • Plenaries and mini plenaries • Imagining the experiences of others (empathy work and understanding characters Who and what the tool is suited to: • Suits teachers and learners at KS2, KS3, KS4 and KS5 • Suits evaluation of CPD delivery • Suits anyone in a mentoring role

A high grade exemplar for ‘The Darkness Out There’ and ‘Chemistry’ that not only supplies content for students but shows a possible style for high grade answers. There are activities to lift Grades 5 and 6 into the uber grades of 7, 8 and 9. Two hour’s worth of teaching and learning included here.

Take the fear out of short creative prose for the Eduqas/WJEC English Language Creative Prose Paper 1 Section B with this 550 word exemplar short story with full story arc for use as *what a good one looks like * and to adapt and borrow from to inspire similarly structured and controlled work from your students.

Celebrate International Children’s Book Day 2nd April or teach students the history of children’s books in an engaging way then create a playful leaflet inspired by a villain. Best suited to Years 4-8. Draw on prior knowledge, have a giggle, re-frame existing knowledge, add knowledge to the understanding of this literary canon and create a very modern publicity leaflet in which a children’s book villain attempts to change the public’s perception of them. 28 PPT slides with lovely graphics, challenge, differentiation, support, numeracy and wit to amuse them! Would last at least two hour lessons to complete with the leaflet task.

20 PowerPoint slides to train secodary and middle school staff in seven Whole School Literacy reading techniques - one for each week of an average half term. When time for fitting in Whole School Literacy CPD is tight, this pack will enable secondary or middle schools to refresh and extend their staff’s teaching of Literacy Across the Curriculum. Each piece of CPD takes about a minute to present so will fit into staff briefing time, as a starter to whole staff meetings, curriculum meetings or weekly mailing bulletins. This pack is based on a model of reading that looks at each aspect of comprehension from spelling to how whole texts are perceived. Each piece of training is given rationale, a technique that is quick to learn, adapts to all curriculum subjects, has suggestions for stretch and challenge and differentiation and has been developed by an outstanding Whole School Literacy Co-Ordinator. The Literacy Boom Moments is certainly a favourite with my SLT and Governors!

A full fiction reading exam practice paper with Eduqas style English Language Paper 1 Section A questions. Extract from ‘To the Lighthouse’. Fully line referenced. Follows question pattern: list five impressions how does the writer (craft language) …? how does the writer (mood and atmosphere) …? build argument/evaluate Indicative content included to support marking.

High grading essay response comparing ‘Tissue’ as main poem and ‘Poppies’ as a comparison poem. Tips on how it was planned and easy tips to elevate essays. Examiner experienced teacher and writer created. Offers potential for new interpretations of a complex text and also revision potential.

Five ideas to help poetry writing to celebrate poetry on your school’s Poetry Day, Poetry Week or to supplement a unit of work on poetry. Suited to KS2 students. I have also used this early KS3 for lower ability learners as a celebration of poetry. Also works well for transition days. Why not make a five poem anthology? Ideas include: soundscapes blackout poetry haiku question and answer poems scaffolded poems Students encounter three poems from Robert Louis Stevenson, Shakespeare and Walter De La Mare and use them as springboards into their own creativity. I also include here two FREE resources for advocating any school Poetry Day - a quiz on a dozen famous characters in children’s poetry and the chance to write a nonsense poem.

A starter activity of a mid-grade task response introduction on 'Follower' that uses the 'journey' of the poem to briefly address structure and ideas delivered in the poem. Students are asked to then suggest five ideas for the introduction that they will later cover in the response.

One third of the Gothic Homework Take Away Menu is provided here. Injects a wider range of modalities into the understanding of Gothic Literature. Could be used within lessons in its sample form as a way of opening discussions of student understanding of what they've read. Full resource here: THANK YOU FOR SAMPLING THE KS3 GOTHIC HOMEWORK MENU FULL SET OF 21 MAIN TASKS, BUILDING TO AROUND 50 TASKS WITH CHALLENGE TASKS AVAILABLE AT https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/generic-take-away-homework-for-gothic-units-of-work-at-ks3-11828714