This is a full lesson with 3 hours worth of resources and activities. This session breaks down and examine the comparative question A6 from paper 2 (WJEC / EDUQAS exam board) by using 2 texts which describe Manchester at different periods, Engels from 1844 and Bill Bryson from 1995. This session encourages independent / discovery learning and is filled with quick paced paired activities in which the students work together to identify and source conclusions from the text given. There is a short class discussion fore the students pool all their findings together in order to come up with a structured answer. Work sheets and support material is available to support weaker students and a starter paragraph is available to get the students into the swing of writing a prepared exam style answer. There is a start and plenary included in the session but there is also enough room for this session to be adapted any way you need it in order to suit your own students and teaching style. Please keep mind that TES previews sometimes distorts the PPT slides and this is not a reflection of how the resource looks. Hope it helps

This is an 8 page booklet designed to be used as independent study to help students prepare for their creative writing task in the GCSE English Language exam. This has been designed with the WJEC EDUQAS exam board in mind but will equally work with those who are studying for other exam boards. This booklet is designed to cater for different levels. We all know we have students who need explicit structure and instructions, therefore often find it difficult to create from imagination, even with prompts. Whereas we all have students who will fly on an imaginative roller coaster with the vaguest of hints. This booklet caters for both type of student. It starts with visual prompts to help coax ideas out of the least creative of students and then walks them through a planning process where they develop language features, vocabulary and short story lines. We also have writing prompts which will allow the student to use real life experiences to help inspire a story, much like the WJEC exam board will give. To turn the level up a notch we have a wide range of writing prompts using song titles. All through out the pack there are hints and tips to help students keep on track as to the skills they need to display in their writing to ensure the most marks from the examiner. This can be used in any way you feel will work best with your students. Please keep in mind that TES preview can distort the resource, this is not a reflection of how to looks. Hope it helps.

This is a fun, lively student centered lesson which revolves around team work activities and allowing the students to push their creativity and imagination. Many students struggle with imagination when it comes to question 5 and many panic, especially as it holds so many marks. This lesson uses images to inspire a range of vocabulary, language features and ideas for a storyline all within the planning of a haiku, therefore underpinning some of the essential skills needed to answer this question. This is quick paced session with a range of 10 minute activities which encourage independent learning and team work. I found that many students created a range of fantastic haiku’s which I made into a booklet for the students to take away with them. This sort of thing also scores brownie points with the managers and Ofsted but also helps to develop a sense of achievement and self confidence in English, which many students lack. It is also great for the students to know their work in English has a use other than for passing an exam and many feel pride in that. This lesson covers: planning for written work, synonyms, metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole, long short sentences, imagination but can be adapted to cover much more if so desired. It ends with a peer marking assessment based on the Facebook liking system using emoticons and a chance to act like an examiner and identify language features. There is a homework task, which if desired, could be turned into a in class task other than homework. Hope it helps

This speaking and listening lesson focuses around the conspiracy theory that Princess Diana was murdered. Students love this lesson because many students love a good conspiracy theory. This lesson comes with videos to help students get a full background of her life and events. It requires the students to work together to collect their own research and develop their own opinions and counter arguments which will form part of the group debate. The videos don’t come with additional worksheets although they can be created to help form part of the students research as and when you feel necessary. This lesson can be used with any exam board and also with functional skills SP & LIST. It can be developed to underpin skills such as identifying bias and critical thinking. Please be aware that TES preview can often distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps.

This is a complete mock paper 2 exam for the AQA English Language 8700 spec. It features all questions from 1 - 5 in the style of AQA , The sources are a twitter war between Perez Hilton and Lady Gaga and a letter written in 1874 by the poet AC Swinburne, both documents tackle the issue of public slander and public arguments. Please keep in mind that the TES preview can often distort the look of the resource, it is not always a true reflection of the how the resource truly appears. Hope it helps

This is a small introduction to improving your students sentence structures which can be used with GCSE English of all exam boards and Functional English classes. The session is based around a YouTube sensation and TV star Michael Cthulhu who makes"Big Giant Swords". It comes with a full powerpoint, support material and 2 videos. The lesson has group activities and individual tasks and is fast paced. I find this lesson works well with students who have completely disengaged with English or with classes largely made up of male students. As I teach within a college I teach English to students who are in grouped in their core subjects, such as bricklaying or music etc and embedding English into fun subjects such as these helps to break the barriers to learning. It is only an introduction so feel free to tinker into order to suit your students needs or to expand on the knowledge provided. Please keep in mind that the TES preview often distorts the preview and this is not a true reflection of the resources layout. Hope it helps.

