I am Head of Humanities and teacher of English, Media, Drama, Geography and History (specialising in Shakespeare and Autism). I've worked for private schools, mainstream and special needs. Currently I tailor my resources to suit mid-ability students but with differentiation allowing teachers to easily adapt to suit higher/lower groups. I make SOWs where the resources are all in one easy to access place, as well as providing learning objectives (even if just overviews) to help with observations.
I am Head of Humanities and teacher of English, Media, Drama, Geography and History (specialising in Shakespeare and Autism). I've worked for private schools, mainstream and special needs. Currently I tailor my resources to suit mid-ability students but with differentiation allowing teachers to easily adapt to suit higher/lower groups. I make SOWs where the resources are all in one easy to access place, as well as providing learning objectives (even if just overviews) to help with observations.
A GCSE scheme of work made in workbook format for Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Using the OFQUAL GCSE assessment objectives and featuring example exam papers as well as a range of comprehension questions and activities, this resource works through the play scene by scene in detail.
There is space to annotate scenes as you go and each can stand alone as a single lesson/resource or be worked through consecutively. Each lesson worksheet features:
Objectives and an aim
The text (abridged slightly in places for clarity)
Unusual word clarification
Comprehension quiz questions (with answers at the end of the pack)
At least 2 activities (such as: character profiles, quotation analysis, paragraph writing, context, staging design ideas, and so on)
EXTRA ACTIVITIES for extensions, homework, cover lessons etc.
I hope that this scheme includes opportunities to differentiate by engagement and provides a range of activities so you can pick and mix as needed - from fun, simple tasks to exam prep. It can be used as a standalone resource, a revision pack, or support your lessons as extra work for classes to complete.
Enjoy :)
A complete scheme of work on An Inspector Calls covering 4 key objectives (understanding, context, craft, responding). Aimed at mid-ability GCSE students with most tasks easily differentiated verbally and some access/challenge variations included.
Section comprehension questions and close textual analysis opportunities, as well as consideration of key themes and character analysis.
Hopefully a good starting point for anyone looking to teach this play.
:)
A complete unit studying Jekyll and Hyde made for a GCSE group but adaptable for KS3. Over 150 slides including chapter comprehension questions, games, activities and assessment tasks.
There are 11 sessions working through the chapters of the book, but each has enough content to potentially take 2 lessons. There are additional activities and alternative tasks, so you can pick and mix to suit your group.
A great story and a really engaging one to teach! Enjoy!
A powerpoint with 5 creative/descriptive writing starter activities that can each lead into a lesson of their own or be used as standalone activities. Looking primarily at vocabulary choices.
Developed for GCSE, but applicable at KS3 too.
A scheme of over 150 slides on the history of the Native Americans. Links nicely to Geography with some lessons on the movement of peoples though Europe to the Americas, and impact of the Ice Age etc. Created for low ability Year 7 but some differentiated tasks included to stretch more able students. I taught this to a low set year 8 group as well and it was enjoyed. Notes included to explain activities and simple targets (assessment objectives discussed each lesson and decided on as a class as a plenary activity).
My class wrote their work up neatly as homework, adding additional research notes and doing extra tasks. Worksheets (printed slides) were then compiled alongside to make a booklet at the end of the unit about Native Americans and their heritage.
They really enjoyed this and found it good fun and fascinating!
A short (and easily adaptable) scheme of Alfred Noyes’ The Highwayman. Featuring lessons on plot, context, technique, structure and writing a response. The unit has some differentiated lessons and resources, as well as suggestions for additional activities and tasks. Developed for mid-ability year 9 but taught at year 7 through to year 10 for different abilities.
A three tiered ppt. with resources/links included to help students develop their ability to read quickly and search resources for answers swiftly. The theme is PLASTIC FREE so serves as a useful resource for teaching about sustainability alongside a key functional skill. 3 lessons if they do a level a lesson and easy to bulk out if needed by spending more time on resources or exploring similar ones etc.
An activity pack created for our local theatre group for their upcoming production of The Elephant Man.
This education resource pack has several activities and some worksheets based on the play (and Joseph Merrick’s story) as well as this particular production’s chosen approach.
A COMPLETE SCHEME of work on a 350+ slide powerpoint. All resources/worksheets are included and can be printed as single slides from the ppt. Lesson objectives are given (using the Assessment Focuses from the National Curriculum wording, but easily adjusted).
Each lesson includes multiple tasks and chapter by chapter questions that allow students to engage with the text (characters, plot, themes, locations, quotations etc.) whilst also considering non-fiction, context, and a range of language devices.
Originally made for YEAR 8, this is easily adjusted and differentiation is included (see notes for how to use some slides and alternative methods for higher/lower ability). It has been taught to Year 7, Year 8, Year 9 and even at GCSE successfully (both mainstream and Special Needs).
The students really loved this unit and it has achieved ‘outstandings’ from observed lessons several times. I’ve also included a digital copy of the text for ease of printing extracts should you want additional ones not in the ppt. (Plus SEN often benefit from a copy of the text that they can draw on or highlight).
I hope you enjoy teaching it and that the students gain something from this.
Thanks for looking!
:)
This makes a good starter activity for low-mid ability but could be a quick recap even for higher ability in KS3. It was originally made for special needs as a starting point for a lesson on punctuation and they worked through it well independently and enjoyed doing the word search.
There are two sheets that shouldn’t take too long to do - enjoy!
This has been one of my favourite schemes of work to teach. It was originally developed for a year 8 group, but has been taught to top set year 7, middle set year 9 and a range of KS3 special educational needs groups.
There is a complete ppt. that can be added to and adapted but includes notes and activities/worksheets (ppt. has nearly 200 slides). There is also a separate PDF with detailed lesson plans (since writing those, I’ve made a few subtle changes on the ppt. but mostly they follow). The poems can be printed into a student anthology booklet (see end of ppt.)
The unit has 12 lessons but I often find I spend longer on some so this can easily be extended, or, with a few poems dropped, shortened. Poems covered include Jabberwocky, The Walrus and the Carpenter, The Hunting of the Snark, and Carroll’s riddles.
Most lessons include a reading focus and a writing task. Some cover non-fiction (from leaflets to CD covers). This could be easily extended to suit your focuses.
Every time I have taught this, students have loved it and really enjoyed the lessons and activities. It has also been used in 3 observed lessons and earned ‘outstanding’ each time! I hope you enjoy it too!
Thank you for looking :)
This scheme of work was originally made for a SEN group but has since been differentiated for KS3 and taught at year 8 and year 9 to a range of abilities. Though it suits lower to mid for some activities, most lessons are easily adaptable to suit a higher ability class - particularly the Jack the Ripper case file section at the end.
It has lessons on the history of Victorian Crime and Punishment, covering topics such as the Queen, the bloody code, Sweeney Todd (truth/fiction), Robert Peel, and the development of new detection methods (such as: finger prints and mugshots). Some a bit creepy or gory, so know your audience!
Finally at the end is a case study of Jack the Ripper, which uses a range of original sources and offers students the chance to deduce who they think Jack was based on several possible suspects. This is themed around Sherlock Holmes for fun.
There are over 200 slides and all worksheets are included.
This has been a popular unit for several years at my school. There are notes on how to apply each worksheet and most slides have explanations. I’ve spent a long time developing this and the vast majority is my own work - I hope you and your students enjoy it!
A pack of three revision sheets for Inter-War years topics:
Anschluss
Appeasement
Invasion of Poland (Nazi-Soviet Pact)
Each sheet has an overview and then some revision/exam style questions - including sources to analyse
I made these for my SEN group as they like a clear focused revision task. Each one has taken up a lesson as we’ve read the info, discussed the topic, watched some relevant clips on youtube, answered the questions and checked them together.
They would make good homework sheets or extensions as needed.
I hope they help and good luck for the exams!
This is a step-by-step explanation of how to use apostrophes. I work through it with them putting more examples on the white board and explaining as we go.
