I am a Secondary English Teacher on a mission - to produce the highest quality lessons I possibly can with the intention of saving precious time for teachers!
I am a Secondary English Teacher on a mission - to produce the highest quality lessons I possibly can with the intention of saving precious time for teachers!
Welcome to Word Birds, a weekly lesson and resources to build higher-level vocabulary in your Year 7 students.
These weekly lessons include the following:
• a single word plus definition as a PDF designed to be printed as a poster and displayed in your room
• a PowerPoint slide to accompany the poster, with an example of how to use the word in a sentence
• 6 entertaining task cards to get your students using the word in a variety of ways including my trademark comic strip!
• a Word Bird helpsheet explaining the differences between verbs, adjectives, nouns and adverbs.
• a record sheet to go in student exercise books to help them keep track of the words they have learnt.
Most school years run for 38 weeks, but I’ve included 40 words in case you don’t fancy using any of them or you want to use them on other occasions too.
Package includes:
40 slide in PowerPoint in British English
40-page PDF of words plus definitions for student handouts or posters
6 mini task cards
1 record sheet
1 help sheet to be used as a student handout.
NOTE: This set will be followed with Word Birds for years 8-12 shortly, along with a complete bundle of all six sets!
This product is for personal and classroom use. It is NOT for resale or any other commercial purposes.
Roll the dice and create something amazing!
This is a roll the dice board game for Creative Writing. It consists of a vibrant grid full of images, words and phrases to provoke outside-the-box thinking and writing!
Students roll the dice to choose a genre, then roll again moving across the board to land on weird and wonderful prompts, including a frog, thunderstorm, chain-link fence, digger and orca.
This has produced some really outstanding writing from my students and can be used to aid writers' block in even the most reluctant of budding authors.
NOTE: This product requires you to supply your own dice.
This pack is full of resources to help you streamline your marking and assessment, and to make your students work harder in response!
If you're a teacher from the UK you'll know the OFSTED legend around response to marking. Even though it's not now a requirement, I've seen massive improvements and progress on work that has been DIRTed!
DIRT stands for Directed Improvement and Reflection Time. This is a time specifically for students to improve the work that you have marked - then and there. No more comments like, "Sorry Miss, I'll do it next time!"
This includes a time-saving key that you can edit to suit your requirements. You simply write the number of the task you want them to complete on their work, and they can reference the key in their books to find out what to do.
It also includes full instructions, including helpful links, sample marking and assessment, help sheets for capital letters and 'there, their, they're' and a PowerPoint for you to display during DIRT time.
This process has saved me masses of time while making my marking more worthwhile and getting far more progress out of the kids.
I hope you find it as useful as I do!
This is a massive Macbeth Crossword Puzzle for revision and consolidation - it is full of key quotes, characters, plot points and motifs.
It should take a considerable amount of time (and probably some research) to complete it, so would be perfect to set for homework or while you are working 1:1 with students.
Also includes a complete answer key so that you can check answers with ease.
It is also part of my growing Macbeth bundle - purchase it at the current price and get access to all new uploads for free!
This is a lesson introducing students to the concepts surrounding political correctness and linguistic reflectionism and determinism.
It explores the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, Steven Pinker, The Euphemism Treadmill, Miller and Swift, Fairclough, David Crystal and Deborah Cameron’s views on the issue.
There is a final writing prompt, plus a past paper exemplar from AQA.
It will take approximately 2 hours to cover in enough depth.
Enjoy!
This resource is my own version of the Edexcel 9-1 English Language Paper 2.
I made a series of practice papers to help my own students as there aren't any past papers yet and only a handful of samples.
I've followed their style very carefully and included a detailed mark scheme to help you assess.
The topic of this paper is 'education' and includes two non-fiction articles on the theme.
The whole paper is prepped and ready to print so you simply need to run off enough copies for your class.
If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask!
A whole lesson analysing the poem 'The Destruction of Sennacherib' by Lord Byron from the Edexcel Conflict Cluster (1-9 GCSE)
Includes language analysis, vocab, context and questions.
Obesity is second only to smoking as the biggest killer in the United States. Morgan Spurlock's award-winning documentary highlights the dangers of fast food in a hilarious and shocking way.
This two-page worksheet is a comprehensive way to ensure that students are watching the 'Super Size Me' documentary with purpose.
This information can then be used for informative or persuasive writing outcomes - my students generate an awareness campaign for other teenagers.
Entirely print and go - no preparation needed!
-NOTE- This documentary is 'PG-13' rated in the US and '12' in the UK. Prior-viewing is advised. There are some brief incidents of bad language and some graphic footage of surgery, along with one conversation of a sexual nature (nothing visual; this is a discussion on Morgan's impeded 'performance' as a result of his diet.)
This is an entire lesson including tasks and activities based around 'Lavender Language' of homosexuals and Polari. It includes research, language etymology and an essay task on the topic.
*Please be aware that this is only suitable for KS5 students as it contains some sexually explicit terminology.*
This lesson is part of an Imaginative Writing Scheme of Work focused on Science-Fiction and Dystopian short stories.
