A lesson designed to be taught AFTER the class has sat a mock exam. However, with very little modifcation this can become a walking-talking mock exam, or a peer/self assessment based lesson. The powerpoint contains model material and an indicator as to the quality of the model material. My class found this lesson to be very useful. Additionally, the insert is available for free should you wish to download it for yourself. I include the link below: https://linwood.bournemouth.sch.uk/summerwood/files/2017/12/8700_1-INS-EnglishLanguage-G-6Jun17-AM.pdf

A set of resources designed to engage year 11s with English Language Paper 2 Section A. I shaped the lessons around the articles written surrounding the time of Jack the Ripper, and around an article published following the Zodiac Killer sending a letter to the San Fransisco Chronicle. The class were fascinated by these articles - I had students independently going away and reading pre-19th century newspapers off their own backs! This will need to be taught delicately though - the content is graphic in nature, so be sure that your class has the necessary level of maturity to access this material without being distracted.

As part of my quest to engage students with the 15 Power and Conflict poems, I’ve come up with these Battle Cards. Essentially, the idea is to promote AO1 and AO2 related discussions that get the students to recall what they know about the poems they have been taught without having the actual poem in front of them. The students “score” each of the poem against a number of POWER and CONFLICT related areas. This is recorded on an A5 sized BATTLE CARD where they can draw supporting images(good for recall) and identify methods, key quotations and themes. The idea is for students to battle one another and use the cards as the stimulus point for the discussion. Whoever is best able to justify the score they have given for their card wins the round. I’ve included a blank card along with 15 poem specific cards (each of these has a supporting back ground image, but is the same as the blank card in all other respects).

A simple power-point designed to be used either AFTER a class has sat the AQA English Language Paper 2 Specimen Paper 2, or as part of a walking-mock style lesson where the students mark their work immediately afterwards. It’s cheap because I’ve essentially deposited the contents of the mark criteria on to the power point in such a way that the students can use it it to peer or self-assess. The resource JUST contains the power point.

A series of lessons designed to make sure students have a clear understanding of the “basics” and the “developed” skills and techniques required for EACH of the possible text types they could meet in Section B of the English Language Paper 2 exam. Because my lot were taught A Christmas Carol (and I was trying to kill two birds with one stone by revising this at the same time…), the tasks are all focused on writing within the world of Scrooge. To that end, they may require some editing on the part of the user - hence the reduced price.

This resource was designed to be used after a class or cohort have sat the 2019 English Language paper 2. It’s set up to be used after a class has sat the exam and had their papers marked, but it wouldn’t take much modification to be used as part of a scenario where the students get the material, execute a preparatory strategy, answer the question and then peer/self mark. The material from the AQA mark scheme has been integrated into the PowerPoint, so students can get a sense of what level their response is before fine marking. I’ve done a few in this style and the students value them as revision tools too.

Two powerpoints, both showing the same thing, but one is designed to be used on a mobile phone (portrait, no animations etc.). The powerpoint can be used one of two ways. Either it can be used as part of a talking mock exam (where the students talk through a strategy before attempting each task, followed by marking and reflective targets) or as part of getting the students to evaluate their own efforts with a view to setting individual targets. Model material is included as well as the source itself (along with the appropriate mark scheme). The only thing this doesn’t “mark” is the AO5 element of Question 5. But everything else is there.

Taught as part of a two teacher approach to a top set year 9 class. I focused on developing creative writing skills, with a particular emphasis on the structural components, whilst my partner teacher focused on the more traditional literature style approach. The Woman In Black was used as the stimulus for all elements of this unit and the climax is a GCSE English Language Paper 1 style task (not included in this pack as it is part of my school’s assessment pack). Overall, I found this unit to be really useful in challenging students to think about their creative writing in more than just a reactionary way. The nature of the structure focused questions align with my belief that it is always better to teach the Language Paper 1 Q3 question in the form of a structure-focused creative writing commentary at KS3 level. Hopefully this will provide you with a useful starting point for your own creative writing journey.

A variation on a selection of lessons that I sell elsewhere. Here, the center piece is a 26 page printable workbook that runs in tandem with the power-point lessons - ideal for a Summer Term 2 unit of work where you are reluctant to give the students a new work book, and working on paper is problematic. The text is Anil (from the old Sunlight on the Grass Anthology) and there is about 12 lessons worth of material here.

A deconstruction of the English Language Paper 1 examination that uses Brighton Rock as a source. I’ve lifted the model material from the mark schemes and there’s FAR related targets included. Essentially, this is a lesson that can be taught either AFTER the students have sat the exam and you want them to peer/self assess, or you could change it so that that they answer a question and then mark their efforts. The Section B element is a bit of an experiment - peer marking creative writing is always a challenge. So I’ve given the students a series of yes/not/some related questions. The idea is that they “tick” the level next to the answer on a copy of the AO5 and AO6 mark schemes. Using that, they should be better able to work out where the creative writing fits. My peer marked creative writing has got much more accurate as a result of this.

My year 11s were STILL struggling with how to frame a method, so I came up with this stand alone lesson. The idea is that, having reviewed the slide where the methods are explicitly identified, the students will see that a method and a quotation are not the same thing. This was a successful lesson. UPDATE: I repeated this process with a bottom set year 10 class where I was even more specific. This was also a successful lesson, so I’ve included it.

Similar to a lesson I posted on A Christmas Carol. After a bit of a warm-up, the crux of the lesson is focused on establishing concepts then explicitly showing students HOW to identify methods - again, some still confuse quotations and methods - before pointing them at an exam question. UPDATE: I repeated this lesson a few weeks later with a different extract, but backing off a notch in terms of explicitly identifying methods.

An easy to use spreadsheet where you build a bank of true or false statements (tab 3) which will then create a randomly generated worksheet of ten true or false statements (tab 1). Additionally, an answer sheet will be generated too (tab 2) allowing for the resource to be used in a whole class setting. All you need to do is populate the spreadsheet with true/false statements and then identify which statements are true, and which are false. Instructions are built into the spreadsheet itself.

To make effective use of this scheme I suggest you have a copy of the most recent RSC version of As You Like It (It is quite marvelous…) else a lot of the images I use will make little sense. There are five “lessons” that each last around the two hour mark. Each of the assessments is available, so the whole package is a self-contained unit of work. We had a lot of fun with this unit, and I inter-spaced the learning with periods where the class would act out elements of the play. You don’t necessarily need a copy of the play to teach this unit either.

A lesson take from a collaborative scheme of work. The lesson focuses on the quite excellent Born A Crime by Trevor Noah. The focus is developing an initial understanding of South Africa, then Trevor Noah himself, before focusing in on the context surrounding the story itself. After, the focus switches to analysing the structural choices made in the extract. Additionally, I’ve included a useful little follow up lesson where the focus ins to build a piece of creative writing that follows a specific structural path.

Old IGCSE English specification resources. Someone, somewhere, might find a way to use these...somehow.

A bit out of date now(hence the reduced price). This is a booklet that provides a copy of each of the old AQA Moonlight on the Tides poems with a series of questions and an exam question. This is a stand alone resource you can print out (It's a whopper! Loads of pages, so check your departmental print budgets) for individuals or whole classes. Might be useful as an Unseen Poetry resources for the new AQA English Literature GCSE (Just saying...)