This is a complete mock paper 2 for AQA English language 8700 based on two great disasters, 9/11 Twin towers attacks and the great fire of London in 1666. The paper uses sources which were written at the time of the disasters, an article from an American newspaper and extract from the diary of Samuel Pepys. This later extract from 1666 does not quite fit the exam spec in terms of period texts, therefore I have included a simplified version of the extracts along with the original extracts to help your students understand the text. You may want to cover some more of the difficult areas of the diary extract with your students before you set this mock if you feel the need or do some underpinning of these two events to help students put them into context. Please be aware that the TES preview can at times distort the resource and this is not always a true reflection of it’s presentation. Hope it helps.

This booklet is full of motivational, inspirational and confidence building quotes. I like to have this booklet in my classroom for students to look at, or use its in my classroom displays. This can be used either way depending on your needs. Hope it helps

This is a very fun and active lesson designed for lower level or a mixed level functional skills English class. This lesson has very few written tasks, as many lower level classes do demonstrate poor behaviour and are very reluctant to do written work. Instead we have a lesson which jam packed with group and paired activities from board games to creating an origami frog via a instructional video. This lesson also allows room to embed maths via the origami frog task. It is a quick paced lesson which also allows for stretch and challenge and offers a bridge into GCSE English by touching upon imperative verbs and explaining why such language features are used. It comes with a starter and a daily diary plenary task. Please be aware that TES previews do at times distorts the look of the resource and tis is not a true reflection. Hope it helps

This resource is a 8 page resource, with trailer, filled with tasks based around discrimination and Harvey Milk - the LGBT activist. The aim of this resource is for you to use, build a lesson around or embed in anyway you see fit based on your classes and your style of teaching. You can use all or some of the resource available based on your needs. The main aims of the resource are: To list three facts about the life of Harvey Milk Discuss different kinds of discrimination and rights. Discuss the effects of discrimination on an individual. This resource is aimed at both lower and higher ability students with scaffolds and different tasks such as comprehension, research task, discussion and summary writing. The discussion task is based on the famous experiment ran by Jane Elliot in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King and comes with teacher notes on how to run the discussion. This is a great resource to use during observations or Ofsted visits, LGBT awareness month or the run up to Pride weekends. It is also a good session to invite youth/support workers along to as they can offer support, advice or help facilitate and add an extra dimension to the session. Please note that TES preview can at time distort the look of a resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps.

This is a fun, fast paced, team based session which comes with a full powerpoint lesson from start to finish, 3 worksheets and 2 videos. This session covers the main language features which the students will need to know for this exam (DAFOREST / POSHIMP) and addresses not just the terminology but the purpose and job the language features perform. The main aim of the session is geared towards Paper1 Question 5. I use this lesson as an introductory session to language features for my students and build on these key skills as the term moves on. There is enough material to cover a 3 hour session in tis pack. As inspiration we look at an unusual character from the TV show ‘Big Giant Swords’ and use this person to inspire creative writing from the students. Please be aware that TES previews can distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps.

Having taught English over the last 10 years I have witnessed an increase in pressure put on students to achieve grade C’s and above - now grade 4’s and above. I have also witnessed how this pressure makes lower performing students give up in English, leading to poor attendance and behavior . Other students, who try their best, being made to feel stupid or “thick” (as they put it) because they never seem able to do what is increasingly expected of them. Therefore this is a lesson designed to be inspirational and encouraging, which makes it ideal for the start of the academic year and trying to start your students off on a positive mind set in English. It crosses over into something of a tutorial and is a good way to start off the creative writing unit as the final task is geared towards that particular question in the exam. If you are doing regular target setting and target reviews with your students, it is also a great session to begin that process with and allows you to have a starting point from which you can track. This session encourages students to measure their ideals against their actuals. Which is to look at what it is you want to achieve in the future (grades 4 - 9) but measuring the progress against what you did last week / last term etc and visibly seeing the improvements and progress being made. The idea is to encourage a positive feeling towards English and to develop a healthy approach to achievement and what achievement means. It can be used with any exam board as the creative writing task is across all boards. This lesson comes with a full powerpoint - slides of which can be printed and used as worksheets - and a video which ideally needs to be watched from roughly 3 mins in and ended at about 5 mins in ( exact times can be found in the notes section of the PP) If you don’t want to use the video, the point it makes is reinforced by a group task and so you can use either /or - or both. It is full of group and individual activities which can be done without a world of resources at your finger tips - ideal if you multi site in your job. Please note that TES previews can distort the look of the resource and this is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps

This is a team based lesson with quick paced tasks based around an extract from Andy Weir’s “The Martian”. The aim of the lesson is to answer an exam based question on the structural features used in this extract. The lesson comes with 7 worksheets which includes the extract and tasks which range across all abilities and can be used at your discretion. This resource also comes with the trailer (which does include the S word, so feel free to use at your discretion) and the full lesson on powerpoint. This resource is designed to be used in which ever way you feel works for your classes and is adaptable to accommodate your teaching style. The lesson is created for students who are already aware of structural features but again, you can adapt this session to either introduce or reinforce structural features, depending on what you have covered so far. The session comes with a start and short self assessment plenary, there are plenty of team tasks, group and class discussions and some peer assessment. It ends with a individual task which is exam focused. Please note that the TES preview does distort the look of the resource and this is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps.

