This is a fast paced, engaging complete lesson designed for Level 1 and Level 2 Functional Skills. The session is based around the theme of your dream house with the aim of the session being to write a formal persuasive letter using DAFOREST language features and considering the audience your writing to. Using team / paired and individual tasks, this session allows the student to engage their imagination and design their ideal, dream house then plan and complete a formal letter inviting Architectural Digest to film a short segment for their online magazine. The session comes with support devices such as word banks, planning scaffolds and sentence starters as well as elements of stretch and challenge. This is an adaptable resource which can be amended to suit the needs of your classes. Be advised that the TES preview is not always a true reflection of the resource. Hope it helps.

I like to encourage reading in my classes, and one of the ways I like to do that is with a visual display of books which became blockbuster movies to help grab students attention. This resource is my collection of visuals that I use in different ways to create these displays. It includes 14 different movies which includes a range of diversity and genres, contains images of the book and movie cover with still from the movie itself. You can print these, play with the sizes, layouts and be creative as you feel to suit your learning environment, I like to laminate to provide a glossy look and drape a red cloth over the boards in my classroom to create a old school cinema / theater curtain to create some drama. Images include: Eat Prey Love War Horse Divergent The Hobbit Memoirs of a Geisha Atonement The Colour Purple The Help Brighton Rock Feel free to play with and tinker with this resource, these are just image templates to help you get going and create amazing in class displays of your own. Be advised that the TES preview does not always truly reflect the resource. Hope it helps

Great support/guidance booklet for those students who struggle with the PEE / PEA /PQI and structure. Many students particularly struggle with the explain / inference section of this structure. This fun booklet comes with word banks and starter sentences for those who find this structure a challenge. It also comes with examples of high level answers and developed PEE /PEA/PQI answers to stretch and challenge more able students. Great handout to give to students or have casually on their desks to allow them to freely access whenever they need to, promoting independence in their own learning. Feel free to use in which ever works best for you and your learners.

This is a fun and fast paced introduction to Language Features (DAFOREST) for L2 Functional English or GCSE English ( any board). This session is based on activities for groups and pairs, eventually leading to a independent writing task, in which the student must use the language features used to describe one of either two characters. This session includes a fun anagrams “buzzer” game and supporting scaffolds in word banks and starter paragraphs. There are opportunities for stretch and challenge with the introduction into higher level language features which you can stretch as much as your class needs allow. This session is design for a 1.5 hr session but can be developed for longer lessons. Please be aware that TES preview is not always a true reflection of the presentation of the materials. 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

The world is a challenging place for everyone at the moment and stress, depression and anxiety are real issues that people are facing on a daily basis. This is a small resource which is designed to help reassess and take perspective during these difficult times. This is a small tutorial, which can be used as a starter or further developed to suit your needs, which examines the idea of success, what it means and what it looks like and how we measure it and most importantly, is designed to take a moment to be kind to ourselves and take the pressure off. This powerpoint is worded to be used as a part of a teams session, students are asked to go into rooms and use the chat function in order to engage with the sessions and with each other, again this can be adapted to suit your sessions. The quiz is designed to be interactive and light hearted to help promote a fun, positive atmosphere and connection with classmates, even though we are all distanced from one another. For me, taking the time to re-assess personal success is also a useful life skill, as we all know the non pandemic universe can be just a challenging and stressful, and being able to sit and take stock of small and big successes is a brilliant way to build self esteem, promote positive mental health and combat anxiety. Please be aware that the TES preview does at times distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. 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

This is a small starter which can be tagged onto any lesson you wish which looks into how thoughts, feelings and behavior are interlinked. This quick activity uses CBT methods to help manage negative thoughts by asking the students to look at a situation from a different angle and analyse how this impacts our feelings and our actions. This resource comes with a full a powerpoint and worksheet. It contains paired activities and a group discussion. This resource has been created to be adaptable, so please feel free to amend in a way which suits the style of your learners. Please keep in mind that the TES preview can sometimes distort the look of the material and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps.

This fast paced and fun lesson is designed to support a low level or mixed level Functional Skills English class with their writing skills. A great lesson to use at the start of the academic year, this lesson revolves around a article about a 5 year old body builder who made it into the Guinness book of Records and focuses on using direct speech, alliteration, puns and hyperbole to show bias and make writing more interesting. Many tasks are group are pair based to help support lower ability learners, but has some higher ability elements to stretch and challenge stronger learners. Vocabulary focus begins with the starter and is reinforced as you move forward, so students are thinking about language and words from the very start. This resource comes with a full PowerPoint, and 3 worksheets including the article, worksheet and a planning scaffold. TES preview often distorts the look of the resource and this is not always a true reflection of the material. Feel free to play with and amend this resource to fit your teaching style and / or needs of your cohort. Hope it helps.

I’m offering out 3 free modified posters for you to use in your classroom to help promote awareness in your students. Airborne transmissions E- Safety Depression These can be used as permanent fixtures in your classroom or can be modified into leaflets to give out individually or to have casually around your classroom for students to have free access to. Please feel free to look in my shop for a wide range of resources which you may find useful for your sessions. 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.