This particular lesson introduces students to the idea of Unreliable Narrators, using extracts from 'One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest' and 'American Psycho'.
PLEASE NOTE:
You will need to download my FREE short story anthology for use with this lesson.
This lesson is part of an Imaginative Writing Scheme of Work focused on Science-Fiction and Dystopian short stories.
This lesson introduces students to symbolism and explores symbolic references through a close-reading of 'Marionettes Inc.' by Ray Bradbury.
PLEASE NOTE:
You will need to download my FREE short story anthology for use with this lesson.
This bundle includes full lessons and resources for all 15 poems in the new Edexcel Conflict Poetry Cluster for the 9-1 GCSE exam.
Buying them in this bundle saves over 50% compared to buying the poems separately!
Poems covered include:
• Half-Caste - John Agard
• Catrin - Gillian Clarke
• War Photographer - Carole Satyamurti
• The Class Game - Mary Casey
• No Problem – Benjamin Zephaniah
• What Were They Like? - Denise Levertov
• Belfast Confetti - Ciaran Carson
• Poppies - Jane Weir
• A Poison Tree William Blake
• The Charge of the Light Brigade - Alfred Tennyson
• Extract from The Prelude - William Wordsworth
• The Man He Killed - Thomas Hardy
• Cousin Kate - Christina Rossetti
• Exposure - Wilfred Owen
• The Destruction of Sennacherib - Lord Byron
I have also included a learning mat that can be used as a homework menu to supplement their in-class learning and a RAG rated grid for in their exercise books.
I would highly recommend teaching ‘Extract from the Prelude’ before ‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’ as the former covers the basics of the Romantic Poets.
Likewise, I would suggest teaching ‘The Class Game’ before ‘The Man He Killed’ as the first explores the conventions of Dramatic Monologues.
If you find that any of the video links don’t work, please don’t hesitate to contact me and I’ll send you them directly.
This lesson is part of an Imaginative Writing Scheme of Work focused on Science-Fiction and Dystopian short stories.
This lesson leads on from the previous about Room 101 by introducing students to an extract from 1984. Students are introduced to the assessment task and have to analytically explore how fear is created by Orwell.
PLEASE NOTE:
You will need to download my FREE short story anthology for use with this lesson.
This is a set of 8 Cloze gap-fill worksheets for every act of Shakespeare's Macbeth.
Wordbanks are printed at the bottom of each sheet and serve as a perfect way to revise the plot.
You could use it to recap the events of each act as you study it and then keep it to refer back to before exams.
I often give a competitive edge to proceedings by giving a time limit and assigning points to each correct word.
Enjoy!
This lesson is part of an Imaginative Writing Scheme of Work focused on Science-Fiction and Dystopian short stories.
This is a full lesson guiding students through a close reading of Ray Bradbury's short story, 'The Veldt'. It is fully interactive and engaging with a detailed lesson plan.
PLEASE NOTE:
You will need to download my FREE short story anthology for use with this lesson.
This is a whole lesson on imaginative writing and the skill of 'show, don't tell', originally developed for Year 9. It includes a full lesson plan and an accompanying PowerPoint presentation.
It uses clips from Hitchcock's 'Rear Window' and the Netflix hit 'Stranger Things.'
There are lots of fun activities and an extended writing task.
All links are copied into the 'notes' sections of the slides in case they do not work.
This is a complete lesson for studying Emily Brontë's poem 'Spellbound'.
It includes a carefully differentiated lesson in PPT format, along with my personalised 'Developing Tray' activity.
To use Developing Tray:
I have included two copies of the poem; one normal and one with certain words blacked out. The students must try to work out the missing words (either in teams or as a whole class) and the teacher will reveal the words that they get correct.
I usually allow them to 'buy' three total words, five individual letters and one complete line to help them out.
I hope you enjoy this lesson, it's been very popular with my classes.
Look out for more poetry lessons using Developing Tray on my profile!
This is a complete GCSE unit novel study for Robert Cormier's Heroes.
This comprises 21 PowerPoints, a total Scheme of Work split into 24 lessons and all related resources.
Lessons include embedded videos, extracts from other relevant literature, close reading exercises, creative work, research lessons, a complete trial set-up, debates and various short and extended writing opportunities.
This is a hugely popular unit with all of the groups that have studied it.
Please do let me know if any of the video links/resources don't work for you. Message me and I will send them to you directly.
This is a worksheet comprising 19 activities on Act 3 Scene 1 of The Merchant of Venice.
You can use this worksheet in any number of the following ways, and possibly more that I haven't thought of!:
- as unit homework, asking students to complete 1-2 activities per week
- as a lesson for pre-exam revision
- ask students to choose one task from each colour to ensure a wide range of analysis and interpretation.
To use the QR codes students can download a free QR reader from the App Store - this is often their favourite bit!
This has been clearly differentiated for a wide variety of learning styles with a colour key at the bottom of the page.