This session is fast paced and covers a lot of ground. I have used it in both level 2 functional English and as a starter lesson in GCSE English Language in the first month of the new academic year. As many students I have taught within FE are resistant to English, lessons which encourage the demonstration of opinions, encourage critical thinking and group / pair activities are extremely helpful in engaging students with English early on. This session looks at male dancers such as Sergei Polunin and the recent comments made by an American presenter about Prince George taking ballet at school. We use this example to cover wider topics such as prejudice, tolerance and encourage discussions which allow students to look at the issue from a different angle, but also to look at subject specific topics such as writers point of views, language features. The resource comes with the full lesson, with starters, discussion, main activity and peer assessment plenary, on powerpoint, with hyperlinks to various online videos / articles and 7 pages of worksheets and support material. There is enough material to cover a 3 hour session and so can be altered to suit whatever length sessions you may have. Please keep in mind that the TES preview does sometimes alter the look of the resource and this is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps

This quick paced, vibrant session is designed to introduce students to the comparison question on the exam paper. I have geared it towards the AQA exam paper, but can be easily adapted to suit any exam board. To help students become more familiar with this question, this lesson uses the Manchester 2017 MEN bombings as its subject and underpins the message of unity, one love and tolerance. As this is an introduction, it only uses current day articles and resources to ease the students in to this tricky question. This resource contains enough material for a 3 hour session. You have a full powerpoint lesson with starters, paired / team / individual tasks, self assessment plenary, videos, articles, activities and a mini class discussion. The lesson gives a small break down of the exam question and a simple example of an answer to helps students become familiar with the answer structure. The session contains tasks which are achievable at a wide range of levels. When delivering this session, I often will invite youth workers to help support as it’s over arching message is one of tolerance and British values and not terrorism, therefore youth workers / support workers will be a valuable assist in this session and help give a more holistic approach to your students education. This is something both my department heads and Ofsted have commented positively on in the past. Please keep in mind that the TES preview does at times distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. I hope this session helps.

This session uses an extract from The Witcher and is designed to be a fast paced, Fun and engaging, group based session which allows the learners room for self discovery and peer support in order to practice using the skills they have been taught through out the year. This is largely a recap session on Language and Structural features (I have used DAFOREST, POSHIMP and ROW of CLONES but these can be adapted) they have been taught and to prepare them as the exam dates grow close. Designed for paper 1 question 3 of the edexcel exam board but can be adapted to be used with other exam boards. The focus of this session is on the learners to lead the lesson rather than the teacher to feed knowledge and is great as a recap/ exam prep or workshop lesson. Slides from the presentation can be printed and used as handouts or worksheets, are designed to be used with an IWB with room for annotations during group discussions and feedback tasks and come with comments to help delivery. Please keep in mind that the TES preview can distort the look of the resource and this is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps.

This resource is excellent for revision, workshop or homework sessions. In current times, it can also be useful for remote / online sessions. This session breakdowns question 4 of paper 1 in a way that both supports the low ability and stretches the more able students. It is designed to calls on each student to actively use their developed knowledge and prior learning to successfully engage with the session. This session is designed with a variety of short build up tasks, larger revision and recall tasks which lead up to the final analytical, examination writing task. The powerpoint is open and adaptable to be used in whichever was works for you. You can add in timed or paired activities if you plan of delivering this session or you can leave it to be used by the student as homework. Please keep in mind that the TES preview does at time distort the look of the resource and tis is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps.

This resource looks at writers use of language to reflect opinion and bias in journalism. It can be used in relation to the AQA GCSE English Language exam (8700) for questions 3 and 4 from paper 2 but can also be used in the delivery of L1 and L2 Functional Skills. This resource includes an article with some read and obtain questions which range from simple retrieval of information to questions which require deeper thought and inference, which helps those teachers with mixed ability classes. It also includes a discussion element which looks at gender stereotypes and roles of women and motherhood, which the article touches upon. I have personally found that by including these deeper social and stereotypical elements into my classes helps students to navigate their own thoughts and feelings on certain topics, but also allows them to have their ideas challenged and to work towards accepting diversity. Female stereotypes and sexism is very topical at the moment in the light of the Weinstein scandal and so this is a resource which could be expanded upon. Hope it helps

This is a fast paced session, filled with videos, team and individual exercises. It is designed to reinforce prior learning and is best used closer to the summer exam. It is designed to fill 2 - 3 hours of teaching time, which can be broken and modified into two sessions if desired. It covers paper 2 questions 3 and 4 ( writers viewpoints and comparison of two texts). Both texts are modern day texts in order to help illustrate and use the skills learned (language and structure) to answer these questions, although in the actual exam one of the texts will be older. The session is based around the life of Winston Churchill, his highs and lows. The session slowly builds, developing knowledge and information about Churchill, both the good and the bad, and recapping exam skills as it progresses. All tasks are scaffolded to help those with mixed ability classes and challenges students to think analytically and answer the two questions as they would in the exam itself. The resource can be modified to cater for your own cohort or for different exam boards and leaves room for group discussions as extensions or can be cut back if you have short timetabled sessions. I work within FE and this is a session which has worked well with my 16 - 19 students. Please keep in mind that the TES preview can distort the look of the resources and this is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps

I support at risk student with 1 hour support sessions in GCSE English, my materials are simplified and designed to be used in a 1-2-1 capacity. These materials are easily adaptable to suit your own cohort and timetable. This resource is a small section of text taken from the Hunger Games book and I have structured questions which reflect those found on paper 1, questions 2, 3 and 4. This is a quick and easy revision tool, can be used as homework or self study or in support sessions. Hope it helps

I run 1 hour long support sessions in GCSE English for students who are more vulnerable. I have short and simple sessions to support these students with their learning. This session cover paper 2 question - the compare question and focuses on how to structure an answer (point, quote, infer - you may use a different format). The materials start simply with the analysis of two images and works it way up to two short samples of different era texts. The materials are enough to fill an hour support session, feel free to adapt to suit your own timetable and cohort. Hope it helps

I have created a series of writing prompts for learners of L2 functional English in response to limited past papers / mocks. I teach in an areas where learners are offered multiple resits and so need a wide range of practice materials. Tasks range from full 35 min writing tasks to starters where the learner is asked to write only the opening paragraphs. Types of question covers persuasive letter writing, formal and informal writing, report writing, online forums, letters of complaint and articles. Please keep in mind that the TES preview often distorts the look of the materials and is not always a true reflection. I hope it helps.

This resource is developed to allow scaffolding and differentiation. I have used a review of The Hunger Games and structured questions, based on the L1 and L2 reading papers. One is a scaffolded and chunked piece of reading, breaking the review at each paragraph followed by questions, the other is a full page of reading with questions levelled slightly higher. Resources like this can help the students in class who’s reading skills need further development and are struggling with the rest of the class, whilst also supporting those progressing well in class and allowing some exam practice. Resources can be adapted to suit your cohort and student needs. Please keep in mind that the TES preview is limited, and so I have added screenshots to give you a fuller look at the resource. Hope it helps

This resource is a 5 page resource centered around the theme of UK wildlife and sustainability. Students can engage via a quiz and answer / information pages, and then move on to answer questions which are based along the style of questions on the functional skills reading paper. This resource can form a part of a larger lesson on the theme of sustainability or be used as homework or quick revision. You can adapt the resource to accommodate your own cohorts and teaching style. Please keep in mind that the TES preview is limited and can at times distort the look of the resource, and this is not always a true reflection. For this reason, I have included screen-shots of the resource. Hope it helps

This resource has been designed to be incorporated into sessions or to be used as homework or revision. Based around a news article about a female drag queen, the resource has both reading and writing practice with language and vocab focus. Tes provides a limited preview, so for this reason I have included screen-shots to help give you a better view of the material. The resource is designed to be altered to suit your own cohort or sessions. Hope it helps.

