I've had a lot of fun teaching these lessons. Essentially, the idea is you spend a lesson exploring a poem and then a creative angle has been drawn from the text to inform the creative writing lesson that follows. Each of the creative writing lessons assumes a two hour window. A simple scheme, but I've found it to be rather effective.

A few things first: the mock exam can be found elsewhere on in my resources and I base the lessons off a similar series of lessons focused on Anil. The difference here is that these lessons are very much targeting higher ability students - all of the success criteria draws from the top end of the mark criteria. I found this series of lessons to be really useful as a way of establishing the skills required to answer each of the Section A questions. The lessons focus less on exam strategy and more on understanding what is required in relation to each question. The kids found it useful.

My introduction unit for A-Level Language and Literature. It assumes that the academic voices of the students needs sharpening somewhat. I source a lot of stuff from various corners of the net and use it in the power points - pay particular attention to the notes element of the power points by the way. I also include a “model essay” the purpose of which is to get the students to move away from their formulaic essay structures that they have used in their GCSEs. Think of this as a starting point that may need a little shaping to suit the needs of your class.

A simple spreadsheet that is designed to track the progress of an entire KS3 cohort from Year 7 to the end of Year 9. I have LOCKED each of the TABS of the spreadsheet using the NAME OF THE TAB itself (minus the spaces and as it appears with capital letters and numbers). This will stop any of the codes being deleted accidentally. Hope this saves people some time.

There doesn't seem to be much out there for DNA, which is a shame really as it's a great text to study. Attached are ALL of the DNA resources I have created; hopefully this will give you a few different ideas and starting points. This is a mish-mash of resources from three years of teaching this text across two schools. Some organising and sifting-through is needed here.

An 84 page long booklet that provides you with the following: A thematic table A section for each poem where you can find a copy of the poem, a notes page (complete with helpful guidance), generic revision and exam questions and a response page A comparative table A copy of the mark criteria I have also included the documents I used to make this just in case you want to make a different version yourself. Enjoy, and be poetic. ALTERATION: I’ve updated the resource now - found one or two typos. Also, I’ve added in a grid that allows for a variety of themes to be “graded” in terms of how present a theme is: I’ve found this to be an engaging way of getting the students to compare. Finally, I’ve added a small section at the end about the different types of poetic forms.

I wrote these lessons a while ago, but I remember getting some positive responses to the story AND the creative writing tasks. For this, you will need some of those old AQA anthologies (the one that came BEFORE Sunlight on the Grass) - one of the short stories was called "My Shoes". The content, for those who don't remember, is rather more orientated towards KS4 than KS3, but the creative writing that comes from this resonates with the kids I taught at the time. Hopefully you'll find this useful.

Numerous lessons (though as you’ll see they can be expanded/contracted as meets your need) surrounding the teaching of Phillip Pullman’s Northern Lights (a quite awesome book) to a Key Stage 3 class. I taught this unit to a top and bottom set and got a lot out of it in terms of enjoyment and successful creative writing. I will be using it as a starting point for a reading assignment with very little modification. May your daemon guide you well. ADDITION: I have adapted the material to be more focused on GCSE Language creative skills, and incorporated material drawn from the BBC series His Dark Materials. The “newer” lessons are aimed for higher ability students and deal with some more specific creative writing issues like dialogue.

Attached is a spreadsheet that does an awful lot of work for you. To summarise, it does the following: Allows for easy collation of GCSE Literature marks on a paper by paper basis AND as a whole examination Allows for easy identification of various student demagraphics - EAL, PP and so on Allows you to measure progress against students best, average and last marks across both papers Works out "how many marks" until you hit target grades for individual students Colour codes grades and marks to allow for at a glance progress checks Once you buy this spreadsheet, you will not need to get another LITERATURE spreadsheet. The document contains instructions as to how to update the spreadsheet. Oh, and if you do get this, I suggest you LOCK the individual spreadsheets ASAP: the document is set up to allow you to do this and still enter the data, you just won't be able to accidentally delete any of the coding, thus removing any brain overloads that might ensue. Happy spread-sheeting!

I designed this for the old AQA specification. Now that the spec is obsolete, some of you might be thinking of turning those stacks and stacks of anthologies into resources for KS3 classes (we certainly are for year 9). As a result, you may find this booklet useful. The booklet is essentially a copy of the entire anthology where on the left hand side of a double page spread you have the text, and on the right hand side you have space for notes. Each story is ended with generic questions and has TWO exam questions for revision purposes. Perfect for planning lessons when you are taking an extended period of time off. Happy reading.

Attached is a spreadsheet that does an awful lot of work for you. To summarise, it does the following: Allows for easy collation of GCSE Language marks on a paper by paper basis AND as a whole examination Allows for easy identification of various student demagraphics - EAL, PP and so on Allows you to measure progress against students best, average and last marks across both papers Works out "how many marks" until you hit target grades for individual students Colour codes grades and marks to allow for at a glance progress checks Once you buy this spreadsheet, you will not need to get another LANGUAGE spreadsheet. The document contains instructions on the ARRAY tab as to how to update . Oh, and if you do get this, I suggest you LOCK the individual spreadsheets ASAP: the document is set up to allow you to do this and still enter the data, you just won't be able to accidentally delete any of the coding, thus removing any brain overloads that might ensue. I am using this at my current school and there are several other schools who are using this system with good reports. Happy spread-sheeting! PS - Yes, there is a page that reads exactly the same but for a version that caters for the AQA Literature course. The spreadsheets are different. Here's the link/address to the LITERATURE version: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/aqa-english-literature-data-collation-spreadsheet-aka-the-machine-11405407

A text I taught to year 7 (second set) which we all absolutely loved! There are so few lessons here in comparison to my other resource bundles because we often spent large amounts of time just reading the book. The video is pretty awesome - I take no credit for creating it, I downloaded it from youtube and converted it to a format I could use. May the crows find you willing and able.

A resource dump for my first attempt at preparing a middle set year 9 class for the rigours of the new GCSE - some success, but the class dynamic was more of a problem than the lesson resources themselves. Some editing may be required, but if you are wondering about how to approach the Section B parts of the exams, this covers a lot of bases.

Need a quick lesson? Look no further. A whole lesson based around Roger McGough's "The Lake" - I know it can be found online elsewhere, but I include it here for convenience's sake. Perfect for when you need to fill that irritating cover lesson with something meaningful.

Four lessons that focus on improving your students abilities surrounding discussion and listening - somewhat lost art forms. Numerous discussion topics at group and whole class level.

PREMISE: You’ve been summoned to the gates of the Dark Forest – a haunted woodland, home to numerous fell creatures and twisted forms. The forest shifts and twists constantly, making it impossible to map. However, you and your adventuring kin will step into this shadowy land as the fate of Easter rests upon your shoulders. The Easter Bunny has been possessed! You’re job is to find him and drive out the demon. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it… Ok, so I kind of got carried away the whole Dungeons and Dragons thing and went and made myself an Easter Mission Pack. Also, as I had such success using my Christmas one, it felt like the right thing to do. I include a lot of literary characters and locations in this one too.Here's the full list: Hagrid Aragog Voldemort Dracula Frankenstein's Monster Willow (from Buffy) Treebeard The Watcher in the Water (From Lord of The Rings) The Balrog The Wall (from Game of Thrones) The Ringwraiths It all seems to fit together. Also, I include in this pack a whole-class presentation so you can do a guided creative writing lesson with a class or a large group. Either way, I am really looking forward to teaching this. You will need to encourage all Dungeon Masters to be creative in how they manage the conflict situations. This, is going to be great fun to teach... PS - with the whole class presentation, clicking the main background image acts as the link to the next slide via the "secret paths" without flagging it up to students. PPS - I've also included the first lesson - available for free elsewhere - otherwise it gets a bit complicated.