We all have those sessions where the students can’t wait to bolt out the door once the session is finished and will hurry through any task to make the class finish quicker. Over the years I have used a wide variety of engaging plenaries to help keep the potential for learning at its max up until the last second of the session. These are a collection of my top 10 that I have successfully used in my sessions. These plenaries come in all shapes and sizes, from group and team tasks, to independent and personal tasks to larger tasks with a competitive edge. You can use these plenaries to reinforce learning from that session or from a whole term, some can be used to assess individual learning and provide feedback on your session and others encourage students taking ownership for their education. Please keep in mind that the TES preview at times distorts the look of the resource and this is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps.

We have all had those sessions where the class has been slow to start and a struggle to engage, despite our best efforts. I have put together 10 of my most tried and tested starters which have been the most effective with my learners. These starters are groups and game centered with a competitive element, they peek the learners attention and intrigues them from the moment they sit down. This ensures that your class has a positive and fun reaction / association to your sessions. Some activities are great for recapping previous learning or developing specific skills. These types of starters are also perfect for those sessions where you have the faithful few who always drop in late and disrupt your flow. These starters ensure the class is engaged, so the negative effect of any disruption is reduced and you keep control of the class. This resource gives a break down of each activity along with some sample materials you can use to help get your self started. Please keep in mind that the TES preview at times distorts the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps

A small set of starters (or plenaries) to actively promote mental wellness in your students. These small activities are designed to help prompt positivity and ownership of behaviours and attitudes with easy to do activities based on CBT techniques. These are easy to apply to your sessions, can be used as tutorials or to help overcome anxiety in the build up to assessments or exams. Feel free to elaborate upon or change depending on what your class needs are. Hope it helps. Please note that the TES preview can often distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection.

This is a full GCSE English session which has enough materials to cover 3 hours. This session covers the critical thinking question of the English exam and is adaptable to any exam board. This session slowly builds and presents a scaffold towards to this difficult question through a series of team and paired activities and group discussions which underpin and practice P.E.E answers and writing to describe. There is room for students to learn at a even pace and tasks are structured to stretch and challenge higher achieving students. This session comes with 3 video clips and the extract. You can break this session into 2 sessions or adapt to whatever exam board you are teaching on. Please keep in mind that the TES preview often distorts the look of the resource and this is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps.

This is a short and sweet introduction to the P.E.E answer format for GCSE English students. This is a great way to introduce the idea of stories being constructed and designed to make the audience behave / react a certain way. This session looks at a violent scene from The Hunger Games (rated 12A) breaks down a scene and talks about why a director may have constructed a scene in a way to make the audience react a certain way. The final task is for students to use these elements discussed to prompt P.E.E paragraphs. This resource is easy to adapt and can be used in conjunction with other sessions were P.E.E is used. Please keep in mind that the TES preview can distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps.

This is a short and sweet resource which can be used as a recap/workshop session or as a introduction session to implicit and explicit meaning. This session is fast paced, team based and leads into a creative writing final main task, although it is easy to adapt for your own needs. This session is based around a short video where the viewer must piece together the overall story from the imagery depicted. Students look for implicit and explicit meaning from this video and then create a piece of descriptive writing based from what they have concluded. This session comes with a quick starter from the outset, quick group activities, team and class discussions and a final individual task with a support starter structure to support the lower ability students. Please keep in mind that TES previews can distort the look of the preview and this is not always a true reflection. Hope it helps.

( Please note that the TES preview does distort the look of the resources and this is not always the full picture or a true reflection of the resource, therefore I have added some screenshots to help give you a clearer picture ) Mental health and well being are few of the pressures which are being identified and targeted as issues young people face today. To help support mental well being I started using positive thinking tasks and CBT techniques as small starter activities with my classes a year ago, and they have been incredibly successful in helping to get young people in a positive frame of mind, not just for class but for other aspects of life such as exam season and planning for the future. Incorporating these small 5 - 10 min tasks has been a big hit in my department and with principalship, therefore I have decided to share some of my most successful activities with you. These are selection of short, fun tasks to use with your class. These can be starters or incorporated into your main session. These activities cover a range of topics such as changing perspectives, managing positivity and gratefulness, tackling anxiety (a big issue among young people today) These are a mixture of team and individual tasks, giving students practice and positive tips they can use in their everyday life. This resource comes with a full powerpoint of 25 slides covering 6 over arching topics and 8 pages of supportive material / worksheets. Feel free to alter in any way which suits your sessions. Hope it 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 is a team / group based session designed to not only help students prepare for their L2 FS English writing exam but to also underpin some valuable life skills. There are 7 pages of activities which focus on tone and language when writing to complain, and underpins self awareness and self control. The resources are differentiated so both lower levels and higher achieving students can work together to achieve in this session. The session slowly builds to a final individual task which is to write a formal and tone appropriate letter of complaint, a task similar to one they may find in the exam and can be used as exam preparation or as an introduction to the topic. There are planning scaffolds and word banks to support students in their final writing task. This pack can be edited, broken up into sections and altered to suit you and your student needs. Please keep in mind that the TES preview does at times distort the look of the resource and this is not a true reflection. Hope it helps