My Autistic students found that knowing the historical reason for why possessive apostrophes are used helped them see where to put them. Others found the idea of just adding 's worked best for them.
It helps if they have a good understanding of plurals generally first.
We used this with year 8 all the way through to Sixth Form. Some of our staff even found it useful (we had a few ‘oooh oh I see’ moments!)
Worked well with ours for revising for GCSE exams. Made a good starter for revision but I often use for a whole lesson with lots of examples and practising as a group.
This is an end of unit test on the Stuarts. It could be used as an assessment or as a research task - with students trying to find the answers, perhaps on PCs.
They’d done the Tudors before and then covered the Stuarts by looking at:
Monarchs
Catholicism and Protestantism
Puritans
The Witch Frenzy
Source analysis
The English Civil War
Oliver Cromwell
Plague
Great Fire of London
The assessment is differentiated THREE times. The three sets of questions all include some source questions, some option questions, and some open/closed questions. The questions for each set demonstrate the skills needed for Level 3, 4 and 5 in the History NC.
If students are lower ability, I start them with the first sheet ‘Aiming for Level 3’ - if they complete this they can move onto ‘Aiming for Level 4’. If they are more able they can start with the Level 4 sheet and then do 5, or start with the Level 5. If they finish Level 5 (which has more thought provoking questions so does take longer, I let them go back to the Levels 3 and 4 sheets to recap. Sometimes it works to start all on Level 3 and see how far they can go (builds confidence when they can see they are literally progressing).
Please feel free to edit or move questions based on what you have covered, but there’s a fairly good mix in here.
I made this for an SEN group. It is effectively the same task differentiated 4 times. Two are ‘access’ or slightly easier, and two versions are slightly more ‘challenging’. This worked well where I had a range of abilities within one group so could give them all the same task and learning aim but a different version of the sheet to stretch/support as needed.
Works well as a starter or recap and would be good for cover lessons as well as an easy go to task.
To extend they could research more about the Kings and Queens, work out how long they were on the throne for and find out about Lady Jane Grey and why her ‘reign’ was so short.
This is part of a series of lessons I made but one that stands well alone as either a full unit on India, a cover lesson or a dip-n-dive activity. Originally made for SEN students, it is quite straightforward with differentiated sheets and, I’ve found, easily adaptable to most levels. The LO is Level 3 skills, but again easily stretched for 4-5 if needed (and by using harder version of Geographical Features sheet.
Activities include:
A facts cloze task
Locating country/capital
Geographical features (differentiated) - chance to use Atlas/Google Maps
Word Search
Thank you for looking and I hope it works for you :)
A timeline activity - easily adapted. Suggestions on the sheet for staff to use. Made for a good lesson!
I cut them into date with descriptor and students simply put them into order. Differentiated by splitting the dates from the descriptors. They added extra notes on other events and details on all (plenty of space if stuck on A3 sheets).
This made a good start point for the Race Relations topics but also a revision task.
Hope it helps :)
I made this for a SEN sixth form group struggling with poetry. It could be easily adapted and isn’t exactly ‘simple’. They had the chance to research and try writing about the poem (with close textual analysis) as well as completing some activities on structure and form. The activities are included in the powerpoint. Hopefully it will be a good starting point for your own session - enjoy :)
A lesson (or easily a week’s worth) on National Park conflict issues. This is based around a ‘case study’ looking at a map of a local farming area (which I made-up) to get students to consider the problems created by proposed changes in UK National Parks. Includes maps, questioning tasks, letter writing cloze exercise, word search etc.
All of the worksheets are included in the powerpoint and I’ve added some notes about how I used this. Additional ones could easily be made as needed by editing slides. Initially made for an interview lesson and then adapted for teaching (once I got the post - yay!)
It was made for low ability SEN students in year 9 but I think could be easily adapted (and I’ve used it with year 7 since as well so quite flexible).
I found it took 2-3 lessons with mine to do it nicely.
Thanks for looking :)