I support vulnerable students with their English with weekly 1-2-1 hour long sessions. The sessions I create are designed to create interest in the student and to revise skills taught in their main session. This session starts with developing Haikus to engage the student and get them thinking of different vocabulary and sentence structures, it is also useful for underpinning spelling techniques and proofreading. We work our way up to L1 reading practice with a piece of text about Frida Kahlo. Feel free to adapt for your own needs. Hope it helps

I support vulnerable students with their Functional English in 1-2-1 hour sessions. The materials I create are designed to be simplified, to support their main learning and be used as revision or guided homework, however feel free to adapt to your own cohort. This session supports the reading paper at L1 and is based around the painting, the raft of Medusa. We start simple and focus and read and obtain questions and work our way up to exam style questions. Hope it helps

Based on the Pearson model of Functional English - I have created a L2 reading Mock - as close to the original Pearson versions as I can. There not that many Pearson mocks in circulation (possibly only 3 officially). The texts are based around the benefits of wellness and being outdoors and includes all 15 questions found on the exam. Please keep in mind that the Tes preview can distort the look of the resource and is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps.

A collection of different types of writing questions to help your learners practice their writing without doing the same practice papers repeatedly. Hope it helps

This is what I call a “Quickie Workshop”. It is specific to identifying inference and GCSE English Exam answer format (PEE - You may adapt to suit whatever answer format you use with your students". Inference is something students, particularly second language learners, struggle with and it is always worth a re-fresh as much of the GCSE exam does require this skill. This lesson starts simply with everyday phrases and works it’s way up to a book extract and a whole article based around Cheryl Cole’s divorce. It has a supporting grid scaffold to help put the PEE structure together and wraps up with a quick self assessment. This is ideal for half term workshops or tutorials but just as easily can be used as an introduction to inference or fattened out to be a whole lesson with example exam questions. Please be aware that TES previews can distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps.

As the exam dates creep closer, we enter mock exam season. I found that as the exam is still quite new it was difficult to find a wide range of practice papers to use which the students hadn’t already sat. Therefore I have created a full mock of paper 2, with reading and writing sections, based around the topic child labour which is a topic which may crop up in the live exam. This resource comes with a full powerpoint which can be used as an informal mock or altered into something more formal looking if desired. I like to make my mock exams as friendly as possible as many of my students do not enjoy mocks or have anxiety regarding exams. Having the mock on powerpoint helps to put my students at ease whilst also building their confidence in exam conditions. Another benefit to having my mocks on powerpoints is so I can break down the questions to my weaker/ more challenging students or run bite sized mocks, whilst for my higher achieving students I can use the powerpoint to help students practice their timings for exam questions. I’m also required to run workshops and hold drop in sessions outside of regular class time for which these mock paper powerpoints are very useful. The texts featured in this resource are a speech to parliament in 1840’s regarding the conditions of child labour and a 2018 article from The Guardian about human trafficked children. Please be aware that the TES preview can at times distort the look of a resource and this is not a true reflection which is why I have included screenshots of the powerpoint to help you get an idea of what it contains. Hope it helps.

This resource is designed for revision workshops and focuses on structural features to be used for question 3 of the AQA GCSE English exam, however it can be altered to suit an alternative exam board. As the exam draws closer I find spending a half hour at the end of each session as a “quickie workshop” very useful and have developed these short, sharp revision activities. To teach structural features I use the mnemonic “ROW OF CLONES” ( available in the powerpoint) to help with some of the more common structural features used. This quickie workshop uses an extract from Chocolat in order to practice identifying structural features, this can be a individual or group activity depending on the needs of your class. It can also be used as homework. Please note that TES previews distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps.

This is a complete mock exam for the WJEC exam board for the GCSE English exam - component 2. It comes with both reading and writing sections and uses extracts from Bill Bryson and Fredrich Engles, who both talk about the city of Manchester. Please keep in mind that TES previews do distort the look at the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps.