'Hunted' is a short animation film which starts with a young, naive, native tribesman wandering into a hunter's campsite. The comedy and animation effects really draw in children and I have found it a brilliant resource to use to develop their writing description. This resource contains a full lesson and planning worksheet for the children. It focuses on developing the children's description of the setting, characters and their feelings as events progress. It can easily be adapted to challenge a different Literacy skill or to suit your class. Enjoy!

I made this lesson to help my class develop their variation of sentence starters. My lesson notebook models different examples using the helpful poster (which can be made into a dice) and then gets children to apply their understanding by recounting the animation of George and The Dragon (as our Literacy topic at that time was Myths and Legends). This can easily be adapted to link with a particular theme or year group.

When developing my children's comprehension skills, I don't like using photocopies from text books and meaningless expectancy sheets. I prefer to use purposeful, educational and REAL LIFE examples to engage and inform them, while still challenging them and looking for those reading skills. Therefore a lot of my comprehension challenges are based around interesting newspaper articles. In this example, taken from 2013, a new map of Pangaea, the supercontinent from 300 million years ago, shows where modern day countries would have been located in the ancient land mass. Included in this pack is a copy of the article and linking comprehension questions suitable for KS2. Enjoy!

As it is hot topic in the news at the moment, I took one of the articles about the poppy / FIFA debate from the BBC and made it into a reading comprehension exercise to give children a purposeful activity in their reading time and something that could later be discussed in PHSE/circle time. In this pack is a PDF copy of the article (which is still available online) and linked questions suitable and easily adaptable for all KS2.

A simple but fun Macbeth-themed word search and crossword puzzles to help children to embed their knowledge of the Shakespeare tragedy. Available in PDF, Pages and Word formats! All words link to the plot, including characters names, themes and places. Enjoy!

When developing my children's comprehension skills, I don't like using photocopies from text books and meaningless expectancy sheets. I prefer to use purposeful, educational and REAL LIFE examples to engage and inform them, while still challenging them and looking for those reading skills. Therefore a lot of my comprehension challenges are based around interesting newspaper articles. In this example, taken from the BBC News website in April 2017, a village in the South West of England has declared itself as being 'hedgehog-friendly' in a bid to stop numbers falling. Included in this pack is a copy of the article and linking comprehension questions suitable for KS2. Enjoy!

'The Playground' starts with the opening line: Everything stopped, everything a statue all around me. Frozen in time. This lesson resource gets children to brainstorm and write the rest of the story using their own imagination, using the above opening line and a playground photograph as stimuli. The objective and success criteria are: To write a complete story Success Criteria: * My story has a beginning, middle and end * The events of my story flow and make sense * I can engage the reader using description / feelings / varied sentences The lesson presentation is in Smartboard format with detailed, engaging slides which promote talk partner discussion, teacher modelling, an independent white board task, clear objectives and plenary. It can easily be adapted for different KS2 year groups and a different writing focus other than story structure, e.g. tense, sentence starters, grammar or vocabulary.

Planet Unknown is a brilliant futuristic animation about a two Space Rovers, sent to find potential inhabitable planets using 'nSeed' pods to detect the possibility of growing plants. In the story, the two Rovers are undertaking their mission, but suddenly find themselves battling through an asteroid shower. This resource is two lessons; the first gets children to brainstorm descriptive language for the two characters and the setting, while the second is the writing recount of events from the film. The two objectives are as follows: 1) To describe a film setting and its characters 2) To be able to recount a film as a written story These are each supported by specific success criteria to aid children's writing. This pack includes a Smartboard presentation with detailed slides for both lessons, a planning worksheet for lesson one, and screenshots JPEGs of the characters and the setting It can easily be adapted for different KS2 year groups and a particular skill focus, e.g. tense, sentence starters, grammar or vocab. I have kept it as a general recount focus involving all skills.

This short burst English topic presents or revises different types of poetry before focusing on the topic of key Black History figures and creating nominal poems about them. The objectives covering four days are: Day 1: To compare different types of poetry * I know the purpose of poetry * I can identify the structure of different poems * I can identify use of description in different poems * I can explain how a poem makes me feel Day 2: To be able to perform poetry Success Criteria: * I can compare how authors read poetry * I can speak confidently and clearly * I can use punctuation to identify the flow of a poem * I can emphasis key words in a poem Day 3: To be able to plan the content of a poem Success Criteria: * I can research key personal information about an individual * I can find out why they became a key Black History figure * I can brainstorm adjectives that describe their personality * I can brainstorm adjectives that describe their appearance Challenge: I can predict the feelings of an individual at key points during their life Day 4: To be able to write a nominal poem Success Criteria: * I can write the first letters of the persons name down the left margin * I know the first word for each line starts with the given letter * My poem tells the reader why the person is celebrated during Black History Month * I can include descriptive language to make my poem emotive This resource pack contains the Notebook presentation for the four days, which includes examples of all types of poetry, links to poetry being performed, talk partner questions, opportunities to take notes from children's feedback and task outlines for each lesson, along with worksheets for the third and fourth lessons and linking photographs. Suitable for KS2 and great for Black History Month or a general poetry topic.

Having taught in an East London primary school, I wanted to end the class WWII topic by linking it to their own community. East London was a huge target during the Blitz, therefore was devastated during the war, which children in the area might not realise given the infrastructure around them. However, the lesson mainly compares WWII problems with modern day life in East London - positive and negative. It gets children to examine their own community, identify what is good, and what could be improved, and what they imagine it will be like in the future. The lesson activity is continuous through the lesson; making notes about what they think Hackney is like, and then develops to the children using their notes to write a poem (using my teacher example). Although this resource is focused on East London, it could be adapted to focus on area of London or the UK that was particularly affected by the Blitz. Resources include a Notebook lesson presentation, a worksheet for making notes, a presentation page for children to write their best copy of their poem and lots of picture resources.

When developing my children's comprehension skills, I don't like using photocopies from text books and meaningless expectancy sheets. I prefer to use purposeful, educational and REAL LIFE examples to engage and inform them, while still challenging them and looking for those reading skills. Therefore a lot of my comprehension challenges are based around interesting newspaper articles. In this example, taken from the BBC News website in April 2017, a new species of reptile is discovered in Spain, linking to crocodiles and the dinosaurs. Included in this pack is a copy of the article and linking comprehension questions suitable for KS2. Enjoy!