This is a quick paced, fun lesson all centered around the theme of monsters in literature. The pack comes with the full lesson on powerpoint and 5 separate worksheets which include an extract from Frankenstein and an ideas board to help students who struggle to come up with ideas. This session focuses on the EDEXCEL exam, paper 1 question 5, it consolidates DAFOREST and POSHIMP acronyms for language features and introduces ROW of CLONES acronym for structural features. The session comes with a fun starter which can be achieved by all levels and progresses in difficulty, team activities, handouts and ideas boards are in place to help those who struggle. The final task is to improve on a piece of writing they completed earlier in the session. A task which is designed to show students their own progression through-out the session / in real time rather than waiting for feedback at the end or in the next session Please keep in mind that the TES preview does distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps.

This 5 page questions worksheet is based on the new book by Philomena Cunk -“Cunk on Everything”. Although this is a modern, comedic text, I often find that by using resources from current pop culture helps students to engage with English and helps learning or consolidation of learning take place , it also helps to give a light hearted and fun tone to your classroom however I mostly like to use resources such as these to help show students that what they learn in English is relevant and used in the everyday / real world and not just the classroom. This resource can be used with any exam board but I would suggest that some prior teaching on structural features take place first. The resource focuses primarily on the use of structural features within the extract and uses a range of questioning techniques which allows for differentiation of all levels and can be used in pairs / small groups or as an individual task. It ends with a final exam style question focusing on the structural question within the GCSE exam. You could use this resource as a part of the lesson, homework or as an extension. Please keep in mind that TES preview can distort the look of the resource and this is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps.

I always find that the topic of Donald Trump is a big hit in my classroom but the idea of having to compare two takes on 1 topic isn’t. Many students find this task a daunting one and so I created this lesson to introduce the notion of writing a comparison to my students. The lesson looks at two speeches made by both Obama and Trump, the resource is 10 pages of individual, group activities including watch and retrieve information, targeted and differentiated questioning, group discussion and a final written task. It has been designed for you to deliver in which ever way suits you best. I teach GCSE sessions in 3 hour blocks and so there is enough material in this resource to fill one 3 hour session. This is a resource which can be used with GCSE but also L2 functional skills. It focuses on students being able to explain , provide insight and discuss inference rather than language features but also allows lower ability students to talk about the facts and their opinions. Please keep in mind that the TES preview distorts the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps

This poster is a really helpful resource to have in your classroom or out on students tables during sessions to help them to remember and use high level language features in their work. The poster breaks down the acronym POSHIMP and uses Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones as a visual memory aid to help reinforce. This is in the format of powerpoint and so is easy to swap / alter or use in other powerpoints. Please keep in mind that the preview can distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps

This 7 page booklet id designed to help students with the reading component of their Functional Skills exam. The booklet can be used as in class resources, revision or as self study. Based on a article by Friends of the Earth, the booklet focuses on simple and easy ways we can help become more green in our every day routines and underpins purpose of text and audience questions from the exam. The questions in the booklet are a combination of low level, opinion based and exam based questions. They range from multiple choice to more structured answers asking for reasons or quotes to support . The booklet ends with an extension activity which focuses on language and writing elements of the exam and a self assessment plenary. Please keep in mind that the TES preview can at times distort the look of the resource and this is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps.

This session uses an extract from The Witcher and is designed to be a fast paced, Fun and engaging, group based session which allows the learners room for self discovery and peer support in order to practice using the skills they have been taught through out the year. This is largely a recap session on Language and Structural features (I have used DAFOREST, POSHIMP and ROW of CLONES but these can be adapted) they have been taught and to prepare them as the exam dates grow close. Designed for paper 1 question 3 of the edexcel exam board but can be adapted to be used with other exam boards. The focus of this session is on the learners to lead the lesson rather than the teacher to feed knowledge and is great as a recap/ exam prep or workshop lesson. Slides from the presentation can be printed and used as handouts or worksheets, are designed to be used with an IWB with room for annotations during group discussions and feedback tasks and come with comments to help delivery. Please keep in mind that the TES preview can distort the look of the resource and this is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps.